Welcome guys to the Behind the Shield podcast.
My name is James Geering and this is episode
88 and I am so excited to bring you my next guest.
Imagine if you will that you are a young boy.
You grew up for your first 10 years or so, innocent,
playing, dancing, listening to music, and then
one day a civil war erupts in your country. Your
family are killed. And you are captured by one
of the guerrilla groups and forced to be a boy
soldier. The alternative is death. You're fed
drugs. You're deconditioned by having to kill
other people. And that's all you know for a few
years. And then one day you are rescued by someone
from the West and then have to undo all that
trauma that you've been through. Well, that is
Ishmael's story in a nutshell. When I read his
book, I was blown away. It recalibrated everything
in my life. It changed the way I raised my son.
And it certainly changed the way when I woke
up, whether I thought I was having a good day
or not. If there's a roof over my head, if there's
food in my stomach and my family's, if no one's
trying to kill us that day, then we're doing
pretty bloody well. So I wanted to bring Ishmael's
story to you guys because every single human
needs to hear this story to learn what... true
true forgiveness is what true kindness and compassion
are and then obviously what he's doing with this
journey he's been through to avoid that happening
or try and stop that happening for the young
men and women that are out there around the planet
that are still being forced into war by these
horrible people so Before I bring you Ishmael,
as I always say, please go to iTunes, rate the
show, and please share the hell out of this.
The links are going to be all over social media.
Just click it and share it. Put it on your feed
and get every single person you can listening
to this story and obviously then the other incredible
people that we have on the show. But to me, if
you listen to this incredible journey that he
went through. and are not so moved and then look
at your whole life a little differently, then
I'm going to be amazed. So that being said, I
introduce to you Ishmael Beyer. Enjoy. So Ishmael,
thank you so much for joining us on the Behind
the Shield podcast. I have loved your work and
we'll go into that in a little while. But excuse
me, excuse me, I'm choking on a cookie. I can't
believe that I was reading your book all those
years ago and now here we are and we're having
this conversation. So firstly, thank you. And
secondly, where are we finding you on planet
Earth today? Thank you, James. I'm actually in
Abuja, which is the capital of Nigeria. So, I
mean, I'm in West Africa. So that's where I am
at the moment. Okay. So if it's okay with you,
I'd love to just start at the very, very beginning.
So can you tell me where you were born and also
what your family was like? So what your mother
and father did as a profession and how many brothers
and sisters you had? I was born in Sierra Leone
in West Africa. It's a very small country there.
And I was born in the southern part of Israel.
I was in a very small village. And my mother
was a businesswoman. She did sort of small trade.
You know, she would sell fish and pepper and
salt and those kinds of everyday goods. And my
father was... He went to school for a little
bit, maybe a first year of university, and then
stopped because he couldn't afford it. And then
he worked for a mining company that was in the
country as a, what do you call it? He did a lot
of soil sample testing, so as a geologist. Oh,
okay. He did that for a company, yeah. So that
was his background. And I was the second born
in a family of three boys, so I had an older
brother and a younger sibling. Okay. Now, what
was, because obviously we're going to go into
this incredible story of, you know, sadly how
Sierra Leone changed while you were young. But
can you paint a picture of what life was like
before the Civil War broke out? Before the Civil
War broke out, life was very simple and beautiful
and amazing. I mean, it was what I knew, but
also in retrospect, I see. how simple and very
community -oriented it was. I grew up in a place
where everyone knew your great -grandfather.
So as a young boy, I was very troublesome. That
was not very good for me because I couldn't get
away with a lot of things. But I went. There
was a river that fed into an ocean, so I would
go swimming in the river. We'd dive and look
for oysters and spearfish. I went hunting with
my uncles. My grandfather was an imam, so he
was an Arabic scholar, so I studied under him
for a little bit. And I also played football
or soccer for North America. So I would play
football every day and I would go swimming. I
took showers in the river and I would go home.
We didn't have electricity or tap water or any
of these things, but it was not really an issue
at the time. I didn't think it was something
that I was missing because that wasn't my life.
So it was very beautiful and simple, you know,
and I basically ran around all day causing trouble.
Was it a small village or a large town? What
was the size of the place? As I was growing up,
it was a small village where there were maybe
about 200, 300 people. But then as time went
on, because it was a mining company nearby, the
village became a small town, which meant that
there were people that you didn't necessarily
know. So it grew bigger as I was growing up and
so things changed. But initially when I was very
young, when I was six, seven, it was very, very
small. Okay. The reason I ask is I've had a guest
on called Sebastian Junger who talks about the
tribal mentality or how as humans we're supposed
to be in these groups of smaller tribes. And
then as cities expand, obviously we lose an element
of that. So it's interesting. Talking to someone
that was in a village of about 200, did you find
it was things were better while the tribe was
smaller, the village was smaller? Yes, actually,
I believe Sebastian is correct in this assumption,
which is that, you know, the idea of tribe has
kind of gained a negative connotation over the
years. When people think tribe, they think it's
very much like, you know, this bad thing. I think
what, for me, what was amazing about it was that
there was a strong sense of community. There
was a belief that, yes, there's an individual,
that people are individuals, they can do their
own thing, but there was a very strong belief
also that the individual needs were never going
to supersede that of the community when it came
to really important issues, right? That everybody
would sit down and discuss. I remember as a kid,
for example, I'll give you two examples. One
was, if somebody wronged somebody, for example,
you know there was a fight or whatever the issue
was or you know somebody slept with another person's
wife or somebody robbed somebody uh basically
the entire village sat down with the elders in
the middle of the circle uh men and women and
they listened to both parties of the story and
somebody would say this person did this to me
and this is what it did to me and my family and
the other person will explain why they did it
and but as young boys and girls you sat down
and you listened And then the witnesses came
and they said everything. And then basically
the community then sat together and decided who
was wrong based on what they've heard and also
what the punishment would be. And the punishment
was not punitive at all. It was very restorative.
For example, the punishment would be you're going
to spend one week with this person to brush their
farm. From an outsider, it would look like this
is not good. But what this did is that when you
went to brush somebody's farm with them, you
spent six, seven hours of the day with them,
laboring. and you ate together, they brought
you food, you drank from the same cup or gourd
of water. So eventually the two of you are going
to talk about what has happened between yourselves
without the village intervention. And you're
going to sort it out. After one week together,
you're going to find a way to deal. So people
will come back to the village having decided
however they wanted to patch up things, and that
will be the end of it. The other part is that
if somebody had been given land, the town distributed
land. to build houses based on how big your family
was and what your need was for land to build
home a home and then the entire village would
pitch in so the carpenters would be around uh
the masoners would be around the little boys
would go like me will go fetch uh water or sand
or stone and basically the village will pitch
in day after day until the new neighbor's house
was finished And then it became everywhere. You
understand? So that was the kind of life that
I grew up in, you know, where it was very much
everybody cared for each other deeply and everybody
had a stake in things, you know. And when, of
course, my village became a town, that was less
and less. And therefore, people would turn another
eye when somebody was being robbed or harassed
next to them. They would say, well, it's not
my business. I don't know this person, you know.
And that changed, you know. It's amazing looking,
you know, at the less developed areas of the
world. And here we are now, you know, and not
everyone, but a lot of us now are so, so wealthy,
you know, as far as material items and creature
comforts. But we're just searching for this happiness.
And you look at, you know, the villages in Asia,
in Africa, you know, the Native Americans before
we got here. And the model was already there
and it seemed to be working very well. And obviously,
you know, there was still violence and tribal
conflict, but that model of the community seems
to be the one that we need to, you know, to look
backwards instead of thinking we've always got
to progress and look and learn from these tribes
that have existed for thousands and thousands
and thousands of years and say, all right, maybe
they were right and we went a little bit too
far. Yeah, you know, I think that, you know,
obviously, I think development and modernization
is not completely a bad thing. You know, there
are certain things. They, you know, have lived
in the West for a number of years. So there are
certain things that people could benefit from
in these environments. But, you know, I think
as we develop in the concept of modernism is
that we forget to be human, to reflect, you know,
forget to build our characteristics. We're after
the material things so much that perhaps we forget.
I don't want to use a religious term, but maybe
like a spiritual. We forget our own spiritual
growth, you know, our growth as human beings
in terms of character, you know. And we forget
those things. And I think in big urban environments,
we quickly forget that human closeness that had
allowed humanity to constantly survive and overcome.
If you look at history, the times that human
beings have been able to get over things is when
we come together, right? When something happens
to us. And we decide to come together as a group,
as a community, as a neighborhood, and stand
up against something or try to fix something.
Then it works. I remember I used to live in New
York, perhaps I'm fast -forwarding, but at some
point there was a whole power cut on the eastern
seaboard a few summers. And everybody came out
and sat on the street and shared their food and
talked to each other. And it felt so amazing,
but yet the lights were off. You couldn't really
see each other, but people were so human. And
as soon as the lights came back on, everybody
went back into their apartments. They stopped
saying hello to each other again. It was like,
all right. It wasn't as a little test that, you
know, we can still have these lights on and we
can have those amazing things that makes us comfortable,
but we don't need to forget to acknowledge each
other's humanity. Once we start to do that, we
lose something, you know, we gain something,
modernization and individuality, but we also
lose certain connections, you know? Yeah, and
that's what he talks about. I mean, a lot of
the examples that he had used were... London
in the bombing of World War II or after 9 -11
in New York, where they were seeing the sense
of community. And just like you said, when the
dust settled, everyone kind of went back to losing
the very thing that pulled them together. Yep,
absolutely. All right. Well, so you're obviously
having this early childhood in your village.
You're seeing growth in the town. Now, what was
the resource that they were mining that expanded?
Well, in this part of, in the southern part,
we had a lot of mineral that's called rutile.
We also had bauxite, iron ore, some diamonds.
So you had, there's American Australian company
that was there. and there was a german company
in the next town so there are a lot of you know
foreign foreigners in the area but mostly men
you know white men who were working for these
companies and so basically those are the minerals
that they were extracting from the area and of
course this brought about its own thing even
before the war started this started to change
the town that I grew up in, the village that
became a town. For example, the water sources
were a little bit polluted with mining because
the particular kind of mining they were doing,
they had to create these artificial dams to flood
some of the areas so that they can dig what they
wanted to dig. And so some of these waters then
went into the natural waters that we had and
polluted them. And then we needed pump water,
which was not available. difficulties began uh
in that sense yeah yeah oh god it's just it's
it's gut -wrenching to think of you know what's
what the the impact is of some of these industries
to the people around even whatever wherever they
are on the planet yes absolutely i mean the thing
is these these minerals you know they serve certain
things and obviously they can be extracted um
and there's a benefit to the community i think
everybody's for that you know i think but it's
when there is none and then when also it creates
these issues that are not remedied you know for
example you know we're a very subsistence farming
community where we grew rice we grew cassava
we grew the things we needed and we sold them
to to to to get money to buy other things we
couldn't produce like salt and whatnot and so
but when they destroy the land And there was
no longer arable land for farming. Obviously,
people either left or went to the capital city
or tried to find a job within the company itself.
And so things changed. And then this meant that
they now had to rely upon other sources of food
that their bodies were probably not used to digesting.
And that came with other issues. Yeah, and that's
something obviously we see here in the West where
we have food -like products a lot of times and
not real food. So one of my favorite sayings
I've heard people say about America, for example,
is that we're overfed but malnourished. Yeah,
absolutely. All right, so what were the first
signs that you saw through your actual own eyes
as a young boy that there were rumblings of some
sort of conflict about to begin? Well, the very
earliest memory I remember, I think I must have
been nine years old, and I remember my father.
waking me up very late at night, which was the
first time he'd done that, and telling me to
take this bag and that bag and come with me.
And I was a little bit confused because, you
know, I was still trying to wake up. And then
I asked him, well, what are we doing? And then
he said, just follow me and be hush, be quiet
about it. So I went and I saw other young boys
who were my age with their fathers. And we basically
walked out of town and went deep into the forest.
And when we arrived there, there was this clear
and open area, and there were all these traders
that usually would sell things in town. They
were all there selling different products that,
you know, they are normally sold in their shops.
And so my father and all the family people were
buying and putting them in bags, and I carried
them back, and we returned before morning. And
so I asked my father, what is this? And he says,
oh, there's price control. And I didn't really
quite understand what that was until the next
morning when basically you had a lot of, you
know, sort of a new police that had been formed
that showed up wearing trench coats. And they
had Israeli Uzis under them. And they basically
would come to a shop and they would put a trader
on the gunpoint and they would decide what the
price of commodities in that shop was for that
day. And what had happened was that the government,
which I later learned, was that the government
that was in power at the time, the APC, had basically
decided to do what was called price control because
they felt the prices of goods were going up.
So instead of subsidizing the market or whatever,
they just decided to hire a military that came
and basically put the price down. So that was
my first, I guess, introduction to... what was
going on in the country and what was changing
because i've never seen that and as that year
continued i began to not have certain amount
of food that i used to eat because there was
scarcity and getting things and that's when i
began to understand that but it was years later
that the war started but i've always remembered
those moments as probably that's when things
were really beginning to uh to fall apart you
know if i was as a child at nine i was beginning
to see those kind of signs it meant that that
thoughts have probably been I've seen audits
that I wasn't necessarily paying attention to
because I was a kid. How did that price control
pay out? Did it work like they hoped it had?
No, it didn't. I mean, I was a kid, nine years
old, but I thought to myself, you know, I'm not
an economist or anything, but I don't think that
works. That's not how you change. I didn't know
the solutions, but I just thought it wasn't going
to work because you can just come and tell people,
ah, I don't care how much you bought your product.
You have to sell it at this price now, you know?
I'm sorry, I was going to say it seems to me
like it would just destroy the shops eventually
because they were undercutting and not able to
make a profit and then the food would go away.
Absolutely. So that's why the shops closed down.
So everybody closed down their shops and they
were not around during the day. And so if you
wanted to buy, you went to meet them where you
could buy at the right price. And it was just,
it was unfortunate. I thought to myself, well,
that cannot work. But somehow, whoever was in
power felt that this was the policy. I mean,
the resources that went into training a few of
these guys and buying them Israeli Uzi's and
trench coats in the hot weather, you know. Something
that could have been done with all that money.
But anyway. Well, it sounds like the same philosophy
applies all over the world with the leaders,
though. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, so that was your
first glimpse. So if you wouldn't mind kind of
walking us through what the next few years were
like until that got awful day where your whole
life changed. Well, the next few years, basically,
things progressively got worse. There was more
and more scarcity of food, and then the teachers
were not getting paid. So a lot of teachers stopped
coming to school to teach. Some schools began
to collapse because school materials and government
support was not coming anymore. And then hospitals
started to close down. And it was basically the
country began to fall apart. And then we began
to see people coming from the eastern part of
my country towards the south, running for their
lives. They were carrying a few bags and their
children. And they looked very disturbed from
their faces. These are not faces that we used
to see. And we asked them what had happened.
And they said, well, a war had started in the
country. And there were people destroying their
homes. And soldiers were fighting this group
called the RUF, the Revolutionary United Front,
that was going to overthrow the country. And
they started burning their homes and taking their
children and throwing them into the fighting.
I didn't believe what they were saying. In fact,
I think a few people in my community thought
people were exaggerating a lot of these things
because this is not the community we grew up
in. You know, this is not to say we never seen
fights and things like that, but not this level,
never seen war or anything like that. So we did
not believe it until... Maybe a year after that
The world began to come closer and closer So
you began to see people you knew from the next
village actually coming through a village running
So you began to worry a little bit that that
can be wrong, you know But one one day my older
brother my older brother was into American hip
-hop music because of the mining company And
so he taught me how to dance to do the running
man You know, we had our hair done like the MC
Hammer old school style and all that stuff. My
father did not like any of this at all. He was
very upset. So we would participate in these
talent shows that were put around, you know,
with similar kids doing all of these things.
Vanilla eyes moves and all this stuff. So anyway,
we had gone to a talent show in another town
called Matrujong. And while we were there, my
town was attacked. And so my older brother and
this other friend who were with Taloi decided
to go back. So we crossed the river and started
walking. And there were a huge number of people
coming against us, were going against this tide
of a lot of people. And so there were boys younger
than me. At this time, I was 12. There were boys
younger than me who were running, looking for
their parents. You know, there are people, you
know, sort of, you know, blood on different parts
of their bodies, people carrying children who
looked shot. And so we continued walking, and
we just couldn't believe that this had actually
reached us, what we'd been hearing about. So
we stopped at a village called Kabati, which
is my grandmother's village that I used to walk
to from Ogimu. And while we were sitting there,
just trying to decide what are we going to do.
We saw two things that, for me, really brought
everything home. I began to realize that my life
had changed, that I was not going to go back
to what it had been. It was that first we saw
this older man who was carrying his son, and
in his arms he was holding the boy, and the boy
had been shot, and he was dead, but nobody wanted
to tell him because he thought the boy was still
alive, and I guess that... was what was keeping
him running from the war. So nobody wanted to
tell him so that he would stop and lose hope
and probably get compromised. So everybody just
urged him on and he just continued running. But
I'd never seen a man in my community, I'd never
seen a man, a grown man, cry so hopelessly and
helplessly, you know. And so that really tormented
me for a bit. And then the next image that I
saw was this woman, you know, back in my part
of the world. uh women have this thing they call
waistcloth so they tie their children around
their back with it so that their hands will be
free to do other things and so there was this
woman who had been running with a with a child
tied behind her back and she had been running
and she stopped at where we were watching these
people coming and she was wanted to rest and
she sat down under this mango tree and removed
her child and it was a girl and this child had
been killed as she had she was running and you
could see the blood and the bullet hole, and
you could see how the trail of blood had followed
her. And basically, the only reason why she was
alive was because she carried this baby on her
back. But you can imagine just the confusion
of a mother realizing that she's alive because
her baby had been shot. She had carried her baby
on her back. And I remember just this interrupted,
innocent smile on the face of this child, but
also this mother. There was so much pain in her
face that she could not even cry. She was completely
in shock. And so looking at these images, I thought
to myself, wow, okay, this is gone. This is really
gone. If that child could be shot, then who was
stopping anybody from shooting any other person?
So from that day on, I knew my life had changed.
And of course, we decided not to continue running
toward where everybody else was running away
from. And we went back to Matrujong. And basically,
I started running from the war from that day
on. Okay, so I just want to kind of... underline
your life before so before you were a young boy
you were playing football you were listening
to hip -hop when you had this influence you were
going to talent competitions that sounds the
same as any other neighborhood pretty much around
the world and then almost overnight you're seeing
all these people fleeing and not just you know
soldiers with battle wounds but obviously clear
signs of some sort of genocide beginning Yes,
absolutely. And so from that, you know, from
that day on, you know, besides being a boy who
loved hip hop, I also went to school, Sierra
Leone being a former British colony. We had,
you know, I love Shakespeare. I used to recite
lines from Shakespeare. And I was actually thinking
I wanted to be an economist and all this stuff.
So all of that was no longer possible because
everything was collapsing. So I basically began
running from war from that day on. So between
12 and 13, constantly, every day I was running
for my life. I was learning things that I never
knew I would learn. For example, just how to
survive, you know, how to avoid being shot, how
to – towns were ambushed randomly, you know,
and you had to run into the bush and try to sleep
there. So people abandoned towns, which I did,
and you went and slept in the bush because if
you slept in your house, it could be attacked
at night by the rebels or even the government
army, and they would basically shoot up everybody.
and sometimes they will lock people literally
they'll put padlocks on doors and they will set
houses on fire and burn you in there completely
so to avoid that you had to leave town at night
and go sleep in the bushes and then you come
back during the day to see if the town was still
standing if they hadn't burned it and to look
for food and then go back you know So this basically
became a constant. And prior to this, I had not
really left my part of the country. So it wasn't
as if I knew that if I ran this way, I would
be safe or I would be heading towards the capital
city. I had no idea. It was because of the war
that I started the movement. So I just basically
ran away from the gunshots. If there was fighting
in this direction, I ran the other way. And if
there was fighting in the other direction, I
ran the other way. So basically everybody was
being knocked around by whichever. side of you
know of them that they were hearing the war and
the gunshots and along the way also we lost people
you know like you know you know i'd seen people
buried before but i never seen somebody shot
and killed or died because of hunger and these
things were happening as we were running Some
friends of mine died on the way. They were shot
or maybe they ate something and they were poisoned.
And we buried them and we took their clothes
off or we took their shoes off, things that were
useful to us, and just continued on. And we tried
not to think about them because that would weaken
your resolve from continuing on. So these things
that as a child, I was 12 years old, at 12 you
don't really have, your parents don't sit you
down and teach you these kinds of things, you
know. They would hope that you don't, you know.
So you're sort of basically learning. And I was
separated from everybody. So, you know, people
had been separated from each other. So I was
basically constantly running with other kids
I would find. And then I would lose some of them
and would continue finding other ones. My goodness.
So the group that you were originally with for
the talent contest, you lost them. And now you
were literally going from group to group to group
as you fled the conflict. Yes, exactly. So I
was separated from my older brother and then
from this other friend, Taloi. And then I found
a group of other kids that I'd been to school
with, to primary school with, and I knew them.
So we got together, about six, seven of us, seven
of us actually. So we continued running. And
with this group of kids, we lost different, you
know, we picked some people along the way. But
it was also what kept us alive around that time
was this desire that we'd be able to find our
families, you know. So we looked for them, and
that was the motivation. So every day we would.
talk to people, did you see, have you seen this
family member of mine or that uncle of mine or
my father or my mother? And people would say,
well, I think I saw them running towards that
village in that direction or go towards that
direction. And they were not there because people
kept moving, you know. So basically this is what
was keeping me alive at least and some of the
friends also that I was with because we're all
from the same town. So we ran, but while we were
running, the nature of the war changed. In the
beginning, There were adults fighting, and there
was word around that they were recruiting children,
but it wasn't really as strong. But then that
became really sort of the norm of the war, where
one of the ways they would recruit children was
that they would attack a town, and they would
gather all the young people, boys and girls,
and they would put weapons in their hands, and
they would line up their grandparents, their
fathers, their mothers, and they would basically
have the children shoot them. And so those children
would not return to their communities anymore
because of that. So they belonged to this group.
So it was a very deliberate way of, you know.
And some of the adults who have survived these
experiences, when they saw young boys and young
girls like myself running from the war, they
no longer trusted your innocence. They thought
you were part of that group or maybe you were
spying on when to attack the town. So people
distrusted your innocence. If you can imagine,
you're 12, 13, running from war. And if you're
more than one or two in a group, people either
ran away from you. Or if they couldn't, sometimes
they attacked us and tried to kill us. So you
imagine as a kid running, running from madness,
looking for a family, and you become this threat,
you know, to people. So that meant we bypassed
a lot of towns and villages, which meant that
we couldn't have access to food. So we started
to go through severe hunger. And it was just
an awful situation, you know. And the whole time
we're trying to look for our families and, you
know, that didn't happen, you know. Now, what
was... you went from this this peaceful you know
life in the village what was the motivation of
these these guerrillas coming through you know
attacking these villages to be so to deliberate
i mean i can understand if they were being shot
at and they were they were shooting back but
to be too deliberate to go by village to village
to village to the point of locking you guys in
a house and setting fire to it what was the the
underlying reason for that genocide Well, I mean,
the idea is that as most places in the world,
wars usually starts with some sort of ideology,
right? But it's very hard to keep an ideology
going, you know? And so the RUF, the Revolutionary
United Front, really started because they wanted
to get rid of this political party that had been
in power for 20 -something years and they basically
destroyed the country. And although that was
needed, when the RUF started, they had lost their
intellectual branch of the movement. So it was
the military branch that jump -started the war,
and they didn't know how to keep their ideology
alive. They felt if they came to any town and
said, we're fighting against the government,
people would just embrace them. But when they
came to a town, they shot weapons in the air,
and they attacked the army, and during those
fights, people died. So people tried to run for
their lives, and they felt people were running
away from them. So slowly, they started to get
very upset. But also, other people saw this as
an opportunity to use them, because there are
a lot of natural resources in the areas they
were roaming around. so they armed them to cause
chaos so that they can just have access to the
diamond wells and all this stuff so there's a
lot of things that were going on at the same
time also they needed to recruit people so and
people were not being willingly coming to be
recruited so they started to force people to
the course um and basically the war got out of
hand and so the the military also lost its its
um it's a command structure you know So if you
are not in the capital city or one of the big
towns, the military basically was left on the
countryside to fend for itself. So a few of the
commanders thought, hey, why don't we benefit
from the war as well? So then different groups
started to spring up, doing their own thing on
the side. So at some point, it got really confusing.
Were they really rebels or were they soldiers?
So basically, it got really confusing. People
were just trying to fend for their lives. And
violence became the order of the day, basically.
they come through a town they will loot everything
they will you know shoot up banks blow up vaults
take all the money they will go to shops and
take clothes and whatnot you know so basically
if you had weapons you're part of a group you
survived if not you became a prey to whatever
that group that came through that town wanted
to do so that that was the nature of it and also
i think why this war in my opinion why this war
became really violent Well, for several force,
you know. For a number of years, the majority
of the people in the country had no sort of power
at all. None. It felt left out. And all of a
sudden, if you joined a little group, you were
a sub -commander of a group, you had this incredible
power, right? So you felt, wow, I can do anything
and nobody can, nothing can come of it, you know.
And so I think it got to some people a little
bit. Right. I think a little bit is an understatement
from what you went through. Yeah, it is an understatement,
certainly. It got to a lot of people a lot. And
also, you know, to maintain the chaos, you know,
we had more arms and ammunition than anything
else in the country at some point. So obviously
that explains what then happens, you know. Yeah,
a lot of traumatized people, a lot of people
who are not professional soldiers who don't really
know what to do with it. So basically they used
it to get. Whatever limited resources were available.
So you can a big fight even for for that right
now That's a good question. Where where were
the weapons coming from? All they're coming from
from everywhere. Remember, you know when I came
out of the war I remember I was University in
the United States and I was studying No political
science and there was a huge discussion in my
classroom about Yeah, where are these weapons
that fear the civil wars that are coming from
China? China was there. And I was just sitting
in the classroom and I was smiling because nobody
knew about my background. And I probably was
the only person in the room that actually, not
based on research, I've actually been in the
field and seen where these weapons were coming
from. Obviously, I had no way of telling anybody.
That meant I had to talk about myself. So I just
laughed. you know yes the weapons do come from
china uh the weapons also come from the cold
war and soviet union and things like that the
weapons also do come from israel the weapons
come from the united states the weapons come
from germany uh they come from everywhere basically
everybody's selling weapons into these wars you
know um so we had m16s we had uh g4s we had um
AK -47s of different brands, machine guns, Israeli
Uzis, you name it. Everything was there because
it was an open market. The border was porous.
So anybody who could bring in arms and ammunition,
you would get hard -cut diamonds and take them
out in boxes. So basically people were making
tremendous profit. So they came from all over
the world. And we had mercenary groups coming
to help fight with this group or that group.
So it was basically everybody wanted to... have
a piece of the pie so weapons were coming from
everywhere and everybody was willing to sell
them um and that's the nature of what feel these
sorts of things even more so um and because really
we don't really produce weapons we don't even
not even partly we don't even assemble them and
all of a sudden there was so much it was easier
at the time during the war in syria it was easier
to to buy an ak -47 than to buy chicken or to
buy a bag of rice You could easily find NK -47
around the corner. In fact, you don't even have
to find one. If you went in the forest, went
around, you probably would see a few dead soldiers
and you pick up a few rifles from their bodies,
you know, some ammunition, and you basically
can defend yourself if you know how to shoot
properly. So that's basically what became. So
now if you do the math, you realize that, you
know, there are people definitely bringing it
in through Liberia and also landing at our airport.
and then leaving nobody knowing whether they
were in the country or not. So they were coming
from everywhere. Yeah, yeah. I just want to highlight
that. I think it's disgusting. There was that
whole blood diamond kind of catchphrase keyword
thing a while ago, but I mean, here we are having
this conversation and you are someone whose family
was literally killed and the form of payment
for those weapons were the diamonds that I'm
sure people around this country are wearing.
Absolutely. A lot of people will say, well, it's
business. But yes, I always say to those people,
yeah, you can still do business and make profit
out of it. It doesn't have to cost human life
to that extent. Yeah, exactly. You can give weapons
to armies if they are defending their people
or they are protecting people. I can see that.
But when you go into a place where there's literally
genocide going on and you decide to arm everybody
who's part of that genocide and think it's just
business. I don't really think so, you know?
Yeah, I agree 100%. I think it's disgusting.
All right. Well, I want to move on to that then.
So, you know, you were fleeing and just the courage
and the strength that you and all the other boys
and girls must have had to get through that and
to clothe yourselves and feed yourself and find
water that wasn't poisoned and, you know, all
these other challenges that you must have had
as well as obviously trying not to get killed
at the same time. It just absolutely baffles
me. But I know obviously a big part of the book
is that you do get captured at one point. So
can you tell me about that awful day and then
the weeks following that? Well, as we had been
running from this war, what kept us alive was
this desire to find our families. And we ended
up finding out that the group that I was with.
and that our families were in one village and
everybody had managed to get there it was a safe
village and we were very excited so we started
going for it using our last bit of strength to
get there closer to the village we saw we heard
gunshots and you know people were shooting in
the air we weren't sure whether it was an attack
or what it was and we waited and hid in the bushes
and when it was over we saw this massive fire
so basically the whole place was being set on
fire uh and we decided to go because we knew
what that meant at this point where survived
so many what meant that whatever had happened
had concluded and they had left wherever they
were um so we entered the village and basically
everybody had been killed in the village some
people had been thrown in the fire people had
been lined up and and shot basically at the back
of their head so basically they killed everybody
in the town and this was the place where my family
was so i went from one day uh hoping and to getting
caught in in touch with my family and find them
again and continue running from them from the
war to find them all have been killed in this
village including all the some of the friends
that i was with their families you know they
turn bodies around you see people And basically,
you know, I froze, basically, like I stopped
functioning, I think, emotionally. It was so
shocking. And even my feet, I couldn't move for
quite a bit, basically. And I was very angry
because I felt that it was because we had slowed
down, we didn't make it in time. At this point,
I had come to really accept the fact that if
at least I had entered the village earlier, even
if I had been killed there, along with my family,
that would have been... a better option because
the pain was just so severe to bear you know
and some of the kids that i was with i don't
know where they found the strength um decided
that we should move just in case some of these
people who had done this dummy decided to return
we shouldn't be there you know and there was
nothing we could do so we left and basically
i was in a daze like i i couldn't believe that
i'd fallen into this kind of hell And so they
basically pushed me along the way. And then we
went to a military base at this point thinking,
you know, these guys said they were Sierra Leone
military. If we went there, we'd be safe. We
had nothing anymore. We knew we couldn't go back
home anymore. We didn't have any more families.
So we went to this village in Fulia. It's a place
called Fulia. And basically in this village,
it was basically where lots of other young people
had made similar decisions and what lost family
had come there. And it was the... the Sierra
Leone army that was there. We didn't know at
the time that it was a part of the army that
had broken from the central command. They were
basically doing whatever they wanted. So we stayed
in the village and we helped out to cook, pot
vegetables, fetch water for the soldiers. And
so basically we thought, okay, maybe this is
where we'll stay because we're safe for now.
But that changed. very shortly. They basically
gave the ultimatum, you know, if you lived in
this village and you were able -bodied, that
you needed to be trained to fight, otherwise
you had to leave. But that was not an option,
actually. It seemed like an option. If you decided
to leave, which they showed a lot of examples
of, if you decided to leave, they would basically
shoot you. and then they would bring the body
back in town to shoot, and then they would tell
people, you see, this is what happened when you
tried to leave. There are other guys over there
trying to kill everybody. But everybody knew
that wasn't the case. So basically you couldn't
leave. So at this point I was 13, and, you know,
basically they decided to train us. There were
other kids who were younger than me. They decided
to train us to be soldiers. We didn't believe
that they were really doing that because we were
so small. What possibly were we going to be able
to do? But they knew exactly what they were doing.
I mean, we didn't receive massive training, as
in soldiers who trained for years. We were training
in the middle of war, so you knew you were going
to fight very shortly. About a week of training,
which was not much training, we basically knew
how to shoot a basic weapon and how to change
the magazine, how to clean it a little bit and
to put it back together. and then how to adhere
to certain commands, how to make an ambush. And
then basically we went to war after that. And
so basically everything you've learned, you went
to test it out, and some people did not come
back. So basically that was how my life became
a kid running from this madness, from this war
that I'd seen, now to being part of it, really.
In the book you're talking about how the tactics
they use to desensitize the kids as well. Yes,
in the beginning, first there was coercion, right?
They made you stay. And then there was a lot
of rhetoric about revenge. And this worked for
everybody because everybody was there had lost
their family. So they say, you know, if you're
part of this group, we'll find those guys and
make them pay. And also make sure that this doesn't
happen to other children like you. Everybody
adhered to that. Everybody thought, okay, this
is a good reason. Of course, we wanted some justice.
And then there was also... this sort of, they
gave you a little bit of drugs, you know, amphetamines
here and there. We watched Rambo films, Commando
films, so people got into this world of who this
violence was, how sensational things were. And
basically they also made you visualize things,
you know. They would explain different ways how
people's families had been mutilated, and then
they made you visualize. uh somebody who was
responsible for it and kill them so basically
they brought prisoners that were alive when they
caught them during war and it wasn't for to hold
them or anything it was basically for practice
so they will give you a bayonet and they will
say i will kill this prisoner and they'll put
images in your head this is what they did to
your family and then you basically so there was
this game where that we played uh whoever could
kill somebody very quickly with a bayonet without
shooting them but you can do it quickly and of
course the commanders will do a demonstration,
and then everybody will be lined up, and then
we'll have to do these things, you know. And
you'll be surprised how quickly you get adjusted
to a given situation as a child. You know, this
became our world. We realized very quickly if
you wanted to survive in it, you had to embrace
it fully. There was no other option. Otherwise,
you would die just emotionally, you know. So
I adjusted very quickly because I knew this was
the only way to live because I had nowhere to
go. And the Army slowly became our family, you
know. It became our new family. We fought for
each other. The kids were part of it. We wanted
to keep each other alive. And I remember the
first day I went to war, you know, I really,
the whole time I was thinking to myself, I don't
believe this is possible. But there we were,
in ambush, and we saw other people who looked
just like us. Kids and adults. started people
started to exchange fire i couldn't shoot for
a while but then everybody was laying next to
me was being shot and killed and their blood
was all over the place where you know i started
shooting realizing that you know if i don't shoot
i'm going to end up like them basically i was
the the end of my childhood in many ways you
know yeah and again this what you've just said
resonates the same way as you hear a lot of soldiers
from different conflicts that i've had on here
where the reasons left back in wherever they
were made as far as why the war was starting.
But by that point, it's preservation. You've
got this army ahead of you that's trying to kill
you, and you're basically trying to kill them.
So it doesn't matter what the initial reason
was for the men and women on the front line there.
You only have one choice, which is to try and
protect yourself and make it through whatever
conflict you're in. Absolutely. It's either kill
or be killed. I think that's what people don't
understand about war. You know, like people who
haven't been in that situation, they always think
that you can make these moral and ethical choices
while you're standing there, right? Somebody
else is shooting at you. You cannot say, hey,
you know, I'm a really nice guy from California.
Let's talk about it, brother. I'm a hippie, you
know. That's not going to work. That's not going
to work, you know. If you want to get back home,
that's not going to work. You know what I mean?
So you basically have to shoot. So in war, you
know, you can't. discuss that sort of humanity
there's very little space for it you know if
any at all if any at all you know and you know
and if you want to come back to your family you
know they always upset you know when i started
living in the united states you know and i'd
come from this world most people didn't know
and i went to certain very liberal arts schools
you know with a lot of very privileged um american
kids and you know granted that's good to be privileged
But what was really upsetting to me all the time
is how sometimes when there was a war, for example,
in Afghanistan and things like that, and soldiers
would come back and how people would shout at
them and throw things at them. And I always said
to my friends, you don't know what's going on.
This soldier didn't make that policy. If he went
to fight and he wanted to come back to his family,
he had to do what he needed to do. There was
nothing he could do about it. He's not going
to go and represent your moral and ethical cause
in the United States when somebody's shooting
at him. He can't make that decision. The decision
has already been made for when he's there out
on the field. And for you to function in a battlefield,
you have to reach that point where you dehumanize
other people. Otherwise, you can't live. And
so I always try to explain to some friends who
didn't know my background at the time, and they
looked at me like I was this strange. And I don't
know, don't protest against the soldiers. If
you have to protest, protest against something
else, not against the person who's there. But
it comes from a lack of understanding, you know,
of what's going on in these places. Yeah, exactly.
And that's such an amazing insight that you have.
But there's so many parallels, whether it's you,
which was such an extreme example. You didn't
go to a recruitment office and sign up. You know,
there you are. Your whole family was murdered.
You're put on drugs. You're forced to, you know,
forced to kill. You're given these images of
revenge. I mean, like you said, everything that
you had when we were talking in the beginning,
your entire life is basically dust now. You know,
it disappeared and all you had was your own survival.
Absolutely. And you've got this opposing force
trying to take that very last thing you have,
which is your life. So to question that, I mean,
you, of course, question it, but to not be able
to understand. you know, why you were doing what
you were doing at the time is, you know, is,
is, uh, you have to comprehend the backstory
to really understand, you know, why the boy soldiers
of either side were there and doing what they
were doing. Absolutely. You know, I mean, I think,
you know, as you said, when people don't understand
the context of it, maybe it's easy to judge,
you know, and to think that people just embrace
violence. Nobody wakes up one day and just decide.
to just embrace violence. I mean, maybe there
are a few people who are just evil like that,
but on that massive scale in a country where
most young people were soldiers, I don't think
they all woke up one morning and said, you know
what, we should all just be soldiers and mess
things up. Yeah, exactly. There are things that
led to it. And often when you come out, sometimes
people don't understand that, but also I understand
the other side of it, particularly in my country.
You know, people who had suffered at the hands
of some of what we have done at the time were
so angry. They didn't have the capacity to see
beyond, you know, what we were, you know, to
see the context of what our lives were. So I
understand that hurt as well. That hurt had been
manipulated when I had one and I embraced the
violence fully. So I knew where they were coming
from as well, you know. Yeah, which is just a
horrible place to be from either side. Absolutely.
So what I want to do, I don't want to dwell on
your time, you know, actually fighting the war
because I think the beauty is obviously after
that. So if we can, firstly, how many years were
you actually there before you were moved to the
camp in Freetown? I was there for nearly close
to three years, you know, two and a half plus
years, you know. So basically from when I was
13 all the way to when I was about 16, I was
in this war. And so you can imagine a civil war
context is basically every day is fighting. Every
day. Every single day is ambush. You know, you
fight for territory. You move around when the
rains come. You move from one place to another,
you know. So basically, and we're walking, you
know. This type of guerrilla warfare, we didn't
have vehicles we can jump in and drive. We walked.
all the time. We ran and did things. So it was
very, very physically, it was very challenging.
So I was in this madness. I'd gotten completely
accustomed to violence. That's all I knew. I
didn't fear anything because I didn't really
care for my life anymore. And then one day I
was removed from this war because the United
Nations, particularly UNICEF did. spoken to whatever
the existing government in Sierra Leone was at
the time that they needed to remove all the young
people from the fighting if there was going to
be an end to the war. And they needed to start
that process. And so they would come into some
of the various fighting groups and talk to the
commanding officer and try to remove the children
from the ranks. And so we basically lined up
and I was removed. I believe I was removed because
I looked more like a child. There was no denying
it, you know. There are some kids who are my
age, but maybe they were bigger kids, you know.
They were more muscular, and they had to verify
their ages and whatnot. And I was brought to
a rehabilitation center in the capital city of
my country, in the outside. So it was the first
time I came to the capital city of my country.
I fought in the war for it, but I'd never been
to the capital city. And then I started going
through this transformation, a rehabilitation,
a psychological rehabilitation, psychosocial
therapy, and all these things to recover. And
that was... That was the most difficult time
for me, actually. Perhaps more so than the war,
because I had to remember everything again. And
this time I couldn't take the drugs. I couldn't,
you know, use the violence and the trauma to
cope with it. I was basically left to really
face it. And that, you know, when you come out
of war, I think your mind becomes your new enemy,
you know. And it can torment you tremendously,
you know. So what was it within... that rehabilitation
period that worked, that got you from this day
-to -day, you know, war -torn soldier through
to being able to transition to a place where
peace was an everyday thing? Well, first, it
was the fact that there was a center like this
available, you know, to start with. And the fact
that the time that I had there, you know, I had
about six months just at this center trying to
recover. And also the staff who worked at the
center were incredible. You know, like when we
got there, we didn't, of course, we attacked
them. We hurt people in different ways. But there
was always something about them that, you know,
even though they didn't say that, and sometimes
they would say it's not your fault, but there
was also something also the way they looked at
you that they saw you just as a child. Regardless
of what you've done and what you've been through,
they saw you as a child. And some of them even
saw you as a child that they had failed to help,
you know. That's why you find yourself in this
situation. And somehow that did something to
us slowly. There was one particular nurse who
worked at the center that I became very close
to. And that's how I began to change. I began
to realize that things about me were changing.
When I looked, I expected certain things. Prior
to that, I didn't have any expectations. I didn't
even believe in the possibility of the next day
or anything like that. So slowly, with a lot
of psychosocial therapy, some medicines used
to even help me to sleep. and constant counseling
group counseling we went to school at the center
we played football i began to get back to myself
again slowly slowly okay and i heard you in uh
i think i forget which one it was now but uh
one of the other interviews that i i heard you
on a while ago um a big thing was and you mentioned
this for a second was being able to understand
that it wasn't your fault and not blame yourself
for for this journey that you've been on Yes,
absolutely. I mean, in the beginning, when the
nurses would say it and the therapists, you didn't
really believe them. You thought, okay, they're
just saying that. Well, slowly you began to understand
what they were saying. That doesn't mean that
I believed them at that time, but I think it
made it easier to think about. what you had been
a part of and to look at it differently you know
now when you come when i came out of this there's
a lot of guilt guilt for surviving the other
kids who fought just like me were trained like
me and they didn't survive there were kids that
couldn't come to rehabilitation I didn't come
through easily, but it took them much longer.
And during that time, maybe they found themselves
back in the army again, and then they got killed.
So you felt guilty because of that. I even felt
guilty to the fact that I was adopted in a family
in the United States where I went to live and
to go to school, to the point that I used to
not eat for a few days just to, because I knew
there were people who were still going through
what I've come out of, you know? So there's guilt
on every level when you come out of it. But,
you know, and then slowly, that always rang in
my head. Remember that it's not your fault. I
can't punish myself for... I didn't start the
war in Sierra Leone. So, yeah, I couldn't really
hold myself for the rest of my life accountable
because I was in it, you know. But it requires
some very skillful people to put that into my
head, you know, and for me to understand it slowly.
Yeah. The people I've had on the show so far
and the, not the research, but the work that
I've been lucky enough to read and learn from.
you pretty much had every level of trauma that
you can have as well when it comes to mental
health i mean you were forced to kill you lost
your family you had the the drugs i'm sure there
was sleep deprivation i mean all these layers
so what i love about your story is um and we
talked about i think i mentioned it when we went
back and forth on twitter when we first started
talking is your story is what i use as a benchmark
when i ever hear anyone throwing themselves what
we call a pity party you know feeling sorry for
himself because and i genuinely i'm not saying
this because we're just having this conversation
since my little boy who's now 10 which is why
this story resonates so deeply with me because
his age now is pretty much your last year you
know of innocence as it were um is how i've raised
my son because i've had divorce and some very
minor minor things but in the grand scale of
what Boys just like yourself are suffering in
all continents at the moment. We are so blessed.
And I grew up in England now. I live in the US.
So, so blessed. And stories like yours where
you were make me so grateful for what I've been
born into. But then stories of where you took
yourself and who you are now makes me admire
so much and shows me that you can heal from anything
if you have that willing to do it. Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, I think part of the reason why I wanted
to tell the story was because of that. You know,
I wanted people to understand how a child finds
themselves in this situation, but also how they
can come out. You know, I really wanted people
to understand that the human spirit, all of us
have that strength within us. And when we're
ready to do it and when we have the right support,
it can actually work that we shouldn't. give
up on people you know but also i wanted people
to to appreciate what they have you know i remember
when i was in school uh you know i had a scholarship
in a school in the u .s and um for high school
and a lot of my friends will complain about a
lot of things and granted if i grew up in the
context i'm sure i'll complain about the same
things you know um but you know But then when
you try to look at them, you know, if you look
at it, like she said, in the grand scheme of
what's going on in the world, there's really
nothing that they should have been complaining
about. But it's because there was nothing to
really look at for them to appreciate what it
meant, you know, to have peace in their lives
too. to have parents who annoyed them just because
they were checking on them you know yeah which
is love yeah which is love yeah i used to tell
my friends they didn't know anything i was like
you know you guys don't understand that there
are lots of people in the world who would do
anything to have a parent who wants to know where
they are at eight o 'clock p .m and annoy the
hell out of them because they want to know where
they are you know yeah exactly absolutely right
who would do anything to have that you know so
when you have it and you think it's a problem
you know you really should Relax a little bit,
you know, about it, you know. But obviously,
I didn't know my background, so I wasn't going
to, I don't know, maybe they just thought this
guy is just a strange fellow, you know. Well,
I love that and I want to get to that next because
there's a story and I'll get you just to kind
of complete the transition from Freetown to New
York. But after that, there's a specific story
that I heard you talk or tell on The Moth. And
I don't normally like to try and, you know, get
the same stories over and over again. I'm sure
you know which one it is, but that to me is such
a poignant story. So before we kind of delve
into that, so you were at Freetown, you completed
the rehabilitation. So how did you get from Sierra
Leone to the US? So I was in Freetown. So when
you are at the rehabilitation center, they do
what they call family tracing. They try to find
if there's any existing family member of yours
alive. And they first start by digging up your
immediate family if nobody could be found. And
it's a small country, so people alive would find
them easily. And then they would look for extended
family. They would start with uncles and aunts.
So they found my uncle who lived in the capital
city, who I knew of but I'd never met. So I went
to live with him and his family. And it was difficult
because the capital city hadn't experienced the
war. So there was a lot of stigma associated
with people like me coming from the war. So while
I was living with my uncle, an opportunity came
to send two young people to New York to speak
at the United Nations about coming out of this
experience as a way to showcase that what the
United Nations was doing was working, that more
of it needed to be done and funded. And so a
lot of young people were brought from all over
the world. There are kids from Colombia, from
various other African countries, from Sri Lanka
and different places. So we were all brought.
Together it was my first time traveling outside
of my country You know, I'd only been able to
come to the capital city because of the war I
didn't have anything so they helped me get a
passport and I remember jumping on the plane
and we arrived in New York. It was winter of
1996 It was absolutely cold I didn't think I
wanted to live in the United States. Absolutely
not. Because I thought to myself, it's not possible
that anybody can survive in this kind of climate.
Where I was coming from, 60, 59 degrees is our
winter. Like when it dropped to 58, this is when
we were colder. And we sit around fire. And all
of a sudden I was in this place, you know. And
taking the plane was already an ordeal, you know.
And then, you know, we get to this place. But
during this conference, you know, I met this
woman, Laura Sims, who was one of the facilitators.
After the conference, we became friends. I went
back to Sierra Leone, and she stayed in touch
with me. She said, you need to go back to school.
I will send you some money for school and whatnot.
But then the capital city, when I returned, the
capital city fell. The war reached and took over
the entire city. At this point, the entire country.
And they were re -recruiting people again and
throwing them back into the fighting. And so
because I had this passport and I knew this woman
from Russia told me, you have to get out of there.
You cannot stay there and fight again. And I
didn't think I would survive. And during that
time, my uncle died. So that was basically really
like send a message home to me that you have
to leave. So basically one day I just walked
out of my country. Long story short, I ended
up going to the next country illegally as a refugee.
I went to other countries. And eventually I was
able to get a visa to the United States, which
was not easy because nobody wanted to give me
one because of my background. And when I arrived
in the United States, nobody wanted to take me
to any school because I didn't have any records
to show that I'd been in school. I only entered
the country with my passport, actually. And this
woman who adopted me waiting to pick me up at
the airport, and that was basically it. So the
rest was a lot of struggle and proof to people
that I'd existed prior to when they encountered
me. And I didn't have any report cards, none
of these things. I didn't have medical records.
I remember they had to take me to everything
to even get dental. I always found the whole
situation quite funny. I would tell them, you
know, I'm quite healthy. I mean, I've been running
from a war for a number of years. Eating from
the land. Eating from the land. I'm still around.
You know, my teeth is fine. I didn't have money
for candy or anything like that. that's the irony
isn't it this poor boy soldier had better oral
hygiene than the rest of us so um i laughed when
you told this this next thing i'm gonna i'm gonna
put it in in your brain now i came from from
england and i i had my degree from england all
my papers with my degree but it was it was long
enough ago where my high school transcripts um
i had misplaced them in all the moves And I was
having a problem trying to replace them. But
I had a degree. I had my university degree papers
there. So my common sense thinks, well, that's
not going to be a problem because they're just
going to take my degree. I had a nightmare trying
to prove that I went to school even though I
had a university degree. But that pales in comparison
to yours. So when you were interviewed by some
of these high schools, because I just kind of
want to... Preface this. So you had so many months
to get into a school. Otherwise, you'd be sent
back to Sierra Leone. Is that right? Yes, because
the visa that I was given to me was a prospective
student visa, which meant that I would come to
the U .S. If I get accepted into school, then
I would stay on. Otherwise, I would have to go
back. So it was very important that I got accepted
into school in the amount of time that the visa,
which was three months. And it was in the summer.
So that also made it quite difficult. So schools
were closed. And some school administrators were
around. So we went for interviews. And the first
thing they asked, OK, let's see the school records.
And we're like, well, there are no school records.
And I remember someone saying, well, everybody
has a school record. If you've been to school
before, you should have a school record. And
I remember saying, I know a lot of people who
don't have school records. Even if they have
been to school. So I remember making this joke,
which I thought. Some of the school administrators
didn't get it, and maybe they thought I was more
traumatized than they thought. I said to them,
I'm coming from a country that is still at war,
and when your town is attacked, your village
is attacked, and you're running for your life,
I don't really think you're thinking about your
school report card. And thinking to myself, well,
I should find my report card. This is the most
essential thing. You run for your life. And they
didn't have the sense of humor, all of them almost.
And they looked at me like, yeah, we can't really
take you if you don't have a report card. So
basically, yeah, I ended up writing an essay
because everybody was demanding this. So I wrote
this essay. It was my first piece of writing
that I began to take quite seriously from that
day on. And the essay was titled, Why I Do Not
Have a Report Card. So in that essay, I explained
where I was coming from and why I don't have
one, but I know that I went to school. And that
door where I'm living now, the measurement of
how you can prove your honesty was through a
paper. That paper does not exist. So is it that
people believe me or not? Basically, there was
no way I was going to go into the rubbles of
a small village in Sierra Leone or some school
and try to dig through it. It's not possible.
So with this crazy notion of common sense. overpowering
rules and regulations were you successful yes
somebody i finally found somebody who had the
common sense to to realize that well first of
all if this kid is from an african country and
we are interviewing him in english and he seems
to be speaking it well and he wrote an essay
in english he must have been to school there
we go exactly you know somebody who finally was
i was like finally somebody who at least was
willing to use their brain somehow you know And
so I was taken into a school, but it was also
on probation because my background also became
a problem, right? I wasn't like every other young
boy. I had this history and we were not hiding
it. So the school principals would know and they
decided to tell the parents, teachers association,
they decided to tell some of the parents, most
of them, that we had this kid we're going to
take in our school. We think, you know, he's
intelligent. We think that. By giving him this
opportunity, he could change his life. But he
has a background. At the time, most people were
not familiar about a former child soldier. Were
they really healed? Are they not? Would they
go back to violence? So all these questions,
nobody had an answer to. Even though I was on
the corner saying that I can give you the answer,
no way. I'm interested in any of that stuff,
you know. I know he wasn't going to listen to
me, you know. It's like, okay, I'm sure you'll
say that. And so I felt watched even when I was
in school, right? You know, I was on the football
team again. You know, on the playground sometimes
I see some of my friends who are wrestling, and
if I try to jump in, I will see all the teachers
basically like their eyes peeling back because
they're thinking, oh, boy. The former child soldiers
jumping into the wrestle fights, what is that
going to turn into? I could feel them from, you
know. I'd also been trained as a soldier, so
I could feel when their eyes on me and people
are thinking a certain way, right? So I couldn't
really be a kid as much as I wanted to. I couldn't
play around in the playground and play rough,
you know. Everything was being watched, you know.
Yeah. It's amazing, and that's what I want to
get into with the next story. But like you said,
you literally had your childhood snatched from
you when the war started. But even when the war
was done, you're running from the war initially,
and the parents don't trust you, or the adults
don't trust you because they think you might
be a child soldier now. And then you get liberated,
and now you're still being viewed this way. So
once that conflict started and the first set
of people started running through your village
holding dead kids, That was pretty much the end
of your childhood there at the age of, was it
12? Yeah, absolutely. Now, for the rest of my
life, I then had to prove to people that I was
human and I was still a child, that I was okay.
I had to prove to them. I still had this. Even
my mom, my family that adopted me, her friends
used to call her. I overheard them over the phone
conversation. She would whisper at night. They
would call her late at night to check on her
if she was okay because she had adopted this
former child soldier who was living in the house
with her. They tell her, oh, you should hide
the knives, you know. I used to think to myself,
so these people really think that, okay. i survived
a war all the way took a plane all the way across
the atlantic ocean i landed in new york and then
i'm just going to try and murder the woman who's
actually trying to save my life you know yeah
mom i was gonna murder you yesterday but i couldn't
find any knives anywhere you know i'm gonna come
out you know it's like seriously anyways i of
course i could make jokes with it because then
they were not gonna freak out even more right
exactly so i i i just kind of i just looked at
it and kind of laughed you know and try to show
them otherwise. I was probably the only person
who truly understood the nature of violence.
And hence the reason why I wanted to stay from,
you know. And also my friends I was making in
New York, some of them in high school too, you
know, they didn't know my background. They would
tell me, yeah, you know, New York City is a very
rough city. You know, we need to prepare you
for the streets of New York, you know, because
you seem like a really weak African kid. But
New York is a hard place, man. It's a jungle,
you know. You have to survive. And I used to
think, you guys have no idea what a jungle is,
you know. I'm sure New York is a jungle in its
own right. manhattan on east 14th street is no
jungle it's not sierra leone in the middle of
the civil war i'm sure you can get some you know
you can get somebody can beat you up on 14th
street but it's not gonna be nearly as bad Yeah,
exactly. Well, I want to talk about that because
I mean, I love that. And so now you're you're
in New York and you've got obviously this history,
but you're you know, you're you've gone through
the rehabilitation and now you've got these friends
that grew up in New York City. And one of them
suggests. playing paintball one day so please
please if you could tell us a story right from
the beginning i think it's just it summarizes
your entire journey and then and then coming
over here well you know so so they didn't know
my background this thing so i've made some friends
you know and you know they've always some of
them had always thought that i was a little strange
you know because i'm very much appreciative about
so many things that they took for granted but
anyway you know it's pretty nice fellow quiet
all it you know So they thought, hey, man, let's
invite Ishmael to play paintball. So it was a
group of boys. One of them, their family had
a property upstate New York, so big, open land.
And they said, come with us this weekend. We're
going to play paintball. I didn't know what the
game was. I'd never heard of it. And I said,
what is the game? They said, ah, you'll love
it. When we get there, we'll show you. Just tell
your mom you're coming with us. So I told my
mom, yeah, I'm going upstate. So I said, sure,
you made some new friends at school, you know.
Parents were all in on it. So I packed up. We
went to Upstate New York. We got there in the
evening, you know, and they said, tomorrow we're
going to play. And so they showed me the equipment.
I'm thinking to myself, oh, no, you know. I said,
all right. Sounds like a game I've played before,
maybe not necessarily the same way, you know.
So they're all excited. They're telling me about
how this is like the most amazing game you play,
you know, and I asked them, you know. You know,
I was trying to pretend that I didn't really
know, and they showed me this is all the equipment
and everything. So at night, all of a sudden,
my whole sort of, you know, guerrilla warfare
mentality a little bit kicked in, you know. So
at night, while they were sleeping, I got up,
and I went and basically did a little recon all
over the terrain where I was supposed to play.
Rule number one, preparation, right? Preparation
is key in everything, right? So there I was,
looking at every tree, measuring paces between
this shed and that shed, and kind of getting
a hang, and I came back and slept. So the next
morning, everybody stood up, and, you know, and
one of them was very adamant, don't take off
your helmets, because, you know, when you think
nobody's watching, someone's going to hit you
in the face with a watch, so you got it, you
know. So we decided to start playing, decided
to do, let's do one -on -one first, and then
team, whatever, you know. And so each time I'm
like winning, you know, each time, you know.
And I'm finding the whole thing really funny,
right? Because, but they're so serious, these
kids, you know. Very serious. So they said to
me, hey man, you sure you've never played paintball
before? I said, no, I have not played paintball
before. Which was true. I'd never played pinball
before, but I'd been in a war before, which they
didn't know. But there was no pain. But there
was no pain. So they said, well, how come you're
so good at it? I said, well, you guys are really
great teachers. You just really explained the
game really well to me. So I owe it to you guys.
At some point, I had to sit out of the game so
they could have fun. But what was really interesting
about the whole experience for me is that I really
wanted to explain to them so much. But it required
me to give them context of my life. I really
wanted to explain to them that I was so grateful
for them. And I hope they appreciate the fact
that the only violence they would ever come close
to experiencing was the one they pretended to
play at. And that that was so cool and that was
so amazing. I wish they understood that. But
I couldn't because I needed to explain my life
to them. And it wasn't really the... the space
for it, you know? So I just observed them and
I thought to them, how lucky are they, you know?
They should feel so lucky, you know? And I always
remember that. Of course, when I decided to write
the book, some of these friends, I called them
to tell them, remember when we went upstate and
we were playing paintball and I was winning too
much? Well, you know, I kind of wrote a book
about why that was the case and then they were
like, what do you mean? So I explained something
and they were like, whoa. If they had known,
they would have never invited me to play. They
would have been terrified. They would have been
terrified, exactly. But we got to express our
childhood and versions of it. And that really
meant a lot to me. And I always enjoyed the fact
that they tried to look after me, thinking that
I'm just another child, which also I appreciated.
Yeah, without the other information. But eventually,
most of them found out. what it was you know
so yeah I wonder what they thought running through
their head all the flashbacks they had and ah
that's why yeah I'm sure yeah they were like
they were like oh man that guy they understood
all the guerrilla tactics I was using on them
because they were trying to do all this crawling
and stuff they're clearly watching Rambo films
I could tell you I was like okay man this is
not Hollywood you know you gotta do your recon
you gotta practice you know By the way, when
I returned and my mom found out that I played
this game, she was terrified. And I said, come
on. So I tried to explain to my mom, I know what
the difference is between the reality of violence
and the game. So it wasn't like I was going to
be shooting paintball at them and all of a sudden
I was going to go back in like Civil War mode
in Sierra Leone. But I understood also where
she was coming from. She was my mother, so her
primary concern is to worry. Now that I'm a father,
I understand that completely. when you know yeah
you can't help it but worry about your kids it's
just the nature of it well exactly and especially
after you know what you've seen in your lifetime
so far and i'm worried about you know my son
being out past dark in case you know he gets
hit by a car or something but uh yeah i mean
your your vision of what potentially could happen
is even higher so yeah it's got to be make you
a pretty neurotic dad now No, actually, I try
not to worry so much like that. Obviously, I
want to protect my children. But, you know, one
of the worries that I had, you know, when I thought
back in my life that I wanted to have children
was one of the things is that I don't want to
give them my eyes, you know. I don't want to
make them live life because of what I've experienced,
you know, because then I will limit them, you
know. At the same time, I'm aware of how the
world is, but I don't want them to fear the world
because of, you know, of what I've seen. And
it's very easy for parents to do because, you
know, we want to protect our children. So we
want to tell them what we know. We want to prepare
them for the big bad world, you know, which to
some extent has a lot of things going on in there.
You know, but, you know, I always say, you know,
like, if my daughter, her only heartache ever
in life is some boy didn't call her. I would
rather have that, you know, even if it's shallow.
I'd rather have that heartache and nothing more,
right? I don't want to tell anything. Obviously,
I will find the boy and tune them up a little,
but that's another story. Funny old bayonet.
That's another story. Joke with my wife, I was,
you know, we had this, you know, our first child,
our daughter, she's now four, and she always
says to me, what will happen when the boy comes
to take your daughter on a date? And I say, oh,
yeah, I've thought about it. I've thought about
it. And she said, what are you going to do? And
I was like, oh, I've thought about it, you know,
and I was like, I'm just going to give them one
of my first book, you know, a memoir, and I'm
going to open to one of the pages and be like,
read this paragraph. You see that stuff? I still
know how to do it. So, 8 .30. 8 .15, he's there
at the doorstep. Yeah, 8 .15, my wife, I'm not
going to let you do that. Obviously, I'm joking.
I won't traumatize you like that. But I did think
about it. Well, I love that, what you just said.
I don't want to give them my eyes because a lot
of people listening are firefighters, paramedics,
police officers, soldiers. And it is, you know,
we have that balance too where obviously we see...
horrible things especially things you know violence
um driving you know some of these these awful
things that happen to these people out there
um trying to find that balance too between warning
them and making sure they don't make you know
uh poor choices when they're out there but not
scaring them to death and traumatizing them with
you know like you said with your eyes yeah it
is a difficult balance i tell you it's not easy
you know Because you can see, but you know, what
you said, the key word that you said is to give
them the right tools to make the proper decisions
for their own lives, you know. To tell them not
to make careless decisions and to think, you
know, to trust their instincts, you know, to
be mindful around themselves, you know. To think,
you know, think for themselves, you know, not
let other people think for them and these are
the, you prepare them and then you let them.
go in the world and you know you hope that they
make the simple mistakes you know that they can
rebound back from easily you know um and and
basically that's it you know um yeah yeah love
it absolutely love it yeah there's many mistakes
where you just grow stronger from there's some
that you don't survive and obviously those are
the ones you want to avoid but the other ones
they just make you a stronger person so they're
healthy too yeah absolutely i mean i'm really
you know like um People who make these choices
in this sort of service professions, you know,
really like human service professions, I always
admire the fact that, you know, like particularly
when you come from devastation, like me coming
from a country where that mentality did not necessarily
exist, you know? You know what I mean? Like you
put yourself in harm's way to save somebody's
life, you know? It's quite a normal thing because
I come from a part of the world where, you know,
maybe it used to be there when there was just
the community aspect. But at some point during
the war, that was not the case, you know, with
a lot of people, you know. So to see that people
actually make those decisions and make it a career
and a profession, it's quite normal to see, you
know, that, yeah, I commend those sort of things,
you know. Actually, what is it? I lived in California
for a bit and there were lots of fires in California
and it always warmed my heart a little bit when
I would see all these firefighters just really
taking the charge and making sure that people
were safe and going to people's aides in very,
very difficult circumstances. Again, when we
show our humanity, right? And for me, why this
really means a lot to me is because my life is
what it is now, is because each turn of my life
that changed my life is because somebody decided
to give me a little help, give me a little hand
to acknowledge my humanity, to realize that,
wait, I have the power to change the course of
this person's life by making this, you know,
by coming to their aid a certain way. And that
set me on another path that pushed me up a little,
you know? And that's why I'm possible. So I very
much appreciate these sorts of gestures, you
know, when we recognize each other as humanity,
regardless of where we're from, what we are,
what we're doing. Yeah, well, I mean, just to
underline what you said, and I think you've touched
so many lives. I mean, we're having this conversation
because you touched mine with no question, which
is also indirectly related to how my son was
raised. i heard uh it was another lady i had
an interview with and she compared the the pen
and the gun but i just kind of want to add to
her observation um because she was talking about
them both being symbols of power my observation
is in sierra leone the gun was used and obviously
really what came out of it was just a huge amount
of death i mean it's just all tragedy but here
you are with a pen in your hand And you've done
so much good, inspired so many people. And you're
now an ambassador for making sure that children
aren't used as soldiers. And for that simple
change and putting the written word back in your
hand, as you loved when you were young, is again
your service. You came from that violence, which
didn't work. And obviously you weren't given
an option to even participate in the first place.
You were forced to. what that experience then
did and all the positive ways that you've managed
to touch people not only in your own country
but all around the planet um you know is is a
huge testament to like you said what turning
around and and having that that sense of giving
back that sense of service can do versus just
trying to force and bully your way into getting
people to do what you want to do absolutely absolutely
i couldn't have said any better no i mean yeah
that definitely you know You mentioned something
earlier also, which is that I think in life,
what I've come to learn the hard way, but what
I've come to learn is that obviously we don't
want, I don't wish bad things to happen to anyone
at all or to go to what I went through. But whenever
something happens to us, I think we have two
choices. We can either just look at it as just
complete horror, which is probably our natural
impulse first to go that way route. or we can
also look at the situation realize that all right
um how did it shape me how does this shape my
character and what what good can i extrapolate
from it even though it's seemingly horrible situation
you know and at some point in my life i had to
make those decisions because either i would have
allowed the trauma of the war to kill me, or
I can beat myself up and victimize myself for
the rest of my life, which is what most people
would do sometimes. A good number of people take
that route, right? You know, they've been through
something and they victimize themselves and beat
themselves up about it. Or I can actually look
at it and be like, you know what, I'm still alive.
I survived that mess. Why waste time anymore
in my life? What am I going to do useful with
this life, this second chance that I've gotten
to live? What am I going to do with it, you know?
And how dedicated am I going to really use that,
whatever it is that I choose to do? How am I
going to dedicate my life really truly to it
so that I can do it well and also help other
people? So I made that decision. I knew very
well if I went the other way, it would kill me,
just the traumas and the memories of it. And
so I even decided to make those things useful.
For example, I had a lot of insomnia. when I
came out of the war. When I came out of the war
in the 90s, most people didn't have the word
they have now. PTSD was not yet around, right?
It was just some crazy dude who was freaking
out from time to time. And waking up in the middle
of the night, if you had a girlfriend, you're
crazy, you woke up in the middle of the night
next to her shouting, running for things, and
you think, okay, I'm not coming to this one's
house anymore. There was nobody to really understand
what was going on with you. But I had insomnia,
tremendous insomnia. I couldn't sleep. And a
lot of people suggested you should see a doctor,
you should take some medicine. And for a while,
it was an enticement to do that. And I thought
to myself, you know what? Everybody's looking
at it in the wrong way. I mean, I was in my 20s.
I was a university student. I was having this
incredible insomnia. I could stay up for about
20... two hours of the day. I only need an hour
and a half, two hours of sleep, and I'll be completely
fine. I had no health issues. And I thought to
myself, why would that be a problem? This is
a good thing. I mean, I will read, do all my
readings, do all my assignments. I will go out
to a pub and have a drink. I will party. And
I will still have time. I will still be up. So
who would not want to have that kind of energy,
you know? So that's how I decided to look at
it, you know. And all of a sudden, it was no
longer a problem. It actually became this incredible
advantage I had, you know, where I was always
on top of my schoolwork. I was also partying
as much as I could because I was tired with my
hands. I couldn't sleep, you know. And it turned
out great, you know. Now, was there a point,
though, where you did start sleeping again? Yeah,
there was a point. I sleep more now than before.
Yes, it turned around a little bit at some point.
But for a number of years, I couldn't. I could
only get two hours of sleep if I was lucky on
a given night. But I made use of it. I read incredibly.
I read a lot. I wrote. I did extra readings.
I partied. I did all sorts of things. Anyway,
I even had some extra jobs. I was in university.
I wanted to make extra bucks so I could take
those shifts. At the radio station where nobody
wanted to be there, I could be the DJ if nobody's
listening because I'll be up. I know I'll be
listening to the music, so I'll play it. Be your
own DJ. I'll be my own DJ. I'll play what I like.
So I did all these incredible things. Even observation,
you know, like as a writer, and I always tell
people, you know, when I write fiction, write
novels, you know, because of my background in
the military, I know how to observe people so
that they don't feel intruded upon, you know.
So if I decide to see someone and observe a certain
situation so I can write about it and develop
characters out of it, I know how to do it so
well. And I learned that from a very difficult
situation, but it's repurposed to me in a way
that I can make it useful. So that's how I look
at my life. And I think when something happens,
you can't immediately make that decision, but
eventually you have to decide how you want it.
I could have been a very victimized myself all
my life and be like, oh, my God, you know, I'm
a child soldier. I lost my childhood. You know,
I'm never going to recover from it and just suck
around all my life. What would I really do for
me? You know, a few people feel sorry for me
from time to time. And then they'll be like,
you know what, man, you know, forget you. Yeah,
no, I am. Like I said, that's exactly what I
got from your book. And that's what I, you know.
was just dying to talk to you about and hear
that, set that baseline and then where you are
now. But you touched on the book. So I want to
ask some wrap up questions because we've already
been talking for an hour and a half and you've
been so generous, but I think it needed that
full hour and a half just to tease out some of
the points of your incredible story. But I want
to talk about the book very quickly. So at what
point did you decide? It was time to put this
journey that you've been on, on paper. Well,
you know, I think it started really coming in
my head when, you know, people would ask me,
as I said earlier, about where's your report
card or you should provide it. And I thought
people did not understand the context of where
I was coming from. And then also when I was in
university, Sierra Leone became really notorious
in the news for the wrong reasons, obviously,
because of the violence at the richest standpoint
that shocked the world, you know. you know amputation
that had been part of the war had become increasing
the number had grown you know people have been
amputated and so i remember i remember watching
cnn and people talking about sierra leone and
and just it seemed like it was just a country
where we all woke up one morning and just decided
to go around amputating each other and there
was no context whatsoever and then there was
also the issue of chastity because people were
basically calling us the last generation and
there are some people who had done research and
concluded that because we have been through this
war At a very young age, we've been introduced
to violence. Therefore, we would become violence
adults. We would never be able to change. Then
basically we were done for. Even if we pretended
to change, we're just time bombs waiting to explode.
Something could happen and we would set off,
you know. And I was in the United States in university
at the top of my class. Most people did not know
my background. And yet I was not exploding anywhere,
you know. So I thought to myself, so I was quite
upset. I thought this is not correct, you know.
And this kind of way can only bring fear and
make it impossible for other young people who
really need to recover to do that. And I had
this opportunity to have an education, so I decided
to start writing slowly about it, not with the
desire to publish. I thought to prepare myself
so if I was on a panel, on a debate, I'll be
able to really say a few important things succinctly.
So I decided to start writing a book in university,
and one of my professors read few and shared
it with another guy who was the creative writing
department and basically say you know first of
all you have a talent to write and secondly you
have an incredible story you should write it
whether you decide to publish it or not later
that's up to you but you should write it while
you're in university and I'm going to make sure
that you do so basically this professor a friend
of mine now Dan Sean is a novelist at Oberlin
College in Ohio basically forced twist my hand
behind me and say you sit there and write that
story and you keep it for your kids if you have
children for all i care but you have to write
it so that's how i started writing the book with
not never the intention to publish it i never
wanted to because it's too personal and when
i was done with it i began to see the the need
for it you know and i took a chance actually
i remember when i had a book deal And that's
when I finally understood what I'd done. I almost
wanted to give back the contract because I realized
that what it meant that they're actually going
to publish it. And they're going to have copies
laying around. People are going to read it. They're
going to know who I am. It absolutely freaked
me out. And I wanted to return it. And my mother
said, why don't you sit on it for a week and
think about it? And obviously, I didn't return
the contract. And I'm glad in retrospect that
I didn't. But it changed my life, you know, when
the book came out. I didn't think it would get
as popular and as successful as it did. Because
I thought maybe people would fear the context
and think I don't want to read a book. It's not
a book that's sad. It's about a sad situation,
but it's a book that's incredibly hopeful, that
I had hope. And people got that when they started
reading it. And all of a sudden, it changed my
life. I was living in Brooklyn. I just graduated
from university, and I was renting a flat, an
apartment, with a friend of mine. And we had
put our name down for the telephone service and
the cable service. And all of a sudden, one weekend,
an excerpt of the book was in the New York Times
Magazine. I was on the train from Brooklyn to
Manhattan to see my mom. And I'm not joking.
Literally, everybody across from me was reading
this magazine and my face was on the cover. So
I'm sitting there on the train. And so people
will read it and they'll put it down. And they
will look and they will see me. And they will
twist their face thinking it's not possible that
this guy will be sitting across on the train.
And they will start reading again, you know.
It was really incredible. And then, of course,
people could find my name. So they would call
me and say, are you the guy who wrote that? And
I was like, no, that's not me. So I would deny
that. And so people would look at me and say,
you look like that guy who wrote the book. You
know, a long way gone. Do you think you should
read the book, young man? They would tell me.
So I would try and read it, you know. It was
really funny. So anyway, but it was incredible
like what transpired, how much people were moved
by the story, how it touched them. um yeah and
um i'm glad i did it but it was not easy to to
write you know no i'm sure well i how i came
across it was um in starbucks i know that that
you guys had to deal with that where i think
was it two dollars from each sale went to unicef
absolutely yeah absolutely yeah so and and you
know i i was literally standing there waiting
to get a coffee so in a typical western human
mindset you had a you know the book had about
you know 30 seconds to impress me otherwise it
was going back on the shelf um and i've never
bought a book at starbucks i never have since
um but i i was there with my now ex -wife but
um and i was like i gotta buy this book and i
sat there and i am awful at reading usually i
find it very hard to to finish an entire book
um unless it's a great one and i sat down and
i don't i think it was a day i read the entire
story and then and then reread it and it's because
like you said it's not It's a sad environment,
exactly like you said it, but it's a story of
hope and gratitude and courage and forgiveness
and all the lessons that every holy book seemingly
tries to teach. But then there's this division
and these books are now fought over, which misses
the whole point, in my opinion. But yeah, it's
all the core teachings of... the human spirit
in in one story and it blew me away that's good
no that was that was the desire for starbucks
you know they had said that you know i was editing
the book when they approached us the publisher
and they said they wanted when people came to
starbucks to get a cup of coffee to be introduced
to a reality that's life -changing that's going
to so they wanted to buy these books and sell
them at starbucks you know and people were a
little skeptical And then my response was, well,
don't we want to reach the Starbucks coffee drinker
as well? He's a human being. He wants to read
a good story. So let's have it there. So I'm
glad. But for a number of years, I couldn't go
to Starbucks because everybody recognized me.
So I was like, I'm not getting my... So you're
going to the competitors to get your coffee.
Yeah, I made my own coffee at home. Only when
I went to read at Starbucks, then I got a free
coffee. I couldn't go for a number of years.
Well, I wish they'd put it back on there because
there's a whole generation that hasn't read it
yet that I think should. And I'm not just saying
this. If I had to... do a must -read list of
five books yours would would be in that five
and if i had to choose just one and there's many
i've talked about on this show before but if
there was just one for every human being on the
planet i would i would choose your one and i
mean that 100 there's some other ones that are
fantastic that i talk about all the time um but
yeah i just i think it's it's amazing now a quick
question about the story as you no problem as
you wrote it I've had many writers here, and
I've actually done some writing myself, and obviously
a very, very different level of trauma that I've
seen in my life is more in my careers, basically.
But I found it very cathartic when I was writing.
Did you have that experience as you were working
your way through the story? Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, I think what it did for me that I didn't
expect was that it was the first time that it
allowed me to... actually go back in the story
on my own terms, remember it, not because of
a flashback or anything, but go back into it,
which was incredibly difficult, but allowed me
to actually observe the things that I'd lived
through. I'd never really had the time to do
that, you know? So for the three years that it
took me to write it, not every day, but I really
was able to observe my own experience to learn
more about myself, about what it is I'd been
through. what had happened to me, and to even
understand the way I was in the present, why
I reacted to certain things, you know, because
I needed to understand the story. So I felt everything
again. And really, I think it was kind of the,
not the end of my therapy, but it was kind of
like a sort of closure to a lot of things, you
know, a lot of questions I had were answered,
you know. It was very, very incredibly difficult,
but I'm glad that I did it. So it really did
that for me. So when I finished writing it, even
if I hadn't published it for that alone, I think.
On a personal level, it significantly changed
my life because of that, you know. Because there's
no way I would, I wouldn't sit anybody down and
tell them that story in one go like that, you
know. It would be incredibly hard to do. So,
but writing about it really gave me. And obviously,
when I was writing also, I had the idea that,
you know what, there's a lot that happened. I
don't need to put everything in. I need to give
enough so people understand what happened. But
I also thought, okay, there are certain things
that I need to live up for my family. so that
only they can know it so i made some decisions
that also were very helpful you know for my life
that was really but it does definitely help writing
has that healing and then also you discover that
what you're writing about you know uh there's
this writer jim coaches south african writer
he says everything you write writes you as you
write it you know so when i was writing it i
really realized um that um even though it was
my story, that the things that had happened to
me and the lessons that I learned from it were
bigger than one human being. So I was just a
small part in the story, really, that it was
a human story that was a global human story that
had entrances for everybody in the world to understand
it. And my life was just a catalyst for some
of the points that needed to be made. To realize
that even your own story is more powerful than
yours was really something very incredible for
me to arrive at by doing this. I've heard that
from many of the authors, and obviously I would
assume it was going to be the same experience
from you, so it's great to hear that. I want
to start wrapping up, ask a couple of short questions.
We talked about A Long Way Gone. Radiance of
Tomorrow is another title that you've written.
Are there any others that you're working on that
you have that I've missed? I mean, I've written
a lot of short stories and whatnot, but my next
book is coming out hopefully at the end of the
year, and it's another novel. So the title now
is called The Lively Skeletons of Every Season,
and that's the working title. So it's another
novel set in an African country. The Radiance
of Tomorrow was also another story that was set.
in a fictional place but really looking at why
people return to places that have been devastated
by whatever that devastation was and how they
learned to live there so yeah it used to be my
third book and then there's a after that I've
been convinced to write a sequel to A Long Way
Gone so after the next novel I will pursue that
so we'll see how to the first book yeah excellent
now you just touched on something I forgot to
ask you I'll make it very brief, but you have
been back to Sierra Leone several times. So I
won't say what is it like, because obviously
it must have been traumatizing, but are you seeing
a growth, a return gently towards the childhood
that you once knew? Unfortunately, not to the
childhood that I once knew, but there's definitely
a departure from the war that had happened that
has begun. And maybe there are some people in
Sierra Leone who don't even have a memory of
it because they were born right after it ended.
you know so which is good um but in terms of
uh when the war ended and i started returning
to syria right away i was living in the us at
the time and it was difficult because you can
still see the reminders of the war burned cars
houses that had bullet holes in them but no you
cannot see any of this anymore in syria it's
been long gone um and um but the politics is
still complicated in the country you know we
actually just Wrapping up a presidential election
for a new presidential candidate who should be
announced any day now. So we have a nonviolent
election, at least not to the level of war. So
things are moving up, but it's not going back
to the childhood that I had. It's going somewhere
else. People have different expectations. The
war changed the country tremendously. The population
shifted from being more village community lifestyle
to everybody moving to the capital cities. And
that brings about its own difficulties. People
don't really know how to live in this environment.
The cities are crowded. If you live in the countryside
like I did, you learn how to grow your own food.
So if you don't have money, you can grow a crop.
You can harvest it and eat it. Whereas if you
live in the capital city, you need to have money
to buy everything. Yeah, as safe as New York
City. Yeah, even water. You can't just go to
the stream and get nice water and drink. So that
brings about its own psychological effect it
has on people. So the country has changed a lot
where there's other things. But it's also modern
time. We need to catch up. But I wish it had
been done slower than how people are kind of
jumping into it and they don't understand it.
Yeah. Now, what took you to Nigeria? I live in
Nigeria now because my wife also actually works
in protection. My wife is one of the very few
people, including myself. She does a full -time
who's a child protection specialist for UNICEF.
She's a lawyer by background. And so she basically
negotiates with warlords to release children
from armed groups. This is her job that she does
around the world. Wow. Yeah. I think we're fitting
for each other because we don't worry about each
other going to this environment to do that. So
that works. Otherwise. So basically, yeah, so
she's posted in Nigeria at the moment. You know
about Nigeria, what's going on in the north with
the Boko Haram and all this kind of madness.
So that's why we're here. We live in the capital.
And then we go up to the north from time to time,
both of us, to do that work. Yeah, brilliant.
Well, I just want to kind of underline a point
as well. You hear a lot of negativity towards
the UN, you know, in some of the media outlets.
Here we are talking to you because of the work
of the UN and obviously UNICEF specifically.
And then to hear that you guys are still out
there saving these kids. And correct me if I'm
wrong, it's against the international laws of
war, rules of war to use children as soldiers.
And that's why it's such a huge deal, apart from
the human side, of course. But legally, they're
not supposed to be doing it as well. Absolutely.
Legally, the idea is that you can use children
to fight in war that you create. It's a violation.
And obviously that doesn't mean that people listen
to it, they do it, but we're able to negotiate
with certain armed groups because a lot of these
commanders want to get engaged in politics, they
want to become politicians later. And so we always
say to them, well, if you want to be taken seriously
and play in the international field, you need
to respect certain international rules, otherwise
nobody's going to take you seriously. So then
they start to override things and whatnot. But
what you say is that every organization has its
own issues. The UN has a lot of issues that it
could fix, that it could do well. And they get
a few things right here and there. But the absence
of this organization, a lot of other things would
go unattended to if it wasn't around. That's
the best way to look at it, I think. Yeah, yeah,
exactly. Try and show the positive side. All
right, so we've talked about your books. I'm
going to ask those wrap -up questions now, even
though I talked about it about 20 minutes ago
now. So those are your books. So the first question
I always ask, are there any books that you love
that you recommend to other people? It can be
about what we talked about, or it can be about
something completely different. Oh, I read a
lot. I'm an avid reader. I'm always reading new
things because I believe that... As a writer,
you have to read to be a good writer, in my opinion,
which when I teach writing to kids, they don't
like to hear. They just want to. So I read a
lot of things. I love a lot of books. What can
I say? What have I been reading lately? I mean,
along the issues of understanding historical
war on the African continent, since I live in
Nigeria now, one that came to mind is this book
called Half of a Yellow Sun. It's written by
this writer called Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
She's very well known. It's called Half of a
Yellow Zone. It's about a war. It's fiction,
but it's historical fiction about a war that
happened here in Nigeria many years ago, the
Biafran War. It's a fantastic, fantastic book.
I really enjoy it. What else? Since I'm in Nigeria
now, I guess that's the first thing that came
to mind for me to talk about. Okay, and we got
all your books too. So what about a movie and
or a documentary? Oh, a movie and or a documentary.
I have a few favorite movies that I really like.
One of my favorite movies relates to war. and
resistance is this film called The Battle of
Algiers. It's an old film. And it's about the
Algerian revolution kicking out the French. I
mean, the film is just extraordinary and how
it was done. And I think it's really one of the
best films I've seen. And in terms of coming
-of -age story type of thing, there's this Italian
film called Cinema Paradiso. It's one of my favorite
films of all time. It's about this little boy
who grew up, I guess I relate to it, it's about
this little boy who grew up in a small Italian
town, very troublesome, became friends with a
guy who was like showing the cinema and then
he grew up to be an adult. I mean, I wouldn't
give the whole story away, but it's a fantastic,
it's one of my favorite films of all times. More
war, Hollywood war type of films. There are two
films that I really saw that I thought really
captured war properly. in Hollywood, and it was
made by the same fellow, but two different sides
of the story. Clint Eastwood is the one that
directed this film. One is called Letters from
Iwo Jima, and then Flags of Our Fathers. It's
about the same event from the American perspective.
I think these were one of the most brilliant
war films made in Hollywood. It really showed
what war does to human beings when they're there.
irrespective of where you're coming from, how
nice your culture or your community is, you know,
when you find yourself in that madness, what
happens, and I really love these films, yeah.
Documentary, what kind of documentary, what is
the documentary that I've seen that I, oh, there's
so many documentaries that have been, I can't
think of a documentary, to be honest, on the
top of my head. Okay, well, I'll throw one in
there for a second that I couldn't find, it was
a shame, but the, The one bling that they said
online that you actually participated in? I couldn't
find it anywhere. They've taken it off all the
internet sites. Yeah, they've taken it off. It
was a good documentary. I won't say it's the
best thing I've ever seen, but it was more we're
trying to make a connection between what we mentioned
earlier, between resources, like how we connect
people to what's going on, what seems far away
from their life, but it's actually close enough,
you know? So the idea, a friend of mine, Raquel,
she had this idea that what if we bring some
of these American top hip -hop artists at the
time to a place like Sierra Leone so they can
understand where possibly the diamonds and the
bling -bling they're wearing come from. So for
them to understand the context, it wasn't for
them not to buy diamonds ever in their lives,
but for them to make us questions when they want
to buy diamonds so that they can help to, you
know. to stop people from getting diamonds from
these sort of places when wars are going on,
you know? People more conscious, that was the
idea. It was a very interesting journey to make
with all these American hip -hop artists. When
you were a little 10 -year -old hip -hop fan
doing dance recitals. Yeah, yeah, no, I was laughing
because, you know, like, I wish I had my own
camera and I was just filming the filming of
the documentary, so I think that would have been
really fantastic. Would have been like letters
to Iwo Jima, like your perspective. Because people
have this public persona about how tough things
are and then you put them inside an environment
and realize that they are nowhere near as tough
as they say they are. Yes, yes, exactly. Actually,
it made me think about this documentary. I think
it was Sebastian who made it. It's called Restrepo.
It's a really fantastic documentary. I just remember
that one. oh yeah i mean talking about getting
people there you know and really having them
experience you know what what is going on when
you know suppose these young guys live and go
and fight a war you know yeah and again they're
just fighting for their life just like you were
saying before they were stuck there they didn't
start the war and those poor guys are up on the
hindu kush just trying to stay alive and go home
to the family Then they form a brotherhood. That's
one thing that's really important about this
kind of thing. You form a brotherhood. You form
a friendship that's so much deeper. Sometimes
even blood relations because you've seen the
best and worst of each other in these trenches.
It changes who you are. I really love that. I
wish you could do more of these kinds of stuff.
Nowadays, I think. I think there's a desire for
it. I really do. with the stories i've had on
here i mean obviously you know yours especially
yours has been extremely powerful but all the
people i've had on you know whether they're just
coming from a fitness background or you know
mental health or they're a soldier um these stories
are incredible and and you see the the rubbish
that we get you know the newspaper stands and
the the tvs and and the social media and this
is one of my goals is is to bring these incredible
stories that are inspiring me however i've come
across them and and bring them back to the forefront
because this yeah you leave i leave let me be
selfish i leave a conversation with someone like
you a better person you know whereas if i'm watching
you know the 15th season of crap fishing i don't
think i'm gonna be a better person yeah i know
but that but i mean it was what we were talking
about earlier right like you know i mean i've
come to this conclusion that like you know there
are lots of really good people in the world,
right? But we are not committed to that goodness,
you know? And there are few really bad folks
in the world, but they're very committed to disrupting
the world, right? So they succeed most of the
time. But if all of us decide, you know, we're
going to put our own little version of goodness
back into the world so that, you know, which
is what I think you're doing with these sort
of interviews that you said, you know, these
human conversations allow people to actually
think. to feel, to connect, you know, to realize
how worthy the humanity is, how good it is to
share that humanity with others, you know. It
changes people's lives, you know, you know. Yeah,
exactly. You never know who's listening or who
is reading or who, you know, and what it's going
to do to them, you know. You never know, you
know. Yeah, you're a living example of that.
Yeah, absolutely. But so thank you for this now.
Thank you for what you're doing because you know
We all have these choices where we could just
go on with our lives because probably were successful
at it And we don't need to care about what anything
you know We had these choices, but you know Like
you like other people who decide, you know, let's
put something back into the mix. That's gonna
Make a difference and you know, that's that's
what changes the world. Yeah. Well, like I said,
I'm just I'm just here standing in front of microphone
asking people that tell their stories but but
yeah you're true it's true though you know if
if you can connect these amazing people with
with as i say the ear holes of the world then
um you know we will i mean you know be the uh
i forget what's the gandhi quote now be what
you want to see in the world see in the world
absolutely exactly so and on top of you on your
birthday i want to give you a birthday shout
out happy birthday Talk with me about all these
things, you know. Well, thank you. Like I said,
I genuinely was excited. I'll have a drink later
and toast. There we go. We can put the video
back on Skype. All right. Well, there's a couple
more questions and then I will let you go. The
next one is, is there a person that you can think
of that you would recommend to be another guest
on this podcast? Oh, yeah. Wow, I mean, I'll
be very selfish. I would say my wife probably,
but I don't know if she'll want to. Because I
think she's done some really incredible work,
you know, in the sense that, you know, the work
that she does, there are very few women who do
this type of work, you know. So you imagine she's
been doing it since she's in her 20s, 20 -something
year old. And I'm just saying it because my wife,
drop -dead gorgeous, beautiful woman, lawyer
background, you know, grew up in Paris. In the
US, you know, Congolese, Iranian mix, you know,
is how beautiful she is. And then she goes and
negotiates with Wallace to release children from
all over the world. Yeah, I would say, I would
love to have her on. You don't have to sell it
to me. If she were... I'll try to convince her.
I'll try to convince her. All right. Yeah, we'll
work on her. I think she has some charm over
her. She's still... Yeah, I'll exercise some
of them. Brilliant. All right. Well, I will take
that as a fantastic answer. I mean, that sounds
like an incredible woman to get on the show.
All right. So the very last thing before we just
talk about where to find the books and your work,
what do you do these days to decompress when
you want to blow off some steam? I like to play
football, soccer. So I like to play a nice game.
I also like running. I go for long runs. In fact,
I was thinking tomorrow I want to do 10 miles.
So sometimes I run 10 miles, half miles, something
like that. So I run and I play football and then
I listen to music. I like dancing, so I listen
to good music. I'm in Nigeria where the music
is absolutely incredible. So you can really go
to a nice place and dance. So these are the things
I do to decompress. And usually on the weekend,
I try not to. There are so many things going
on in the world. So usually on the weekend, sometimes
I try on Fridays particularly. saturdays i try
to just turn things off and just have fun and
return to the world again on sunday and see what
has been broken while i've been gone well i need
to do that more often i'm kind of stuck on my
devices with this whole whole podcast thing so
i uh i gotta take your advice on that one take
the weekend off yeah no from times i gotta take
a deal because when you come back refreshing
you're ready to face it you know you know um
yeah that's what i do brilliant all right so
the very last thing then so where you know what
which uh sites do you recommend for people to
find the books and then are there any other sites
social media any any other arena on on the internet
that that people can find you or or even just
causes that you're trying to bring to everyone's
attention uh well i mean my books can be found
in any bookstore really but uh independent non
-independence on amazon anywhere you can find
the books and buy them. So that's what I would
say. What else? Where you can find me, I have
a Twitter handle, it's the verified one, at Ishmael
Bear, because there are others that pretend to
be me. And then I have a website, which is www
.ismahelbear .com, and basically on there and
on my Twitter, it highlights the things that
I'm up to, where I am, what I'm doing. I tend
to tweet about these things. Yeah, so that's
the best way. Brilliant. Well, I have all those
links on the webpage that I do with this podcast
can find at jamesgearing .com. So Ishmael, I
just want to say thank you so much. I'm always
a little worried when I interview someone I haven't
got to really talk to before as to the time constraints
and everything. And here we are sitting right
at two hours of conversation. So thank you so
much for being so generous. I hope I haven't
kept you from something. i didn't want to cut
this story short your story is incredible you
who you are and and the journey you've become
and how you've inspired me personally selfishly
um i know it's going to inspire so many people
so i i just want to say that thank you so much
thank you thank you as well for doing this on
your birthday and happy birthday again go celebrate
Yeah, I will. Drink a pint from me or something.
That's how we say in the UK, drink a pint from
me. It is. It's funny because you're saying like
football and then correcting it to soccer and
then flat and then you said apartment. Exactly.
Because I just came back from London. I just
came back the other day from London. I was in
London for about a week. So, you know, and I'm
from a British colony. So when I'm in London,
all my British English kicked back in. So then
when I'm talking to... people from the u .s i
have to realize that oh i'm talking yeah exactly
i have to be bilingual over here absolutely yeah
all right well thank you again and um i would
love to you know to to reconnect at some point
and maybe you know in the future do do a touch
base and and i'd love to get your uh your wife
on if she was wanting to and if she's not i totally
understand okay i'll talk to her and see what
she says and you are where you are in florida
right you say you're in uh yes Yes. So, yeah,
if ever you're coming over to Florida, please
let me know. I'd love to. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So
talk to Tom, I guess, if you're going to leave
one of these universities out there. So if I
do, I'd certainly love to.