A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier

18

ONE DAY DURING MY FIFTH MONTH at Benin Home, I was sitting on a rock behind the classrooms when Esther came by. She sat next to me without uttering a word. She had my lyrics notebook in her hand. “I feel as if there is nothing left for me to be alive for,” I said slowly. “I have no family, it is just me. No one will be able to tell stories about my childhood.” I sniffled a bit.

Esther put her arms around me and pulled me closer to her. She shook me to get my full attention before she started. “Think of me as your family, your sister.”

“But I didn’t have a sister,” I replied.

“Well, now you do. You see, this is the beauty of starting a new family. You can have different kinds of family members.” She looked at me directly, waiting for me to say something.

“Okay, you can be my sister—temporarily.” I emphasized the last word.

“That is fine with me. So will you come to see your temporary sister tomorrow, please.” She covered her face as if she would be sad if I said no.

“Okay, okay, no need to be sad,” I said, and we both laughed a bit.

Esther’s laugh always reminded me of Abigail, a girl I had seen during my first two semesters of secondary school in Bo Town. Sometimes I wished Esther was Abigail, so that we could talk about past times before the war. I wanted us to laugh with all our beings, longer and without any worries, as I had done with Abigail but couldn’t anymore. At the end of each laugh there was always some feeling of sadness that I couldn’t escape.

At times I stared at Esther while she was busy doing paperwork. Whenever she sensed my eyes examining her face, she would throw a folded paper at me without looking in my direction. I would smile and put the folded paper in my pocket, pretending that the blank paper was a special note she had written to me.

That afternoon, as Esther walked away from where I sat on the rock, she continually turned around to wave at me, until she disappeared behind one of the halls. I smiled back and forgot about my loneliness for the time being.

The following day Esther told me that there were visitors coming to the center. The staff had asked the boys to hold a talent show. Basically, we were all supposed to do anything that we were good at.

“You can sing your reggae songs,” Esther suggested.

“How about a Shakespeare monologue?” I asked.

“Okay, but I still think you should do some music.” She put her arms around me. I had become very fond of Esther, but refused to show it. Whenever she hugged me or put her arms around me, I would quickly break loose. Whenever she left, though, I watched her go. She had a unique and graceful walk. It was almost as if she sailed on the ground. I would always run to see her after class to tell her about my day. My friends Mambu and Alhaji made fun of me. “Your girlfriend is here, Ishmael. Are we going to see you at all this afternoon?”

The visitors from the European Commission, the UN, UNICEF, and several NGOs arrived at the center in a convoy of cars one afternoon. They wore suits and ties and shook hands with each other before they started walking around the center. Some of the boys followed behind them, and I sat on the verandah with Mambu. All of the visitors were smiling, sometimes adjusting their ties or taking notes on the writing pads they carried. Some of them looked into our sleeping places, and the others took off their jackets and played hand-wrestling games and tug-of-war with boys. Afterward, they were shepherded into the dining room, which had been set up quite nicely for the talent show. Mr. Kamara, the director of the center, gave a few remarks, and then boys started telling Bra Spider and monster stories and performing tribal dances. I read a monologue from Julius Caesar and performed a short hip-hop play about the redemption of a former child soldier that I had written with Esther’s encouragement.

After that event, I became popular at the center. Mr. Kamara called me to his office one morning and said, “You and your friends really impressed those visitors. They know now that it is possible for you boys to be rehabilitated.” I was just happy to have had the chance to perform again, in peace. But Mr. Kamara was in high spirits.

“How would you like to be the spokesperson for this center?” he asked me.

“Ah! What will I have to do or say?” I hesitantly asked. I was beginning to think that this whole thing was being blown out of proportion.

“Well, to begin with, if there is an event on the issue of child soldiers, we will write you something to read. Once you get comfortable, you can begin writing your own speech, or whatever you want.” Mr. Kamara’s serious face told me he meant what he was saying. Not more than a week later, I was talking at gatherings in Freetown about child soldiering and how it must be stopped. “We can be rehabilitated,” I would emphasize, and point to myself as an example. I would always tell people that I believe children have the resilience to outlive their sufferings, if given a chance.

I was at the end of my sixth month when my childhood friend Mohamed arrived at the center. The last time I had seen him was when I left Mogbwemo with Talloi and Junior for a performance in Mattru Jong. He couldn’t come with us that day as he was helping his father work on their kitchen. I had often wondered about what had happened to him, but I never thought I would see him again. I was returning from a gathering at St. Edward’s Secondary School that evening when I saw this light-skinned, skinny boy with bony cheeks sitting on the stoop by himself. He looked familiar, but I wasn’t sure if I knew him. As I approached, he jumped up.

“Hey, man, remember me?” he exclaimed, and began doing the running man and singing “Here Comes the Hammer.”

I joined him, and we did some of the moves we had learned together for a group dance to this particular song. We high-fived each other and then hugged. He was still taller than me. We sat together on the stoop and briefly talked about our childhood pranks. “Sometimes I think about those great times we had dancing at talent shows, practicing new dances, playing soccer until we couldn’t see the ball…It seems like all those things happened a very long time ago. It is really strange, you know,” he said, looking away for a bit.

“I know, I know…” I said.

“You were a troublesome boy,” he reminded me.

“I know, I know…”

It was at the beginning of my seventh month at the rehabilitation center when Leslie came again to have a chat. I was called to a room in the hospital where he waited. When I walked into the room, he stood up to greet me. His face showed both grief and happiness. I had to ask him what the matter was.

“Are you all right?” I studied him.

“Yes.” He scratched his head and mumbled something to himself. “I am sorry about bringing up this matter again. I know it will upset you, but I have to be honest with you,” Leslie said. He walked around the room and began: “We cannot locate any immediate family member of yours, so we have to find you a foster family here in the city. I hope that will be fine with you. I will check on you after you’ve completed your rehabilitation to see how you are doing in your new life.” He sat down and, looking at me, continued, “Well, do you have any concerns or questions?”

“Yes, I think so,” I said. I told him that before the war my father had spoken about my uncle, who lived in the city. I did not even know what he looked like, much less where he lived.

“What is his name?” Leslie asked.

“His name is Tommy and my father told me he is a carpenter,” I replied.

Leslie was writing my mysterious uncle’s name in his notebook. After he was done scribbling his notes, he said, “No promises, but I will see what I can find out. I will get back to you soon.” He paused, tapped me on the shoulder, and continued, “I hear you are doing great. Keep it up.”

He walked out of the room. I didn’t count on him being able to find my uncle in such a big city, especially with the little information I had provided. I left the room and went to see Esther at the other side of the building. She was busy putting away the new supplies of bandages and medicines in the cabinets that hung on the walls of the room. As soon as she noticed that I was standing in the doorway, she began to smile, but continued doing her work. I sat and waited for her to finish.

“So how did the meeting with Leslie go?” she asked as she put the last box of medicine away. I told her everything he had said, ending with my skepticism about whether Leslie would be able to find my uncle. She listened carefully and said, “You never know. He might find him.”

One Saturday afternoon, as I chatted with Esther and Mohamed, Leslie walked in, smiling widely. I suspected he had found me a foster home and that I was going to be “repatriated”—the term used to describe the process of reuniting ex–child soldiers with their former communities.

“What is the good news?” Esther asked. Leslie examined my curious face, then walked back to the door and opened it. A tall man walked in. He had a wide, genuine smile that made his face look like a little boy’s. His hands were long and he looked at me directly, smiling. He wasn’t as light-skinned as my father.

“This is your uncle,” Leslie proudly announced.

“How de body, Ishmael?” the man said, and walked over to where I was sitting. He bent over and embraced me long and hard. My arms hung loose at my sides.

What if he is just some man pretending to be my uncle? I thought. The man let go of me. He was crying, which is when I began to believe that he was really my family, because his crying was genuine and men in my culture rarely cried.

He crouched on his heels next to me and began, “I am sorry I never came to see you all those years. I wish I had met you before today. But we can’t go back now. We just have to start from here. I am sorry for your losses. Leslie told me everything.” He looked at Leslie with thankful eyes and continued, “After you are done here, you can come and live with me. You are my son. I don’t have much, but I will give you a place to sleep, food, and my love.” He put his arms around me.

No one had called me son in a very long time. I didn’t know what to say. Everyone, it seemed, was waiting for my response. I turned to my uncle, smiled at him, and said, “Thank you for coming to see me. I really appreciate that you have offered me to stay with you. But I don’t even know you.” I put my head down.

“Like I said, we cannot go back. But we can start from here. I am your family and that is enough for us to begin liking each other,” he replied, rubbing my head and laughing a little.

I got up and hugged my uncle, and he embraced me harder than he had the first time and kissed me on my forehead. We briefly stood in silence before he began to speak again. “I can’t stay long, because I have to finish some work at the other part of the city. But from now on, I will visit you every weekend. And if it is okay, I would like you to come home with me at some point, to see where I live and to meet my wife and children—your family.” My uncle’s voice trembled; he was trying to hold back sobs. He rubbed my head with one hand and shook Leslie’s hand with the other.

“Sir, from now on, you will be informed about how this young man is doing,” Leslie said.

“Thank you,” my uncle replied. He held my hand and I walked with him toward the van that he and Leslie had arrived in. Before my uncle got into the car with Leslie, he hugged me again and said, “You look like your father, and you remind me of him when we were growing up. I hope you are not as stubborn as he was.” He laughed, and I did, too. Esther, Mohamed, and I waved them off.

“He seems like a nice man,” Esther said as soon as the van disappeared from our sight.

“Congratulations, man, you have a family member in the city away from all the madness,” Mohamed said.

“I guess so,” I said, but I didn’t know what to do in my happy state. I was still hesitant to let myself let go, because I still believed in the fragility of happiness.

“Come on, man, cheer up.” Mohamed pulled my ears, and he and Esther lifted me up and carried me back to the hospital, laughing. At the hospital Esther put the Bob Marley cassette on the tape player, and we all began to mime “Three Little Birds” together. “Don’t worry about a thing,” we sang, “’cause every little thing gonna be all right…”

That night I sat on the verandah with Mambu, Alhaji, and Mohamed. We were quiet, as usual. The sound of an ambulance somewhere in the city took over the silence of the night. I began to wonder about what my uncle was doing at that moment. I imagined him gathering his family to tell them about me. I could see him sobbing during his account and his family gradually joining him in crying. Part of me wanted them to cry as much as they could before I met them, as I always felt uncomfortable when people cried because of what I had been through. I looked at Alhaji and Mambu, who were staring into the dark night. I wanted to tell them about the discovery of my uncle, but I felt guilty, since no one from their families had been found. I also didn’t want to destroy the silence that had returned after the ambulance’s wailing died down.

As my uncle promised, he came to visit every weekend.

“My uncle is coming. I saw him down the road by the mango tree,” I told Esther the first weekend after his initial visit.

“You sound excited.” She put her pen down. She examined my face for a while and then continued. “I told you he seemed like a good man.”

My uncle walked through the door and wiped his sweaty forehead with his handkerchief before hugging me. He said hello to Esther during our embrace. As soon as we stood apart, he began to smile so widely that my face relaxed and I too began to smile. He put his bag on the floor and pulled out some biscuits and a bottle of cold ginger beer.

“I thought you might need some fuel for our walk,” he said as he handed me the presents.

“You two should take the gravel road up the hill,” Esther suggested. My uncle and I nodded in agreement.

“I won’t be here when you return. It is nice meeting you again, sir,” she said, looking at my uncle. She turned toward me. “I will see you tomorrow.”

My uncle and I left the hospital room and started walking in the direction Esther had suggested. We were quiet at first. I listened to the sound of our footsteps on the dusty road. I could hear the rattling of lizards crossing the road to climb the nearby mango tree. I could feel my uncle’s eyes on me.

“How is everything? Are they treating you well at this place?” my uncle asked.

“Everything is fine here,” I replied.

“I hope you are not as quiet as your father.” He wiped his forehead again and then asked, “Did your father ever talk about his home?”

“Sometimes he did, although not as much as I wished he had.” I raised my lowered head and briefly met my uncle’s kind, inviting eyes before looking away. The gravel road was getting narrower as we approached the bottom of the hill. I told him that my father had mentioned him in every one of his stories of a troublesome childhood. Told him that my father had recounted to me about the time they went to the bush to fetch firewood and accidentally shook a beehive. The bees chased them and they ran toward the village. Since my father was shorter, most of the bees concentrated on my uncle’s head. They ran and dove into a river, but the bees circled on top of the water waiting for them to resurface. They had to catch their breath, so they got out of the water and ran to their village, bringing the bees with them.

“Yes, I remember. Everyone was upset with us for bringing the bees to the village, because they stung the old men who couldn’t run fast and some younger children. Your father and I locked the door, hid under the bed, and laughed at the commotion.” My uncle was giggling and I couldn’t help but laugh. After he stopped laughing, he sighed and said, “Ah, your father and I, we did too many troublesome things. If you are as troublesome as we were, I will give you some leeway, because it wouldn’t be fair for me to get down on you.” He put his arm around my shoulder.

“I think my troublesome days are long gone,” I said sadly.

“Ah, you are still a boy, you have time to be a little more troublesome,” my uncle said. We became quiet again and listened to the evening wind whizzing through the trees.

I loved the walks with my uncle, because they gave me a chance to talk about my childhood, about growing up with my father and older brother. I needed to talk about those good times before the war. But the more I talked about my father, the more I missed my mother and little brother, too. I didn’t grow up with them. I felt as if I missed that chance and would never get it again, and that made me sad. I spoke to my uncle about it, but he just listened, because he knew neither my mother nor my little brother. So in order to balance things out for me, he made me talk about the time my family lived in Mattru Jong, when my parents were together. Even then, there wasn’t that much to say, as my parents separated when I was very young.

I got to know my uncle quite well during our walks, and I began to eagerly await his arrival on weekends. He always brought me a present and would tell me about his week. He talked about the roof he had built for someone’s house, the beautiful table he had to complete the next day by polishing it, how well my cousins were doing in school. He said hello from his wife. I in turn would tell him about the table tennis and soccer tournaments I had participated in, the performance we had given for visitors, if there was any that week. We walked so many times on the same gravel road that I could close my eyes and still avoid all the big rocks on the road.

One weekend my uncle took me to meet his family. It was a Saturday and the sun was so bright that we couldn’t see our shadows on the ground. He lived in New England Ville, a hilly area in the western part of Freetown. My uncle came to Benin Home earlier than usual to get me. We took a noisy lorry to the center of the city. My uncle and I were quiet for a while, but began to laugh, because the two men sitting next to us were discussing which palm wine was better, one that was tapped from a standing palm tree or one from a fallen tree. The men were still arguing when we got off the lorry. We walked slowly toward my uncle’s house, his arm around my shoulders. I was happy walking with my uncle, but I worried whether his family would accept me the way he had—without asking me anything about my war years.

As we walked up the hill, nearing my uncle’s home, he pulled me aside and said, “I told only my wife about your past life as a soldier. I kept it secret from my children. I don’t think they will understand now as my wife and I do. I hope it is okay with you.” Relieved, I nodded, and we continued on.

Immediately after a bend and a rise on the gravel road we came upon my uncle’s house. It overlooked the city, and from the verandah one could see the ships in the bay. It was a beautiful view of the city, this place that was to become my home. The house had no electricity or running water, and the kitchen that stood apart from the house was made entirely of zinc. Under a mango tree a few meters from the yard was the latrine and the kule—open-air shower. It reminded me of Mattru Jong.

When we walked onto the verandah, my uncle’s wife came out, her face glowing as if she had polished it all her life. She stood at the doorway and tied her wrapper before proceeding to embrace me so tightly that I felt my nose and lips being squashed against her arms. She released me, stood back, and pinched my cheeks.

“Welcome, my son,” she said. She was a short woman with very dark skin, round cheekbones, and bright eyes. My uncle didn’t have children of his own, so he raised the children of family members as his own. There were four of them—Allie, the oldest one; Matilda; Kona; and Sombo, the littlest, who was six years old. They had all stopped doing their chores and came onto the verandah to hug their “brother,” as my uncle explained my relation to them.

“It is good to have another boy in the family,” Allie said after he hugged me. He and my uncle laughed and I smiled. I was very quiet that afternoon. After the introduction, everyone went about his or her business. I was left with my aunt and uncle, and we sat on the verandah. I loved the view from the house and kept looking toward the city. Each time I turned to look at my uncle, he was smiling widely. My aunt continually brought us huge plates of rice, fish, stew, and plantains. She made me eat so much that my stomach became too big. After we had finished eating, my uncle showed me his carpentry tools and his worktable, which was outside, occupying most of the little yard.

“If you are interested in carpentry, I will be glad to have you as my apprentice. But knowing your father, I could probably guess that you want to go to school,” my uncle said. I smiled and didn’t say a word. Allie came back and asked Uncle if it was okay for me to go with him to a local soccer match. My uncle said only if I wanted to. I went with Allie down the street to a field in an area called Brookfields.

“I am happy that you will be staying with us, we can share my room,” Allie said as we waited for the game to begin. He was older than I was and had finished secondary school. He was jovial and very disciplined. It showed in his manners. He spoke well and to the point. Before the game started, a girl waved to us from the other side of the field. She had the most beautiful and open smile, and she was laughing a lot. I was about to ask who she was when Allie spoke. “She is our cousin, but she lives across the street with a foster family. Her name is Aminata. You will get to meet her.” Aminata was the daughter of my father’s second brother, who had a different mother. I later became closer to her and Allie than to the other children in my new family.

During my many walks with my uncle, I learned that my grandfather had many wives and that my father had brothers he never talked about. My father was the only child from his mother’s side.

At the soccer match, all I could think about was the discovery of a family I never thought existed. I was happy, but I had become accustomed to not showing it. Allie laughed throughout the game, and I couldn’t even get myself to smile. When we returned, my uncle was on the verandah, waiting to take me back to the center. He held my hand as we walked to the bus station. I was quiet the entire trip. I spoke only to thank my uncle after he had given me transportation money to use if I decided to visit on my own. At the entrance of the center, my uncle hugged me, and as we parted, he turned around and said, “I’ll see you soon again, my son.”