War Stories

“The rebels caught us. The men had to work for them. And we had to cook for them.”

The war is not something that all that regularly pops up in conversation here and nor are there, with some notable exceptions like the shot-up town of Mokanji, many physical reminders of it. There are ruined buildings dotted around but such is the poverty in the country that that kind of dilapidation does not make your mind immediately jump to a violent conclusion. But every now and again I find myself talking about those dark days in a living room, on a walk, by a fire or on a veranda. I am going to try to retell a few of those stories here with as little commentary as my verbosity allows. I am going to try to recall how they were told to me. And tell you.

---

That time was so hard. Ha, we have got Mark to sit down. Yes, stories. Ha. Those days, I tell you, they were hard. We lived with them, the rebels. Yes, we lived with them. We sat with them just as we are sitting with you now. We talked, we made that fun, you know? And then we would sneak out to the bush and quietly listen to the news on the BBC on my brother’s radio. The rebels would always give us the opposite story.

And we couldn’t eat salt. If they found you with salt they would ask you where you got it. If they found you with salt, trouble for you. If they found you with tobacco, they’d ask you where you got it. They had all the roads blocked and you couldn’t get salt here, so if you had salt... What I had done was get an empty flask and put salt in it. But if your wife cooked fine plassas (sauce) and they tasted salt in it, a problem for you. No rice either. They ate rice. But if they found us with rice they’d ask us where we got it. So we ate cassava that whole time. Oh that time was hard. Beef too. If you got some meat, some beef, they’d take it. My boys and I would set out traps and if I caught something I would have to sneak it home and give it to my wife to cook. I caught a squirrel once and they have a long tail. So I cut off the tail and I had a coat like this one I am wearing at the time so I covered the beef with the coat and slung it over my shoulder like this. No-one knew there was anything there.

We lived with them, yes. Well, they believed that if they had civilians with them they would be safe. Ha. Those times were hard. Ha. This man, Jonathan, his father being an outspoken man, they killed him. Yes, as he says, he was shot.

---

The first time I saw a rebel. I was working on my farm and I saw this rebel. A small boy, like that boy over there, with drugs, a gun and everything. He stopped me and asked, ‘Have you ever seen a rebel before?’ And I said, ‘No.’ He said, ‘Well you have seen one now’. He asked me where my village was. I pointed off to a far place. He asked me what I had to give him. I said nothing. He asked me if we had rice. I said there was no rice here. He asked if I had any tobacco. I said there was no tobacco here either. He took my watch and led me off to a village nearby. There were people there and other rebels. One woman had a small plastic bag tucked in to the thatch of her house with snuff in it. When the rebels found it the one who had taken me there came to show it to me. ‘You said there was no tobacco here. What is this?’ ‘That’s snuff’ I answered. He brought me to where everyone was kneeling on the ground and poured kerosene over my head. Then he poured some on the man next to me and some others. He was going to do it too. But then they decided they needed us to carry their things for them.

Patricia was there, you remember her, brother? She had just come back from Bo and had all kinds of provisions which they took. They said that she would make a good wife for them. After we had carried their things all the way to Serabu we stayed the night there. They had a big dance and we went there and had some drinks and forgot about what was happening for a while. We danced all night. Ha. The next day they let us go. But they took Patricia with them. Did we see her again? Yeah, once everything was over. She’s there in the village. But I still see that boy. Once everything was over I saw him in Serabu and I could see him looking at me. I went to him and said, ‘Do you know who I am?’ He said yes. He said it was all fear. I said, ‘Look, that is all over now’. We can sit down now and laugh about those days. How? Look, that is all over now. What good does it do holding on to that thing now?

---

The rebels would take those big batteries, those big 24 volt batteries. They would take them out of those mining trucks and they would make you carry it on your head and they would attach it to a music set and you would walk with them while they danced before you. Human beings can be so wicked to one another.

---

I just knew. The Holy Ghost had shown me. I just knew. That day there would be an attack. I started making my little nest under the sink. I told those in the upper floors to come down and stay with us. Everyone laughed at me but I knew. I told them they should make safe places for themselves. I got myself under the sink and prayed and prayed. Then that evening, sure enough that noise, the sound of an RPG. The rebels attacked. And everyone joined me under the sink. ‘You were right, you were right...’

---

The rebels, they surrounded us. There was no escape. They lived with us. That place, so, so rebels. Any fine girl they saw, they took her. My daughter, I made her get under my bed and that is where she stayed. Later they dressed up as Nigerian ECOMOG soldiers and came in to town in that truck, that green one. As people came out to cheer them, they shot them, saying, ‘Oh, so you don’t like us, eh?’ And there was nothing to eat. We cooked for them but we didn’t eat any of it except to taste it before they ate. They always made you eat some first.

One man I felt so sorry for him. Till today I feel sorry for that man. He had been in America and had come back to see his people just before the rebels took over our area. The rebels went to his house and said, ‘Where are the dollars you brought back home with you?’ The man said he had no money. So they cut all two of his arms off. Till today I feel so sorry for that man. That place, so, so rebels. Then when the war was over they all went back there so we have to look at each today.

---

The rebels told us that we could speak freely. We could ask them any question we wanted. So I said, ‘Look. We are living with you so you have made us all rebels. But you eat rice and salt and everything. What about us?’ They arrested me. Ha! Yes, yes, you are right but they had said we could ask anything! I was locked up in a house and then they started to travel with me to Serabu and said that I would be killed the next day at 5. We stopped at that bridge, you know that bridge where they had the heads? They had killed three men. One of them just a boy. A fine boy too. A fine boy. They had killed them and cut their heads off and stuck them on sticks by this bridge. It was terrible...the flies... Well, we stopped there and I sat down. This small rebel came over. Just a boy. I could have been his father. He looked at me and said, ‘Look at this old man with his bald head. He looks like the kind of man that eats government money.’ I laughed at him. The way these small boys talked to us was so shameful. When they were small so. Most of them didn’t have any education. Even one word of Krio, lots of them couldn’t speak. I am telling you. He said I was disrespecting him. Another rebel was there and he said I was disrespecting him. I laughed at him too.

But God is good. Being a teacher is a blessed profession and God took care. A senior rebel arrived and he saw me. It was a former pupil of mine. I had taught him when he was in Primary School and had had a good relationship with him. He looked at me but I kept my head down. ‘Do you know me?’ he asked. I said I didn’t. That’s what we always said. If they found out you knew them and might be able to identify them later they killed you. So I said no. He asked again. I said that maybe his face was familiar. He smiled and told me not to be afraid. He told the other rebels to leave me alone, that I had helped him a lot when he had been at school. He told two of them to walk me back to the village but later changed his mind and said he would do it himself. Often people would be sent off like that but their escorts would kill them on the way. So he came with me. And there was a big celebration when I got back. God was in control.

---

That old man, that one. They made him a town commissioner so if anything went wrong they would beat him. They would give people 100 lashes. In our village I saw that happen three times. They would use big sticks not canes. That old man, not a day went by when they didn’t beat him. And if there were three rebels and they said 50 lashes they would all hit you at the same time and they would count that as one. I don’t know how that old man lived. When you see him walking slowly now, bent over, that’s real. There was one time when they told him to make a bridge. It was over that river, that big one. There was no way he could have built it in the time they gave him. They beat him hard that day. Every day, every day they beat him. Even now, when he sees them, he can go and cry like a small child. Because of the beatings they gave him.

---

They came in to the village and they asked this one boy if he could write. He said no. They told him to put out this hand. They took their gun, placed it before his hand. Pop. They told him to put out his other hand, they lifted the gun again. Pop. ‘Well, you said you couldn’t write anyway...’

---

I was walking with my daughter and my twins, who were just babies then, on my back. Then there were explosions. My daughter ran off and I didn’t know where she was. Then there was an explosion right beside me and as I jumped face down to the ground a big piece of shrapnel passed over me and the twins.

---

As the rebels got closer and closer to Freetown there was one woman who kept saying that she was excited that they were coming. She said that things would be better when they took over the city. I told her she was crazy. Then on the day the rebels did enter the city, as the first one made his way down our street, everyone stayed inside. But this woman went out to greet him and celebrate his arrival. He shot her.

---

I was in the bush when this woman came running. The rebels had just cut off her two hands. I felt so sorry for her. It was so pathetic to see her like that. I didn’t know what to do. I brought her down to a river to clean her wounds. Then some government soldiers came and she went with them. I never saw her again.

---

It is the Nigerians that I really hate. I hate them. None of this had anything to do with them. They were vicious. I fought with the AFRC. Johnny Paul did not organise the coup. They broke him out of prison and then they put him in charge. The coup was not his idea. He is a good man. A good leader. I fought for him in the bush for a year after the Nigerians pushed us out of Freetown. (Johnny Paul was the leader of the group of soldiers who took control of the country from President Kabbah and invited the RUF in to Freetown to form a government with him. When the Nigerians drove them out of the capital and reinstalled Kabbah they fought with the rebels in the bush. Johnny Paul is one of those indicted by the Special Court for Sierra Leone for war crimes but his whereabouts are still unknown. People here are fairly sure that he is alive despite reports that he was killed towards the end of the war. Many I have met, like this speaker, speak highly of him which is just bizarre to me given what I read about the AFRC. Those who have a positive idea of him seem to be saying ‘Good leader, bad followers’.)

---

I had been going for a walk when I came across three rebels by a swamp. They called me over and told me to carry them across the water. So I got in to the swamp and lifted them on my back, one by one, and brought them across. Ha. The way I lifted the last one and swung him up on to the bank, he shouted, ‘This guy is strong! This is the kind of man who kills rebels!’ When I got home my mother told me that that was the last time I would be going off for a walk! Ha!

---

When they said ‘Ceasefire’, I said ‘Thank you God’. When we went home NOTHING was left. NOTHING. My husband said, ‘What kind of trouble is this?’ That was the second house we had had, the first one they burned it. I had had a television, a fridge, all kinds of things. Then we had struggled, struggled to get things for this second house. Now, everything gone again. I told my husband, ‘Well, it’s all just possessions. Life is more important’. We didn’t even have a seat to sit on.

The Soundtrack

The sky is a perfect blue and though the sun is shining, there is little warmth in its rays. The air is still, breathless, and so takes on the quality that for whatever reason we have come to know as ‘crisp’. I am walking to Queens having just gotten off the Number 61 at City Hall. There is no particular reason why my heart should be so high in my chest, no particular reason why there should be such a swagger in my strut, no particular reason why I should feel such joy. But right at this moment ‘Mr Blue Sky’ by ELO is ringing in my ears and firing up that part of me which rejoices in simply being alive.

Music is powerful. For a long time I have been struck by the emotional impact it can have. One of my favourite films is ‘Last of the Mohicans’ almost entirely because of the way the romance of the story’s old fashioned heroism is not just complimented by, but soars to an emotional height because of, the movie’s soundtrack. In film, music attaches itself to the emotions being conveyed in the story and amplifies them, adding drama and romance and excitement and suspense. Jesus uses the image of salt to show that people who seek to follow him should draw out the flavours of the world. The flavours, the beauty of love and truth and right and justice, are already there in the DNA of the created by virtue of the identity of its creator. But they need to be brought out by just a pinch of salt so they can be truly tasted. A musical metaphor might also work in this context. As his followers we might seek to play a soundtrack, to personify a beautiful piece of music, that would, borrowing a phrase from Aaron Sorkin, invite the ‘better angels’ of those around us to dance.

Once a piece of music is attached to an emotion it can be difficult to untangle. Sometimes there is an organic link. ‘Sunday Bloody Sunday’ by U2 causes my soul to cry out against the tragedy of my nation’s history because that is what the song is about. But sometimes a song becomes about something because of when it is heard not because of what it says in itself. Who from Northern Ireland can listen to ‘Cat’s in the Cradle’ by Ugly Kid Joe (Is that right?) without feeling the pangs of a people divided? Not because there is a natural connection but because a gifted advertiser melded the song to the story of a father grieving for a son caught up in our violence.

Even more than its ability to effect present emotions, music’s power is perhaps really shown in it’s confronting us with emotions from our past. As usual I articulate nothing of originality, everyone knows for example the power of music to conjure up the feelings of Casablanca-esque lost love. ‘Play it again, Sam’. Music and memory play together. As I begin to feel the reality of how little time I have left in Sierra Leone I know already that the music I will leave this place with will, for years to come, drag my heart right back to where it once sang. On Easter Sunday I wished that church could last forever but stood at the front of our service trying to conjure a sponge like quality in to my being in case I didn’t get my way. I have a song on my computer by a Sierra Leonean guy who calls himself Christo Whizzo called ‘Dance for God’, a fun, fluffy little Krio worship song, which our kids have a dance routine for, a routine they used at evangelistic services the church recently held in two of the larger villages here – ‘We go dance, dance before we God, We go shake, shake for praise we God, We go dance, dance, We go shake, before de God who make we all‘. It will surely always conjure up images for me of Ginger looking cute in her wee green shorts, Amidu’s hilarious lanky dance steps, Mattia’s little hunched body shake, Spengy’s showmanship. It will surely always conjure up the pride and love that go with the pictures. And the worries about whether they will be given the opportunities to reach their so obvious potential, to flame the fire of their multiple talents. It will surely always call me back to this time.

This call will probably sound even more loudly in the songs of praise and worship which I will bring back with me, not on a hard drive but in my memory. ‘Tell am Tenki’, ‘Good Morning Jesus’, ‘A de Shine’, ‘He has done it’ ‘So we Dance’ (A Brother Andy original rather than a Sierra classic...give it a few years...). And no list of Sierra Leone songs, to end this note with a little sparkle, would be complete without the wonderfully ridiculous ‘Check Yourself’. The full lyrics are important...and though I know I haven’t gotten it quite right in a few places, this is the general gist...

“You gotta check yourself now,
Examine yourself now.

Monday, Monday!
On Monday, Monday you lie.
Tuesday, Tuesday!
On Tuesday, Tuesday you smoke.
What of Wednesday?
On Wednesday, Wednesday you steal.
Thursday, Thursday!
On Thursday, Thursday you drink.
Friday, Friday!
On Friday you gossip all day.
On Saturday you fornicate.
Fornica-a-ate! (Yes, that’s right. My five year old sisters close their eyes with spiritual intensity and call out ‘Fornicate!’ at this point in the song. I am not mature enough to resist joining in with an enthusiastic ‘FORNICATE!’ of my own.)

And then on Sunday you pick up your Bible, put it under your arm and you go to Church.

You gotta check yourself now...”

It’s gonna be hard to leave. The last thing I want is for this all to become memory.

Rites of Passage

“It’s a radio, Uncle”, Emmanuel said with such confidence that I second guessed myself. I was walking home from church in Senahum with a couple of the boys from our children’s home and as we approached Ngolala the sound of music and singing floated through the air to meet us. We had had an interesting morning, arriving into Senahum to find the church service forgone in favour of a brief time of prayer before everyone headed off to the more important work on their farms. My initial discouragement at this was however somewhat eased by the warmth of the welcome offered by the village Pastor and enjoyed by myself and my boys – a little tour of the village was given and we headed homewards with coconut milk dripping down our chins from the fresh jelly (immature and therefore full of glorious, sickeningly sweet, liquid) delights that were cut for us. But as we approached Ngolala village, where was this music coming from? “No, it’s not. No Emmanuel, that’s people singing.”

Stepping into the village we were met by a group of ladies dressed in the usual colourful combination of African lappas and headscarves with the globalised spin of second-hand American t-shirts, singing and dancing from house to house. A man was sitting on the ground nearby under a thatched shelter with his back against one of the four stick columns of the structure and I asked him what the celebration was for. I was informed that these women had just come back from a nearby village where they had left the village’s young girls to be initiated into the women’s secret society, called the Bundu society. This would be the first of a handful of chance encounters for me with the Bundu society’s initiation rites, a process so prevalent in Sierra Leone that the UN estimates that over 90% of the country’s female population has in fact been circumcised, or mutilated (depending on how emotive...or some would say accurate...you wish your argument to be), a key aspect of these rites.

I had heard a story some days before of a young girl being effectively kidnapped by members of the society and forced to go through the initiation rites because her mother did not have the money to ransom her or bail her out. The society’s “devil”, (think traditional masquerade for now and we’ll get to witchcraft in a minute), had passed through the child’s village, singing and dancing and encouraging the girls to follow it like an African pied piper until they were in the bush and away from the protection of unwilling family members. This tale seems somewhat strange, mostly because it usually costs families money to have their kids initiated. That is why these activities begin shortly after the rice harvest. What certainly does happen however is that extended family members make the necessary arrangements for a child to be initiated against the parents’ wishes - so you get stories of girls going to visit Granny for the holidays and being whisked off in to the bush.

The “devils” themselves are objects of fear and so control. “Thing fearful”, people say about both the Bundu “devil” and even more so the “devil” for the Poro society, the men’s secret society. For about a week in January the Poro Society devil could be heard marching through the village groaning and moaning fear in to the hearts of the uninitiated populace and maybe in to those of initiates as well, though I have been told that the “devil” only visits homes to which he has been invited. A great deal of the fear comes from the association that the “devils” and the societies as a whole have with witchcraft and the occult. In a culture very sensitive to all things demonic (“The Little Mermaid” is looked at with a scowl and branded an evil water spirit) it is hard to ascertain what the truth is...and they aren’t called secret societies for no reason...and though I heard one person comment that their experience in the bush had not, visibly at least, involved anything of such darkness, it seems more than likely that in amongst the time spent training girls how to cook and boys how to hunt there is also some ceremonial stuff that plays with juju and the spirit world. Whether you believe in such things or not is to a point immaterial – people here believe in them and that gives them power. The fear is real, the control and power undeniable. And of course for the girls, though I am led to believe that for the most part they are oblivious going in, there is the sceptre of circumcision.

Just after I walked through a singing Ngolala we had planned to take a team of Americans to one village where we have a church but unbeknown to us until the last minute the Poro society was beginning its initiation rites there on the same day. The team was packed in to a van and on their way when they were stopped by the women who had left the village to let their men get on with their secret business. They turned back and, after a lot of dark jokes about what might have happened had they gone to the village made by nationals at the white folks’ expense, spent their day at another village instead.

At the end of January I was at our roadside office when a parade of people passed. The procession made its way forward amidst Mende songs and dancing with the general ruckus punctuated by celebratory shrieks. Four little figures were being held high on shoulders with coloured cloths covering their faces. The girls were being brought back from the bush and amidst the kinetic frenzy of the procession only they were still. What were they thinking? Were their little bodies sore? How would they look back on this time when they were older? I have little inkling of the answers to these questions. At the time the procession passed, a number of our kids were up at the store beside the office, helping their aunties collect the weekly supply of food for their houses. They stared at their culture as it moved past them, moved without them, and again I asked myself questions I did not have answers to. It seemed like they had a sense of fearful fascination. Like when you watch a scary movie that you don’t seem quite able to turn off. But what were they really thinking? Were they relieved that that would not be a part of their lives? Did a part of them wish they could go and join the dance, to follow the pied piper?

At the beginning of March I visited Mary in her village to check up on her progress after a recent serious health problems (though not directly related to what went before), and as I walked home with a friend we made our way through Ngolala and again music could be heard long before we entered the village. This time though it was more than a few ladies singing. It was a whole village (and plenty of others from surrounding villages) celebrating and when the excitement reached a fever pitch it sounded like you were standing around the corner from a sports stadium. Everyone, including the black Bundu “devil”, was gathered at an open area in the village, circling young women with straw skirts and chalked up faces dancing to the rhythm of drums. The Bundu initiation rites were finally completed and this was the party. Young men trying to look impressive wearing American style clothes and black shades, held up branches with money skewered on the ends and called for more. Everyone cheered and clapped and sang. A party that would be remembered. I said hey to a few friends I saw here and there and smiled at but left unanswered questions of “How do you see the culture?” A lady I know and her friend drunkenly danced around my colleague and I when we started to make our way home demanding that we pay them 1000 Leones (About 20p) if we wanted to leave. Our pockets were empty so they had to dance back to the party empty handed. And so we left. The next day the party continued and the girls who had been initiated would then be dressed up in all their finery and would travel to the homes of relatives and friends. In Freetown I saw a few girls at this stage getting their pictures taken in the street. I had asked a friend if they were heading to a wedding.

Also, at this stage girls can be given in marriage to elders in a village. Significantly, she is then the elder’s financial responsibility and when she truly comes of age he will take her as his wife. I know a lady who was given to her husband when she was 12 and when he already had four other wives. She is the only one that now remains. The multiple wives means multiple children (I know one man with two wives who have given him 17 kids) and a huge financial burden which in turn leads to families being willing to give a few of the girls over to early marriage.

And so life continues in Sierra Leone. A man grunts with something like contempt curling up the sides of his smirk. “These days the boys are in and out of the bush in no time. I was there, naked, for a year!”