A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier (6 page)

Quietly I followed them as I tried to remember all their names, especially the names of the faces I recognized among them. I walked in the back, creating a little distance between us. I began to realize how uncomfortable I felt being around people. Kanei, who was older, perhaps sixteen, asked me where I’d been. I smiled without answering. He tapped me on the shoulder as if he knew what I had experienced. “Circumstances will change and things will be fine, just hold on a little more,” he said, tapping my shoulder again and nodding. I responded with a smile.

Once again I was with a group of boys. This time there were seven of us. I knew this was going to be a problem, but I didn’t want to be by myself anymore. Our innocence had been replaced by fear and we had become monsters. There was nothing we could do about it. Sometimes we ran after people shouting that we were not what they thought, but this made them more scared. We hoped to ask people for directions. It was impossible.

We had traveled for more than six days when we came in contact with a very old man who could barely walk. He sat on the verandah of a house in the middle of the village. His face was too wrinkled to still be alive, yet his dark skin was shiny and he spoke slowly, gobbling the words in his jaws before he let them out. As he spoke, the veins on his forehead became visible through his skin.

“Everyone ran when they heard of the ‘seven boys’ on their way here. I couldn’t run at all. So they left me behind. No one was willing to carry me and I didn’t want to be a burden,” he said.

We explained to him where we were from and where we wanted to go. He asked us to stay for a while and keep him company.

“You young fellows must be hungry. There are some yams in that hut over there. Can you boys cook some for me and yourselves?” he politely asked. When we were almost finished eating the yams, he said slowly, “My children, this country has lost its good heart. People don’t trust each other anymore. Years ago, you would have been heartily welcomed in this village. I hope that you boys can find safety before this untrustworthiness and fear cause someone to harm you.”

He drew a map on the ground with his walking stick. “This is how you get to Yele,” he said.

“What is your name?” Kanei asked the old man.

He smiled as if he knew that one of us would ask this question. “There is no need to know my name. Just refer to me as the old man who got left behind when you get to the next village.” He looked at all our faces and spoke softly, with no sadness in his voice.

“I will not be alive to see the end of this war. So, to save a place in your memories for other things, I won’t tell you my name. If you survive this war, just remember me as the old man you met. You boys should be on your way.” He pointed his staff toward the path that lay ahead of us. As we walked away, he erased the map with his foot and waved us off with a raised right hand and a nod. Before the village disappeared from our sight, I turned around to take one last look at the old man. His head was down and he had both hands on his staff. It was clear to me that he knew his days would soon be over, and he didn’t bother to be afraid for himself. But he was for us.

Someone had started a rumor about the “seven boys,” us. Many times during our journey we were surrounded by muscular men with machetes who almost killed us before they realized that we were just children running away from the war. Sometimes I looked at the blades of the machetes and thought about how much it would hurt to be chopped with one. Other times I was so hungry and tired that I didn’t care. At crowded villages where we sometimes stopped to spend the night, the men stayed up to keep an eye on us. When we went to the river to wash our faces, mothers would grab their children and run home.

9

O
NE MORNING,
immediately after we had passed a deserted village, we started hearing something like the roar of big engines, the rolling of metal drums on a tar road, a thunder exploding, roll after roll. All these sounds reached our ears simultaneously. We hurriedly deviated from the path, running into the bushes and lying on the ground. We searched one another’s faces for an explanation of this strange sound. Even Kanei, who sometimes had answers, couldn’t tell us what we were hearing. We all looked at him and his face contorted with confusion.

“We have to find out what it is or we can’t continue on to Yele,” Kanei whispered, and then began to crawl toward the sound. We followed him, quietly dragging our bodies on rotten leaves. As we got closer, the sound intensified and a heavy breeze shook the trees above us. We could clearly see the blue sky, but nothing else. Kanei hesitantly sat on his heels and surveyed the area.

“It is just water, lots of it, and sand, lots of it.” Kanei was still looking.

“What is making the noise, then?” Alhaji asked.

“All I am looking at is water and sand,” Kanei replied, and then waved us to come closer and take a look. We sat on our heels for a while, looking in different directions, trying to locate what was making the sound. Without saying anything to us, Kanei crawled out of the bushes and started walking on the sand, toward the water.

It was the Atlantic Ocean. The sounds we had heard were those of the waves hitting the shore. I had seen parts of the ocean but had never stood at the shore of one this vast. It spread out beyond the vision of my eyes. The sky was at its bluest and seemed to curve down and join with the ocean in the distance. My eyes widened, a smile forming on my face. Even in the middle of the madness there remained that true and natural beauty, and it took my mind away from my current situation as I marveled at this sight.

We walked closer and sat at the edge of the sand and stared at the ocean, admiring the display of the waves in succession. They came in three folds. The first was small but powerful enough to break a person’s leg. The second was high and more powerful than the first, and the third was a spectacle. It rolled and rose higher than the shoreline as it moved forward. We ran away from where we sat. The wave hit the shore so hard that it sent sand particles flying high up in the sky. When we went back to look, the waves had thrown out unwanted flotsam from the ocean, including some big crabs that I guess weren’t strong enough to cling to the ocean floor, but they were still alive.

It was a calm walk along the sand, since we didn’t expect trouble in this part of the country. We chased and wrestled each other in the sand, played somersault and running games. We even bundled up Alhaji’s old shirt and tied a rope around it to make a soccer ball. We then played a game, and each time one of us scored a goal, he would celebrate with a
soukous
dance. We shouted, laughed, and sang our secondary-school songs.

We started walking on the sandy beach early in the morning and saw the sunrise. At midday we saw a cluster of huts ahead and raced each other toward them. When we arrived there, we suddenly became worried. There was no one in the village. Mortars lay in the sand, rice spilling out of them; jerry cans leaked water, and fires were left unattended under cooking huts. Our first guess was that the rebels might have been there. Before we could think of anything else, fishermen sprang from behind huts with machetes, fishing spears, and nets in their hands. We were so shocked by this sudden uproar that none of us was able to run. Instead, we shouted, “Please, we are harmless and just passing by,” in every possible one of the eighteen local languages that each of us knew. The fishermen jabbed us with the flat edges of their weapons until we fell on the ground. They sat on top of us, tied our hands, and took us to their chief.

The villagers had heard a rumor that some young people, believed to be rebels, were heading their way. Upon hearing this, they had armed themselves and hid, waiting to defend their homes and protect their families. This should not have been a big shock to us, but we didn’t expect it to happen here, since we thought we were now far from harm. They asked us several questions along the lines of where were we from? where were we going? and why did we choose that direction? Alhaji, the tallest among us and sometimes mistaken for the oldest, tried to explain to the chief that we were just passing by. Afterward, the men yanked our torn
crapes
off our feet, untied us, and chased us out of their village, waving their spears and machetes, and screaming after us.

We didn’t realize what sort of punishment the fishermen had given us until we stopped running away from their village. The sun was in the middle of the sky, it was over 120 degrees, and we were barefoot. The humidity by the sea was less than inland, but since there were no trees to provide shade, the sun penetrated right into the sand, making it hot and loose. Walking barefoot on the sand was like walking on a hot tar road. The only escape from this pain was to keep walking and hope for something miraculous. We couldn’t walk in the water or the wet sand near its edge. It was very deep between where we walked and where the water met the land, and the waves were dangerous. After I had cried for several hours, my feet became numb. I continued walking but couldn’t feel the soles of my feet.

We walked on the hot, burning sand until sunset. I have never longed for a day to conclude as I did that day. I thought the arrival of sunset would heal my pain. But as the heat died down, the anesthesia also wore away. Each time I lifted my feet, the veins in them tightened and I felt the sand particles digging into my bleeding soles. The next several miles were so long that I didn’t think I would be able to make it. I perspired and my body shuddered from the pain. Finally, we came upon a hut that was on the sand. None of us was able to talk. We walked inside and sat down on logs around a fireplace. There were tears in my eyes, but I was unable to cry because I was too thirsty to make a sound. I looked around to see the faces of my traveling companions. They were crying as well, without a sound. Hesitantly, I looked under my feet. Peeled flesh hung down and congealed blocks of blood and particles of sand clung to each hanging bit of skin. It looked as if someone had literally used a blade to cut the flesh under my feet from the heel to the toes. Discouraged, I looked into the sky through a tiny hole in the thatched roof, trying not to think about my feet. As we sat in silence, the man whose hut we had occupied came in. He stopped at the door, and was about to turn around when he noticed our suffering. His eyes met our frightened faces. Musa had just lifted his foot and was trying to separate the sand from his flesh. The rest of us were holding our knees so that our feet wouldn’t touch the ground. The man motioned for Musa to stop what he was about to do. He shook his head and left.

A few minutes later, he returned, carrying a basket full of some type of grass. He quietly made a fire and heated the grasses and then placed them underneath each of our hanging feet. The steam from the grass rose to our soles, and it gradually lessened the pain. The man left without saying anything.

Later he returned with fried-fish soup, rice, and a bucket of water. He put the food before us and motioned for us to eat. Again he disappeared, returning a few minutes later, this time smiling widely. He had a fishing net on his shoulder and held a pair of oars and a big flash-light.

“You peekin dem dae feel betteh, right?”
Without waiting to hear whether we were feeling better or not, he went on to tell us where the sleeping mats were and that he was going fishing and would be back in the morning. He didn’t even bother to ask our names. I guess he didn’t think it was necessary or important at that moment. Before he left, he gave us ointment to rub on our feet and stressed that we do it before going to sleep. We were very quiet that night. No one said a word.

The following morning our nameless host came again with food and a smile on his face that said he was glad that we were doing fine. We couldn’t walk well, so we just hobbled around the hut and made fun of each other to avoid boredom.

Kanei boasted about being an excellent soccer player. Musa threw him a groundnut shell; Kanei moved his foot to kick it, but then realized that it would hurt and abruptly swung his foot back, dragging it against a stone. He began to blow on his sole, in pain.

“What kind of soccer player are you going to be if you are afraid to kick an empty groundnut shell?” Musa laughed. We all gradually began to laugh.

Musa had a round face, and he was short and bulky, with tiny round ears that matched his face. His eyes were big and looked as if they wanted to leave his face. Whenever he wanted to convince us of something, they would brighten.

Kanei had a long and calm face, and unlike Musa he was skinny and had short, really dark hair that he took great care of every morning, or whenever we stopped at a river or a stream. He would rub water on his head and take his time to carefully arrange his hair. “Are you meeting a girl somewhere?” Alhaji would ask, giggling. Kanei, with his soft yet authoritative voice, always seemed to know what to say and how to handle certain situations better than the rest of us.

Whenever Alhaji spoke, he used elaborate gestures. It was as if he wanted his already long hands to extend toward whomever he was talking to. He and Jumah were friends. They walked next to each other. Jumah was always nodding his head, agreeing to whatever the lanky Alhaji said to him as we walked. Jumah used his head to gesture, rather than his hands. Whenever he spoke, he waved his head left to right. He kept his hands crossed behind his back most of the time, like an old man.

Saidu and Moriba were almost as quiet as I. They always sat next to each other, away from the group. Saidu breathed hard as we walked. His ears were large, and when he was listening, they stood up like a deer’s. Moriba always told him that he must have extra hearing ability. Moriba mostly played with his hands, examining the lines on his palm and rubbing his fingers as he whispered to himself.

I barely spoke.

I knew Alhaji, Kanei, and Musa from my former secondary school. We never talked much about our past, especially our families. The few conversations we had that weren’t related to our journey were mostly about soccer and school before we resumed our silence.

The pains we felt from our feet subsided on the fourth night. We went for a walk around the hut, and during our stroll I found out that the hut was only about half a mile from the main village; at night we could see smoke rising from the tiny village’s cooking huts.

We stayed in the hut for a week. Our host brought us water and food every morning and night. He had the whitest teeth that I had ever seen, and he was shirtless all the time. Sometimes when he came to check on us in the morning, he had chewing sap in his mouth. I asked him one morning for his name. He laughed softly. “It is not necessary. This way we will all be safe.”

The following night, our host decided to take us to a part of the Atlantic Ocean that was nearby. As we walked, he engaged us in conversation. We learned that he was Sherbro, one of the many tribes in Sierra Leone. When he heard the stories of how we had walked from Mattru Jong, he couldn’t believe us. He said he had heard about the war but still had difficulty believing that people could do the things that he had heard they did. Our host had been born in the main village and never left. Traders came to his village with clothing items, rice, and other cooking ingredients to exchange for salt and fish, so he didn’t need to go anywhere. If I had to guess, I would say he was in his early twenties. He said he was going to get married the next month and was looking forward to it. I asked why his hut was removed from the village. He explained that it was his fishing hut, where he kept his nets and other fishing items and where he dried fish during the rainy season.

When we got to the ocean, we walked to an inlet where the sea wasn’t rough. We sat on the banks. “Put you foot nah de wahter, make de salt wahter soakam.” He also said the salt water was good for healing the pain and preventing tetanus. Our host sat aside, looking at us, and each time I looked at him he was smiling and his white teeth stood out against his dark face. The dry breeze from inland coupled with the cool ocean air was perfectly soothing. I wanted to know his name so badly, but I restrained myself.

“You boys must come here every night to put your feet in the ocean. This way you will be healed in less than a week,” he said.

He looked in the sky, where the stars were beginning to be covered by fast-moving clouds. “I have to go take care of my canoe. It will rain soon, so you must go back to the hut.” He started running in the sand toward the main village.

“I wish I could be that man. He is just so happy and content with his life,” Alhaji said.

“He is a very nice man, too. I really want to know his name,” Kanei said softly.

“Yes, yes.” We all agreed with Kanei and went wandering into our own thoughts, which were interrupted by a sudden burst of rain. We hadn’t listened to our host and left when he’d told us to. We hastened to the hut. There, we sat around the fire to dry ourselves and eat dried fish.

We had been with our host for two weeks and were feeling better when very early one morning, an older woman came to the hut. She woke us and told us to leave immediately. She said she was the mother of our host and that the people in the village had found out about us and were on their way to capture us. From the way she spoke, I could tell that she had known about us all along. She brought with her dried fish and fresh water for us to take on our journey. We didn’t have enough time to thank her and tell her to thank her son for his hospitality. But from what she said, it was clear that she knew we were thankful and she cared about our safety more than anything else.

“My children, you must hurry now, and my blessings are with you.” Her voice was trembling with sadness, and she wiped her disconsolate face as she disappeared behind the hut and headed back to the main village.