A Long Way Gone Part 8

Dr. Tamba took our pa.s.sports and did all the talking at immigration. We got our bags and headed toward the sliding doors. Maybe we shouldnat just venture into the streets like that, I thought, but Dr. Tamba was already outside. When Bah and I stepped through the sliding doors, we were greeted by an extremely cold wind. I felt my skin tighten, I couldnat feel my face, and it seemed my ears had fallen off; my fingers hurt, and my teeth chattered. The wind penetrated through the summer pants and T-s.h.i.+rt I was wearing, and it felt as though I wasnat wearing anything. I was s.h.i.+vering as I ran back into the terminal. I had never in my life felt this cold. How can anyone survive in this country? I thought, rubbing my hands together and jumping around to generate some heat. Bah stood outside with Dr. Tamba, his hands wrapped around himself and shaking uncontrollably. For some reason, Dr. Tamba had a jacket but Bah and I didnat. I waited in the terminal while Dr. Tamba hailed a taxi, then I ran outside and jumped in, quickly closing the door behind me. There were little white things falling out of the sky, and they seemed to be acc.u.mulating on the ground. What is this white stuff falling from the sky? I thought to myself. Dr. Tamba told the driver our destination, reading it off a piece of paper he held in his hand.

aIs this your first time in the city, and are you guys enjoying the beautiful snowfall?a the taxi driver asked.

aYes, it is their first time in the city,a Dr. Tamba replied, and busied himself putting away our doc.u.ments. I had never heard of the word asnowa before. It is not exactly something that we discuss in Sierra Leone. But I had seen movies about Christmas, and this white fluffy stuff was in those movies. It must be Christmas here every day, I thought.

When we entered the city, it seemed as if someone had lit the many tall buildings that shot into the sky. From afar, some of the buildings looked as if they were made of colorful lights. The city glittered, and I was so completely overwhelmed that I couldnat decide where to look. I thought I had seen tall buildings in Freetown, but these were beyond tall, it seemed they were poking the sky. There were so many cars on the street, and they impatiently honked, even when the light was red. And then I saw people walking on the sidewalks. I rubbed my eyes to make sure that I was really seeing people on the streets of New York City. It wasnat as dangerous as I had heard it was. Not so far. The lights were brighter than the ones back home, and I kept looking for the utility poles that the electric wires hung on, but I couldnat see any.

We arrived at the Vanderbilt YMCA hotel on Forty-seventh Street and entered the lobby holding our luggage. We followed Dr. Tamba to the front desk and got our room keys. I had a room to myself for the first time in my life. To top that, I had a television, which I watched all night long. It was really hot in the room, so I took my clothes off and sweated in front of the television. Two days later I learned that the reason the room was so hot was that the radiator was on full blast. I didnat know what it looked like, least of all how to turn the heat down or off. I remember thinking about the strangeness of this country: it is very cold outside and extremely hot inside.

On the morning following our arrival, I went downstairs to the cafeteria, where fifty-seven children from twenty-three countries were waiting to have breakfast and to begin the United Nations First International Childrenas Parliament. There were children from Lebanon, Cambodia, Kosovo, Brazil, Norway, Yemen, Mozambique, Palestine, Guatemala, the U.S. (New York), South Africa, Peru, Northern Ireland, India, Papua New Guinea, Malawi, to name a few. While I was looking around for Bah and Dr. Tamba, a white woman pulled me to the side and introduced herself.

aMy name is Kristen. I am from Norway.a She extended her hand.

aI am Ishmael from Sierra Leone.a I shook her hand, and she opened an envelope of name tags and placed one on my s.h.i.+rt. She smiled and motioned for me to join the breakfast line as she walked away, looking for other children without name tags. I followed behind two boys who were speaking a strange language. They knew what they wanted, but I had no idea what to get or what the names of the foods were that the cooks were making. Throughout my stay, I was baffled by the food. I would simply order athe same thing,a or put on my plate whatever Iad seen others put on theirs. Sometimes I was lucky to like what landed there. That was usually not the case. I asked Dr. Tamba if he knew where we could get some rice and fish stew in palm oil, some ca.s.sava leaves or okra soup. He smiled and said, aWhen you are in Rome, you do as the Romans do.a I should have brought my own food from home to hold me until I learn about the food in this country, I thought as I drank my gla.s.s of orange juice.

After breakfast we walked two blocks in the freezing weather down to a building where most of the meetings took place. It was still snowing outside, and I was wearing summer dress pants and a long-sleeved s.h.i.+rt. I told myself that I wouldnat want to live in such an unpleasantly cold country, where I would always have to worry about my nose, ears, and face falling off.

That first morning in New York City, we learned about each otheras lives for hours. Some of the children had risked their life to attend the conference. Others had walked hundreds of miles to neighboring countries to be able to get on a plane. Within minutes of talking to each other, we knew that the room was filled with young people who had had a very difficult childhood, and some were going to return to these lives at the end of the conference. After the introductions, we sat in a circle so that the different facilitators could tell us about themselves.

Most of the facilitators worked for NGOs, but there was a short white woman with long dark hair and bright eyes who said, aI am a storyteller.a I was surprised at this and gave her all my attention. She used elaborate gestures and spoke very clearly, enunciating every word. She said her name was Laura Simms. She introduced her co-facilitator, Therese Plair, who was light-skinned, had African features, and held a drum. Before Laura finished talking, I had already decided that I would take her workshop. She said she would teach us how to tell our stories in a more compelling way. I was curious to find out how this white woman, born in New York City, had become a storyteller.

That same morning Laura kept looking at Bah and me. I didnat know that she had noticed we were wearing only our light African s.h.i.+rts and pants and sat closer to the radiators, our hands wrapped around our tiny bodies, and every now and then shaking from the cold that seemed to have settled in our bones. In the afternoon before lunch, she approached us. aDo you have winter jackets?a she asked. We shook our heads. A painful concern pa.s.sed over her face, making her smile look forced. That evening she returned with winter jackets, hats, and gloves for us. I felt I was wearing a heavy green costume that made my body bigger than it looked. But I was happy, because now I could venture outside to see the city after the daily workshops. Years later, when Laura offered me one of her winter jackets, I refused to accept it because it was a womanas jacket. She joked with me about the fact that when she had first met me I was so cold that I didnat care that I was wearing a womanas winter jacket.

Bah and I became a little close with Laura and Therese over the course of the conference. Sometimes Laura would talk to us about stories I had heard as a child. I was in awe of the fact that a white woman from across the Atlantic Ocean, who had never been to my country, knew stories so specific to my tribe and upbringing. When she became my mother years later, she and I would always talk about whether it was destined or coincidental that I came from a very storytelling-oriented culture to live with a mother in New York who is a storyteller.

I called my uncle in Freetown during my second day. Aminata answered the phone.

aHi. This is Ishmael. Could I please speak to Uncle?a I asked.

aI will go get him. Call back in two minutes.a Aminata hung up the phone. When I called back, my uncle picked up.

aI am in New York City,a I told him.

aWell,a he said, aI guess I believe you, because I havenat seen you in a few days.a He giggled. I opened the hotel window to let him hear the sounds of New York.

aThat doesnat sound like Freetown,a he said, and was silent for a bit before he continued. aSo what is it like?a aIt is excruciatingly cold,a I said, and he began to laugh.

aAh! Maybe it is your initiation to the white peopleas world. Well, tell me all about it when you return. Stay inside if you have to.a As he spoke, I pictured the dusty gravel road by his house. I could smell my auntas groundnut soup.

Every morning we would quickly walk through the snow to a conference room down the street. There we would cast our sufferings aside and intelligently discuss solutions to the problems facing children in our various countries. At the end of these long discussions, our faces and eyes glittered with hope and the promise of happiness. It seemed we were transforming our sufferings as we talked about ways to solve their causes and let them be known to the world.

On the night of the second day, Madoka from Malawi and I walked west along Forty-seventh Street without realizing we were heading straight into the heart of Times Square. We were busy looking at the buildings and all the people hurrying by when we suddenly saw lights all over the place and shows playing on huge screens. We looked at each other in awe of how absolutely amazing and crowded the place was. One of the screens had a woman and a man in their underwear; I guess they were showing it off. Madoka pointed at the screen and laughed. Others had music videos or numbers going across. Everything flashed and changed very quickly. We stood at the corner for a while, mesmerized by the displays. After we were able to tear our eyes away from them, we walked up and down Broadway for hours, staring at the store windows. I didnat feel cold, as the number of people, the glittering buildings, and the sounds of cars overwhelmed and intrigued me. I thought I was dreaming. When we returned to the hotel later that night, we told the other children about what we had seen. After that, we all went out to Times Square every evening.

Madoka and I had wandered off to a few places in the city before our scheduled sightseeing days. We had been to Rockefeller Plaza, where we saw a huge decorated Christmas tree, statues of angels, and the people ice-skating. They kept going around and around, and Madoka and I couldnat understand why they enjoyed this. We had also gone to the World Trade Center with Mr. Wright, a Canadian man we had met at the hotel. One evening, when the fifty-seven of us got on the subway on our way to the South Street Seaport, I asked Madoka, aHow come everyone is so quiet?a He looked around the train and replied, aIt is not the same as public transportation back home.a Shantha, the cameraperson for the event, who later became my aunt when I returned to live in New York, pointed the camera at us, and Madoka and I posed for her. On every trip I would make mental notes on things I needed to tell my uncle, cousins, and Mohamed. I didnat think they would believe any of it.

On the last day of the conference, a child from each country spoke briefly at the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) chamber about their country and experiences. There were diplomats and all sorts of influential people. They wore suits and ties and sat upright listening to us. I proudly sat behind the Sierra Leone name plaque, listening and waiting for my turn to speak. I had a speech that had been written for me in Freetown, but I decided to speak from my heart, instead. I talked briefly about my experience and my hope that the war would enda"it was the only way that adults would stop recruiting children. I began by saying, aI am from Sierra Leone, and the problem that is affecting us children is the war that forces us to run away from our homes, lose our families, and aimlessly roam the forests. As a result, we get involved in the conflict as soldiers, carriers of loads, and in many other difficult tasks. All this is because of starvation, the loss of our families, and the need to feel safe and be part of something when all else has broken down. I joined the army really because of the loss of my family and starvation. I wanted to avenge the deaths of my family. I also had to get some food to survive, and the only way to do that was to be part of the army. It was not easy being a soldier, but we just had to do it. I have been rehabilitated now, so donat be afraid of me. I am not a soldier anymore; I am a child. We are all brothers and sisters. What I have learned from my experiences is that revenge is not good. I joined the army to avenge the deaths of my family and to survive, but Iave come to learn that if I am going to take revenge, in that process I will kill another person whose family will want revenge; then revenge and revenge and revenge will never come to an endaa After all our presentations, we sang a chant we had come up with. Then we began to sing other songs; we cried, we laughed, and we danced. It was an exceptionally moving afternoon. We were all sad to leave each other, as we had learned that we were not returning to peaceful places. Madoka and I put our arms around each other and jumped around to the music. Bah was dancing with another group of boys. Dr. Tamba sat in the audience smiling for the first time since we had arrived in New York City. After the dance, Laura pulled me aside and told me that she was moved by what I had said.

That night we went out to an Indian restaurant, and I was happy that someone in this part of the world serves rice. We ate a lot, chatted, exchanged addresses, and then went to Lauraas house in the East Village. I couldnat understand why she called the area a village, because it didnat look like any village I knew. Our chaperons didnat come with us; they went back to the hotel. I didnat know that Lauraas house was going to be my future home. There were traditionally woven cloths from all over the world hanging on the walls; statues of animals sat on large bookshelves that contained storybooks; clay vases with beautiful and exotic birds on them stood on tables; and there were bamboo instruments and other strange ones. The house was big enough to hold all fifty-seven of us. First, we sat around in Lauraas living room and told stories; then we danced into the night. It was our last night in New York and it was the perfect place to spend it, because the house was as interesting and filled with amazing stories as our group was. Everyone felt comfortable and saw something from their home. Being in the house felt as though we had left New York City and entered a different world.

The next evening, Laura and Shantha accompanied Bah, Dr. Tamba, and me to the airport. At first we were all quiet in the car, but gradually we all, except Dr. Tamba, began to sob. At the terminal the sobbing intensified as we said goodbye, hugging each other. Laura and Shantha gave us their addresses and telephone numbers so that we could keep in touch. We left New York City on November 15, 1996. My sixteenth birthday was eight days away, and throughout the flight back home I still felt as if I was dreaming, a dream that I didnat want to wake up from. I was sad to leave, but I was also pleased to have met people outside of Sierra Leone. Because if I was to get killed upon my return, I knew that a memory of my existence was alive somewhere in the world.

21.

SOME EVENINGS I told my family (including Mohamed, who now lived with us) stories about my trip. I described everything to thema"the airfield, the airport, the plane, what it felt like to see clouds from the window of the plane. I would have a tingling sensation in my stomach as I remembered walking on a moving sidewalk in the Amsterdam airport. I had never seen so many white people, all hurriedly dragging their bags and running in different directions. I told them about the people I had met, the tall buildings of New York City, how people cursed on the street; I did my best to capture the snow and how it grew dark so early.

aIt sounds like a strange trip,a my uncle would remark. It felt, to me, like something that had all happened in my mind.

Mohamed and I started school again, at St. Edwardas Secondary School. I was excited. I remembered the morning walks to my primary school; the sound of brooms sweeping fallen mango leaves, startling the birds, who would chatter in even higher pitches as if inquiring from each other the meaning of the harsh sound. My school had only a small building, which was made of mud bricks and a tin roof. There were no doors, no cement on the floor inside, and it was too small to hold all the pupils. Most of my cla.s.ses were conducted outside under mango trees that provided shade.

Mohamed mostly remembered the lack of school materials in our primary and secondary schools, and how we had to help the teachers grow crops in their farms or gardens. It was the only way the teachers, who hadnat been paid for years, could make a living. The more we talked about it, the more I realized that I had forgotten what it felt like to be a student, to sit in cla.s.s, to take notes, do homework, make friends, and provoke other students. I was eager to return. But on the first day of school in Freetown, all the students sat apart from us, as if Mohamed and I were going to snap any minute and kill someone. Somehow they had learned that we had been child soldiers. We had not only lost our childhood in the war but our lives had been tainted by the same experiences that still caused us great pain and sadness.

We always walked to school slowly. I liked it because I was able to think about where my life was going. I was confident that nothing could get any worse than it had been, and that thought made me smile a lot. I was still getting used to being part of a family again. I also began telling people that Mohamed was my brother, so that I wouldnat have to explain anything. I knew I could never forget my past, but I wanted to stop talking about it so that I would be fully present in my new life.

As usual, I had gotten up early in the morning, and I was sitting on the flat stone behind the house waiting for the city to wake up. It was May 25, 1997. But instead of the usual sounds that brought the city to life, it was woken that morning by gunshots erupting around the State House and the House of Parliament. The gunshots woke everyone, and I joined my uncle and neighbors on the verandah. We didnat know what was going on, but we could see soldiers running along Pademba Road and army trucks speeding up and down in front of the prison area.

The gunshots increased throughout the day, spreading across the city. The city folks stood outside on their verandahs, tensed up, shaking with fear. Mohamed and I looked at each other: aNot again.a By early afternoon the central prison had been opened and the prisoners set free. The new government handed them guns as they got out. Some went straight to the houses of the judges and lawyers who had sentenced them, killing them and their families or burning their houses if they were not around. Others joined the soldiers, who had started looting shops. The smoke from the burning houses filled the air, draping the city in fog.

Someone came on the radio and announced himself as the new president of Sierra Leone. His name, he said, was Johnny Paul Koroma, and he was leader of the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC), which had been formed by a group of Sierra Leone Army (SLA) officers to overthrow the democratically elected President Tejan Kabbah. Koromaas English was as bad as the reason he gave for the coup. He advised everyone to go to work by saying that everything was in order. In the background of his speech, gunshots and angry soldiers, cursing and jubilating, almost drowned him out.

Later in the night another announcement came over the radio, this one declaring that the rebels (RUF) and the army had collaborated in ousting the civilian government afor the benefit of the nation.a Rebels and soldiers on the front lines started pouring into the city. The entire nation crumbled into a state of lawlessness. I hated what was happening. I couldnat return to my previous life. I didnat think I could make it out alive this time.

The AFRC/RUF, aSobels,a as they were called, had begun blowing up bank vaults using RPGs and other explosives and looting the money. Sometimes the Sobels halted people as they walked by, searched them, and took whatever they could find. They occupied the secondary schools and university campuses. There was nothing to do during the day except sit on the verandah. Uncle decided to finish building a house we had been working on since I came to live with him. In the morning we walked up to the land and worked until the early-afternoon gunshots sent us running back home to take cover under beds. But day by day, it got too dangerous to be in the open, as stray bullets had killed many people. So before long we stopped working on it.

Armed men had forcefully taken most of the food in the city from shops and markets, and imports of food from outside the country and from the provinces to the city had been stopped. What little was left had to be sought in the midst of the madness. Laura Simms had been sending me money and I had saved some of it, so Mohamed and I decided to go to town to try and buy some gari, cans of sardines, rice, anything we could find. I knew that I would risk running into my former military friends, who would kill me if I told them I wasnat part of the war anymore. But at the same time I couldnat just stay home. I had to find food.

We had heard of a secret market in town conducted in a yard behind an abandoned house where otherwise unavailable food items were sold to civilians. They sold the items at twice the regular price, but the trip seemed worth the risk and expense. We headed out early in the morning, terrified of seeing someone we knew. We kept our heads down as we hurried past young rebels and soldiers. We arrived as the vendors were just beginning to put their food products out. We bought some rice, some palm oil, salt, and fish; by the time we were done, the market was filling up with people hurriedly trying to buy whatever they could afford.

As we were about to leave, an open Land Rover roared up and armed men jumped off before it came to a halt. They ran into the crowd of civilians, firing a warning shot. Over a megaphone the commander ordered everyone to put down their bags of food, put their hands behind their heads, and lie flat, facing the ground. A woman in the crowd panicked and decided to run. An armed man in a red headband shot her in the head. She screamed and fell, loudly hitting the stony ground. This caused more panic, and everyone scattered in different directions. We grabbed our goods and ran crouching. This was beginning to be too familiar.

While we were running away from the area, another Land Rover full of more armed men arrived, and they began firing and knocking peopleas heads with the b.u.t.ts of their guns. We hid behind a wall separating the marketplace and the main street, then kept to a fast but cautious path behind the houses off the bay. Almost at the end of the bay, where the tide slammed a sunken boat, we jumped on the main street with our goods tucked under our arms and began the final walk home. We were approaching the Cotton Tree at the center of town when we saw a group of protesters run by, holding posters that read STOP THE KILLING and the like. They wore white s.h.i.+rts and their heads were tied with white cloths. We tried to ignore them, but as we turned a corner to continue home, a group of armed men, half in civilian and half in military clothing, ran toward us, firing into the crowd. There was no way to break from the crowd, so we joined them. The armed men began tossing tear gas. Civilians began to vomit on the sidewalks and bleed through their noses. Everyone started running toward Kissy Street. It was impossible to breathe. I put my hand over my nose, which felt as if it had been dipped in hot spices. I held tight to the bag of food and ran with Mohamed, trying not to lose him in the crowd. Tears ran down my cheeks, and my eyeb.a.l.l.s and eyelids felt heavy. I was getting furious, but I tried to contain myself, because I knew I couldnat afford to lose my temper. The result would be death, since I was now a civilian; I knew that.

We continued to run with the crowd, trying to find a way out and head home. My throat began to ache. Mohamed was coughing until the veins on his throat were visible. We managed to break free, and he put his head under the public pump. Suddenly another group of people came running toward us, as fast as they could. Soldiers were pursuing them, so we too began to charge ahead, still carrying our food.

We were now in the midst of student protesters on a street lined with tall buildings. A chopper that had been cycling above started to descend and move toward the crowd. Mohamed and I knew what was going to happen. We ran for the nearest gutter and dove in. The chopper swept down to street level. As soon as it was about twenty-five meters from the protesters, it spun around and faced them sideways. A soldier sitting in the open side opened fire with a machine gun, mowing down the crowd. People ran for their lives. The street that a minute before had been filled with banners and noise was now a silent graveyard full of restless souls fighting to reconcile their sudden deaths.

Mohamed and I ran head down through alleyways. We came to a fence that faced a main street on which there was a roadblock. Armed men patrolled the area. We lay in the gutter for six hours, waiting for nightfall. Chances to escape death were better at night, because the red track of the bullets could be seen in the dark. There were others with us. One, a student in a blue T-s.h.i.+rt, had a sweaty face, and every few seconds he wiped his forehead with his s.h.i.+rt. A young woman, probably in her early twenties, sat with her head between her knees, trembling and rocking. Against the wall of the gutter, a bearded man whose s.h.i.+rt was stained with someone elseas blood sat holding his head in his hands. I felt bad about what was happening, but was not as scared as these people, who had not experienced war before. It was their first time, and it was painful to watch them. I hoped that Uncle would not worry too much about our whereabouts. More gunshots and a cloud of tear gas floated by. We held our noses until the wind took the gas away. Nightfall seemed so far away, it felt like waiting for Judgment Day. But as it must, night finally came, and we made it home, crouching behind houses and jumping fences.

My uncle was sitting on the verandah, tears in his eyes. When I greeted him, he jumped up as if he had seen a ghost. He embraced us for a long time and told us not to go to the city anymore. But we had no choice. We would have to, in order to get food.

The gunshots didnat cease for the next five months; they became the new sound of the city. In the morning, families sat on their verandahs and held their children close, staring at the city streets where gunmen roamed in groups, looting, raping, and killing people at will. Mothers wrapped their trembling arms around their children each time the gunshots intensified. People mostly ate soaked raw rice with sugar or plain gari with salt, and listened to the radio, hoping to hear some good news. Sometimes during the day, there were several plumes of smoke rising from houses that had been set on fire by gunmen. We could hear them excitedly laughing at the sight of the burning houses. One evening, a neighbor who lived a few doors down from my uncleas house was listening to a pirate radio station that accused the new government of committing crimes against civilians. A few minutes later, a truck full of soldiers stopped in front of the manas house, dragged him, his wife, and his two older sons outside, shot them, and kicked their bodies into the nearby gutter. My uncle vomited after we had seen the act.

For the first three weeks people were so afraid that they didnat dare to leave their houses. But soon enough, everyone got used to the gunshots and the madness. People began going about their daily business of searching for food, even though stray bullets were likely to kill them. Children played guessing games, telling each other whether the gun fired was an AK-47, a G3, an RPG, or a machine gun. I mostly sat outside on the flat rock with Mohamed and we were both quiet. I was thinking about the fact that we had run so far away from the war, only to be caught back in it. There was nowhere to go from here.

I had lost contact with Laura in New York for more than five months. Before that, she and I had constantly written letters to each other. She would tell me what she was doing and ask that I take good care of myself. Her letters came from all over the world, where she had storytelling projects. Recently I had tried calling her collect every day, but was unsuccessful. The phones at Sierra-tel, the national telephone company, werenat going through anymore. Each day I sat on the verandah with my uncle and cousins looking toward the city. We had stopped listening to the storytelling ca.s.sette, as curfews started before dark. My uncle laughed less and less, and sighed more and more. We continued to hope that things would change, but they kept getting worse.

My uncle became sick. One morning we were sitting on the verandah when he complained he wasnat feeling very well. In the evening he developed a fever and he lay inside, groaning. Allie and I went to a nearby shop and bought medicine, but Uncleas fever grew worse day after day. Auntie Sallay would force him to eat, but he would vomit everything the moment she was done feeding him. All the hospitals and pharmacies were closed. We searched the city for doctors or nurses, but those who hadnat left would not leave their homes for fear they might not be able to return to their families again. One evening I was sitting by my uncle, wiping his forehead, when he fell off the bed. I caught his long body in my arms and held his head on my lap. His cheekbones stood out of his round face. He looked at me and I could see in his eyes that he had given up hope. I begged him not to leave us. His lips were about to utter something, but they stopped shaking, and he was gone. I held him in my arms and thought about how I was going to break the news to his wife, who was boiling him some water in the kitchen. She came in soon afterward and dropped the hot water, splas.h.i.+ng it on both of us. She refused to believe that her husband had died. I still held my uncle in my arms, tears running down my face. My entire body had gone numb. I couldnat move from where I sat. Mohamed and Allie came in and took Uncle away from me and put him on the bed. After a few minutes, I was able to get up. I went behind the house and punched the mango tree until Mohamed took me away from it. I was always losing everything that meant something to me.

My cousins cried, asking, Who is going to take care of us now? Why did this happen to us in these difficult times?

Down in the city, the gunmen fired off their guns.

My uncle was buried the next morning. Even in the midst of the madness, many people came for his burial. I walked behind the coffin, the sound of my footsteps clinging to my heart. I held hands with my cousins and Mohamed. My aunt had tried to come to the cemetery, but she collapsed right before we left the house. At the cemetery the imam read a few suras and my uncle was lowered into the hole and covered with mud. People quickly dispersed to continue their lives. I stayed behind with Mohamed. I sat on the ground next to the grave and talked to my uncle. I told him that I was sorry that we couldnat find him any help, that I hoped he knew that I really loved him and wished he could have been alive to see me as an adult. After I was done, I placed my hands on the heap of mud and quietly wept. I didnat realize how long I had been at the cemetery until after I had stopped crying. It was late in the evening and the curfew was about to begin. Mohamed and I ran as fast as we could back home before the soldiers started shooting.

A few days after my uncle was buried, I was finally able to make a collect call to Laura. I asked her if I could stay with her if I made my way to New York City. She said yes.

aNo. I want you to really think about this. If I make my way to New York, can I stay with you at your house?a I asked again.

aYes,a she said again, and I told her that aI would visualize ita and would call her when I was in Conakry, the capital of Guinea, the one neighboring country that was peaceful and the only way out of Sierra Leone at that time. I had to leave, because I was afraid that if I stayed in Freetown any longer, I was going to end up being a soldier again or my former army friends would kill me if I refused. Some friends who had undergone rehabilitation with me had already rejoined the army.

I left Freetown early in the morning of the seventh day after my uncle pa.s.sed away. I didnat tell anyone that I was leaving except Mohamed, who was to relay my departure to my aunt after she was done grieving. She had turned herself away from the world and everyone in it after Uncleas death. I left on October 31, 1997, while it was still a little dark outside. The curfew was still in place, but I needed to leave the city before the sun came out. It was less dangerous to travel at this hour, as some of the gunmen were dozing off and the night made it difficult for the militiamen to see me from afar. Gunshots echoed in the quiet city, and the morning breeze felt harsh against my face. The air smelled of rotten bodies and gunpowder. I shook hands with Mohamed. aIall let you know where I end up,a I told him. He tapped me on my shoulder and said nothing.

I had only a small dirty bag containing a few clothes. It was risky to travel with a big or fancy bag, as armed men would think that you were carrying something valuable and would possibly shoot you. As I walked into the last remains of the night, leaving Mohamed standing on the verandah, I became afraid. This was becoming too familiar. I stopped next to a utility pole for a bit, exhaled heavily, and threw some angry punches in the air. I have to try to get out, I thought, and if that doesnat work, then it is back to the army. I didnat like thinking this way. I hurriedly walked near the gutters and took cover when I heard a vehicle approaching. I was the only civilian on the street, and I sometimes had to bypa.s.s checkpoints by either crawling in gutters or crouching behind houses. I safely made it to an old bus station that was no longer in use at the edge of the city. I was sweating and my eyelids trembled as I looked around the station. There were a lot of mena"in their thirties, I presumeda"some women, and a few families with children five years of age and older. They all stood in line against the dilapidated wall, some holding bundles of things and others their childrenas hands.

I walked to the back of the line and sat on my heels to make sure my money was still inside my sock, under my right foot. The man in front of me kept mumbling things to himself and pacing away from the wall and back. He was making me more nervous than I already was. After several minutes of quietly waiting, a man who had been standing in line with everyone else proclaimed himself the bus driver and asked everyone to follow him. We walked farther into the abandoned station, making our way over falling cement walls into an open area where we got on a bus, which was painted dark, even its rims, so that it would blend with the night. The bus rolled out of the station, its lights off, and took the back road out of the city. The road hadnat been used for years, so it seemed the bus was moving through bushes, as leaves and branches heavily slapped its side. It slowly galloped in the dark until the sun began to rise. At some point, we had to get off and walk behind it so that it would be able to climb a little hill. We were all very quiet, our faces tensed with fear, as we hadnat yet safely left the city area. We got back on the bus, and about an hour later it dropped us off at an old bridge.

We paid the driver and walked across the rusty bridge two at a time, and then had to walk all day to a junction where we waited for another bus that would arrive the next morning. This was the only way to get out of Freetown without being killed by the armed men and boys of the new government, who hated it when people left the city.

There were over thirty of us at the junction. We sat on the ground near the bushes and waited all night. No one said a word to one another, as we all knew that we hadnat completely escaped the madness. Parents whispered things in the ears of their children, afraid to let out their voices. Some people stared at the ground and others played with stones. Gunshots were faintly heard in the breeze. I sat at the edge of the gutter and chewed on some raw rice I had in a plastic bag. When will I stop running from this war? What if the bus doesnat show up? A neighbor in Freetown had told me about this only way out of the country. So far it seemed to be safe, but I was worried, as I knew how quickly things change for the worse in such circ.u.mstances.

I put the raw rice back into my bag and started walking down the dirt road to find a suitable place to sit for the night. There were people sleeping under the bushes near the bus stop. This way, they would be able to hear the bus if it pulled up during the night. Farther down, there were others clearing s.p.a.ces under branches of plum trees that had woven into each other. They pushed the dried leaves aside with their hands and piled up fresh leaves to make headrests on the ground. One of the men made a broom from the branches of a tree, which he used to effectively push the leaves aside. I jumped over the gutter, sat against a tree, and, throughout the night, thought about my uncle and then my father, mother, brothers, friends. Why does everyone keep dying except me? I walked up and down the road trying not to be angry.

In the morning people stood up and dusted themselves off with their hands. Some of the men washed with dew. They shook leaves of little plants and trees, rubbing the residue of water onto their faces and heads. After hours of waiting impatiently, we heard the clunking of an engine down the road. We werenat sure if it was the bus, so we gathered our bags and hid in the bushes near the road. The sound of the whining engine grew until the bus could finally be seen. Everyone ran out of hiding and hailed the bus until it came to a stop. We hurriedly piled on and were off. As the bus proceeded, the apprentice came around to collect the fare. I paid half price, because I was under eighteen, but half price in those times was more than full price when everything was peaceful. I looked out the window and watched the trees go by. And then the bus began to slow down and the trees were replaced by soldiers with big guns, all aiming at the road, at the bus. They asked everyone to step out of the bus; then they made us walk through a barricade. I looked around, and in the bushes I saw there were more men with submachine guns and grenade launchers. I was observing the formation they had and almost ran into a soldier who was making his way to the bus. He looked at me with bloodshot eyes and a face that said, aI will kill you if I want to and nothing will come of it.a The look was familiar to me.

They checked the bus for reasons n.o.body understood. After a few minutes, everyone was on board again. As we gradually started moving, I watched the barricade disappear and I recalled when we used to attack such barricades. I dismissed the thoughts before I was transported back to those times. There were too many barricades, and at every one of them the soldiers behaved differently. Some demanded money even when pa.s.sengers had the correct doc.u.ments. Refusing to pay, one risked being sent back to the city. Those who didnat have money had their watches or jewelry or anything of value taken from them. Whenever we were approaching a roadblock, I would quietly start reciting prayers that I hoped would aid my pa.s.sing through it.

At about four in the afternoon, the bus reached a town called Kambia, its final destination. For the first time since we left the city, I saw some of the pa.s.sengersa faces relax a bit. But soon enough, our faces tensed again, and we all grumbled as the immigration officers also asked us to pay before we could cross the boundary. Everyone reached into their socks, the hems of pants, under headties, to get the remainder of their money. A woman with two seven-year-old boys pleaded with the officer, telling him that she needed the money to feed her boys in Conakry. The man just kept his hand out and yelled at the woman to step aside. It sickened me to see that Sierra Leoneans asked money from those who had come from the war. They were benefiting from people who were running for their lives. Why does one have to pay to leave his own country? I thought, but I couldnat argue. I had to pay the money. The immigration officers were asking for three hundred leones, almost two monthsa pay, to put a departure stamp in pa.s.sports. As soon as my pa.s.sport was stamped, I crossed the border into Guinea. I had a long way, over fifty miles, to get to Conakry, the capital, so I walked fast to take another bus that would get me there. I hadnat thought about the fact that I didnat know how to speak any of the languages in Guinea. I became worried a bit but I was relieved to have made it out of my country alive.

The buses to Conakry waited on the other side of a checkpoint that had been erected by Guinean soldiers. There were men standing near the checkpoint selling Guinean currency at whatever rate they pleased. I thought the soldiers would be against such black-market foreign exchange, but they didnat seem to care. I changed my money and walked toward the checkpoint. The border was crowded with soldiers who either didnat speak English or pretended not to. They had their guns in ready positions, as if they expected something to happen. I avoided eye contact, afraid that they might see in my eyes that I had once been a soldier in the war that I was now leaving behind.

There was a dark brown wooden house through which I had to pa.s.s to get to the bus. Inside this house the soldiers searched peopleas bags, and the people would then go outside and present their doc.u.ments to the officers. When I was in the wooden house, the soldiers tore open my bag and threw all its contents on the floor. I didnat have much, so I had little difficulty repacking: two s.h.i.+rts, two unders.h.i.+rts, and three pairs of pants.

I emerged from the wooden house and felt as if all the soldiers were looking at me. We were to present our doc.u.ments, but to whom? There were too many tables. I didnat know which one to go to. The soldiers sat under the shade of mango trees dressed in full combat gear. Some had their guns hanging by the straps on their chairs, and others placed theirs on the table, the muzzle facing the wooden house. This way, they made people nervous before they asked them for money.

A soldier who sat on the far right of the lined tables, a cigar in his mouth, motioned for me to come over. He put his hand out for my pa.s.sport. I gave it to him without looking at his face. The soldier spoke a language that I couldnat understand. He put my pa.s.sport in his chest pocket, took the cigar out of his mouth, placed his hands on the table, and sternly looked at me. I looked down, but the soldier lifted my chin. He took the cigar out of his mouth and examined my pa.s.sport again. His eyes were red, but he had a grin on his face. He folded his hands and sat back in his chair, looking at me. I smiled a bit and the soldier laughed at me. He said something in his language and put his hand out on the table again. This time the grin on his face had disappeared. I placed some money in his hands. He smelled the money and put it in his pocket. He pulled my pa.s.sport out of his pocket and motioned for me to go through the gate.

On the other side were a lot of buses. I was confused about which one to take to Conakry. Everyone I tried to ask for directions didnat understand what I was saying. The only word I knew in French was bonjour, which did me no good.

I was confusedly looking for a bus to the capital when I b.u.mped into a pa.s.serby.

aWatch wussai you dae go,a the pa.s.serby grumbled in Krio.

aMe na sorry, sir,a I replied. aHow de body,a I continued, shaking hands with the stranger.

aMe body fine en waitin you dae do na ya so me pekin?a the man asked me.

I told him that I was looking for the right bus to Conakry. He told me that he was heading there as well. The bus was overcrowded, so I stood for most of the trip. In over fifty miles to the capital there were more than fifteen checkpoints and the soldiers were unmerciful. All of the roadblocks looked the same. Jeeps with mounted guns were parked along the road. Two soldiers stood by the metal pole stretched across the road from one gutter to another. On the right, more soldiers sat under a shack covered with tarp. There were a few compartments of the shack, where the soldiers searched people. They had set a fixed price for all Sierra Leoneans; those who couldnat pay were kicked off the bus. I wondered if they sent the people back to the other side of the border. Under the auspices of the man I had boarded the bus with, I was able to pa.s.s some of the roadblocks for free. Most of the soldiers thought I was the manas son, so they checked his doc.u.ments and not mine and charged him for both of us. I donat think he noticed; he just wanted to get to Conakry, and it seemed money wasnat a problem for him. At one of the roadblocks the soldiers took me into a room and made me undress. At first I didnat want to take off my clothes, but I saw them kick a man to the floor and rip his s.h.i.+rt and pants. One of the soldiers took my belt. The belt buckle had the head of a lion on it and it was my favorite. I held my pants with one hand and ran back to the bus. I pressed my teeth hard together and folded my fist, holding back my anger.

At the last roadblock a soldier asked me to put my hands on my head so that he could search me. When I raised my hands, my pants fell down and some of the pa.s.sengers laughed. The soldier picked up my pants and tied them with a shoelace that he had in his pocket. After he was done, he put his hands in my pocket and took out my pa.s.sport. He flipped the pages and gave it back to me. I followed behind the people who waited in line to get their entry stamps. I was shaking with anger, but I knew I had to calm myself down if I wanted to make it into Conakry. I overheard people saying that the cost of the entry fee was the equivalent of three hundred leones. I had only a hundred leones and needed it for the rest of my journey. What am I going to do? I thought. I had come all this way for nothing. I couldnat even afford to return to Freetown if I wanted to. Tears had begun to form in my eyes. I was nervous and couldnat see a way out of this. I was beginning to feel anxious when a man whose pa.s.sport had just been stamped accidentally dropped two of the many bags he carried as he was going around the checkpoint to reboard the bus. I hesitated for a bit but decided to take the chance. I left the line and picked up his bags, following him to the bus. I sat in the backseat, slouching in my seat, and peeked to see if the soldiers were looking in my direction. I sat on the bus until everyone had reboarded it; the soldiers didnat come looking for me. The bus began to pull away slowly and then gathered speed. I had entered the country illegally, which I knew would later become a problem.

As the bus headed for Conakry, I began to worry, since I didnat actually know what to do once I got there. I had heard that the Sierra Leonean amba.s.sador let refugees sleep temporarily in the compound of the emba.s.sy, but I had no idea where the emba.s.sy itself was located. I was sitting next to a Fulani fellow by the name of Jalloh, who said he had lived in Freetown. We talked about what the war had done to the country. Afterward, he gave me his phone number and asked me to call him if I needed help getting around the city. I wanted to tell him that I had no place to stay, but he got off before I could summon the nerve to confide in him. I looked about the bus for the Sierra Leonean man I had b.u.mped into but I couldnat find him. A few minutes later, the bus came to a halt at a huge station, its final destination. I got out and watched everyone go. I sighed and placed my hands on my head, then walked to a bench and sat down. I covered my face with my hands. aI canat sit here all night,a I kept mumbling to myself.

There were lots of taxis, and all the people who arrived at the bus station took them. I didnat want to stand out as a lost foreigner, so I took a taxi, too. The driver said something in French. I knew that he was asking where I wanted to go. aSierra Leone consulate, ahh, emba.s.sy,a I told the driver. I looked out the window at the utility poles and the sloppily hung streetlights; their lights seemed brighter than the moonlight. The taxi stopped in front of the emba.s.sy and the driver pointed to the green, white, and blue flag to make sure that I was at the right place. I nodded and paid him. When I got out, the guards at the emba.s.sy door, speaking Krio, asked me for my pa.s.sport. I showed it to them and they let me into the compound.

Inside were more than fifty people, probably in the same situation as I. Most were lying on mats in the open compound. Their bundles or bags stood next to them. Others were removing their mats from their luggage. I a.s.sumed people only slept here at night and went out during the daytime. I found a spot in the corner, sat on the ground, and leaned against the wall, breathing heavily. The sight of all these people reminded me of a few villages I had pa.s.sed through while running away from the war. I was scared and worried about what turmoil the next day might bring. Nonetheless, I was happy to have made it out of Freetown, to have escaped the possibility of becoming a soldier again. This gave me some comfort. I took out the remaining raw rice from my bag and started chewing on it. There was a woman sitting with her two children, a boy and a girl no more than seven years old, a few paces from me. She was whispering a story to them, as she didnat want to disturb other people. As I watched the elaborate movements of her hands, the tide of my thoughts took me to a particular telling of a story I had heard many times as a boy.

It was nighttime and we sat by the fire stretching our arms toward the flames as we listened to stories and watched the moon and the stars retire. The red coal from the firewood lit our faces in the dark and wisps of smoke continuously rose toward the sky. Pa Sesay, one of my friendsa grandfather, had told us many stories that night, but before he began telling the last story, he repeatedly said, aThis is a very important story.a He then cleared his throat and began: aThere was a hunter who went into the bush to kill a monkey. He had looked for only a few minutes when he saw a monkey sitting comfortably in the branch of a low tree. The monkey didnat pay him any attention, not even when his footsteps on the dried leaves rose and fell as he neared. When he was close enough and behind a tree where he could clearly see the monkey, he raised his rifle and aimed. Just when he was about to pull the trigger, the monkey spoke: aIf you shoot me, your mother will die, and if you donat, your father will die.a The monkey resumed its position, chewing its food, and every so often scratched its head or the side of its belly.

aWhat would you do if you were the hunter?a This was a story told to young people in my village once a year. The storyteller, usually an elder, would pose this unanswerable question at the end of the story in the presence of the childrenas parents. Every child who was present at the gathering was asked to give an answer, but no child ever did, since their mother and father were both present. The storyteller never offered an answer either. During each of these gatherings, when it was my time to respond, I always told the storyteller that I would think it over, which of course was not a good enough answer.

After such gatherings, my peers and Ia"all the children between the ages of six and twelvea"would brainstorm several possible answers that would avoid the death of one of our parents. There was no right answer. If you spared the monkey, someone was going to die, and if you didnat, someone would also die.

That night we agreed on an answer, but it was immediately rejected. We told Pa Sesay that if any of us was the hunter, we wouldnat have gone hunting for monkeys. We told him, aThere are other animals such as deer to hunt.a aThat is not an acceptable answer,a he said. aWe are a.s.suming that you as the hunter had already raised your gun and have to make the decision.a He broke his kola nut in half and smiled before putting a piece in his mouth.

When I was seven I had an answer to this question that made sense to me. I never discussed it with anyone, though, for fear of how my mother would feel. I concluded to myself that if I were the hunter, I would shoot the monkey so that it would no longer have the chance to put other hunters in the same predicament.

CHRONOLOGY.

It is believed, though not recorded in written form, that the Bullom (Sherbro) people were present along the coast of Sierra Leone before the 1200s, if not earliera"before European contact with Sierra Leone. By the beginning of the 1400s, many tribes from other parts of Africa had migrated and settled in what came to be known as Sierra Leone. Among these tribes were the Temne. They settled along the northern coast of present-day Sierra Leone, and the Mende, another major tribe, occupied the south. There were fifteen additional tribes scattered in different parts of the country.

1462 The written history of Sierra Leone begins when Portuguese explorers land, naming the mountains surrounding what is now Freetown Serra Lyoa (Lion Mountains) due to their leonine shape.

1500a"early 1700s European traders stop regularly on the Sierra Leone Peninsula, exchanging cloth and metal goods for ivory, timber, and a small number of slaves.

1652 The first slaves in North America are brought from Sierra Leone to the Sea Islands, off the coast of the southern United States.

1700a"1800 A slave trade thrives between Sierra Leone and the plantations of South Carolina and Georgia, where the slavesa rice-farming skills make them particularly valuable.

1787 British abolitionists help four hundred freed slaves from the United States, Nova Scotia, and Britain return to Africa to settle in what they call the aProvince of Freedom,a in Sierra Leone. These Krio, as they come to be called, are from all areas of Africa.

1791 Other groups of freed slaves join the aProvince of Freedoma settlement, and it soon becomes known as Freetown, the name of the current capital of Sierra Leone.

1792 Freetown becomes one of Britainas first colonies in West Africa.