I Had A Very Simple, Unremarkable And

I Lay In My Bed Night After Night Staring At The Ceiling And Thinking, Why Have I Survived The War? Why Was I The Last Person In My Immediate Family To Be Alive? I Didn’t Know.

Some People Tried To Hurt Us To Protect Themselves, Their Family And Communities...this Was One Of The Consequences Of Civil War. People Stopped Trusting Each Other, And Every Stranger Became An Enemy. Even People Who Knew You Became Extremely Careful About How They Related Or Spoke To You.

I Grew Up In Sierra Leone, In A Small Village Where As A Boy My Imagination Was Sparked By The Oral Tradition Of Storytelling. At A Very Young Age I Learned The Importance Of Telling Stories - I Saw That Stories Are The Most Potent Way Of Seeing Anything We Encounter In Our Lives, And How We Can Deal With Living.

For Many Observers, A Child Who Has Known Nothing But War, A Child For Whom The Kalashnikov Is The Only Way To Make A Living And For Whom The Bush Is The Most Welcoming Community, Is A Child Lost Forever For Peace And Development. I Contest This View. For The Sake Of These Children, It Is Essential To Prove That Another Life Is Possible.

One Of The Unsettling Things About My Journey, Mentally, Physically, And Emotionally, Was That I Wasn’t Sure When Or Where It Was Going To End.