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By Root 932 0

seemed to be pondering something. The following morning, we started speaking to each other as if awakened from a nightmare or a dream that had given us a different take on life and the situation we were in. We decided to leave the village the next day and go somewhere safe, somewhere far away from where we were. We had no idea where we would go or even how to get to a safe place, but we were determined to find one. During that day, we washed our clothes. We had no soap, so we just soaked them and put them out in the sun to dry while we sat naked in a nearby bush waiting for them to be ready. We had agreed to leave early in the morning of the next day.

6

BEING IN A GROUP of six boys was not to our advantage. But we needed to stay together because we had a better chance of escaping the day-to-day troubles we faced. People were terrified of boys our age. Some had heard rumors about young boys being forced by rebels to kill their families and burn their villages. These children now patrolled in special units, killing and maiming civilians. There were those who had been victims of these terrors and carried fresh scars to show for it. So whenever people saw us, we reminded them of the massacres, and that struck fear in their hearts again. Some people tried to hurt us to protect themselves, their families and communities. Because of these things, we decided to bypass villages by walking through the nearby bushes. This way we would be safe and avoid causing chaos. This was one of the consequences of the civil war. People stopped trusting each other, and every stranger became an enemy. Even people who knew you became extremely careful about how they related or spoke to you.

One day, as soon as we had left the forested area of a village we had bypassed, a group of huge, muscular men sprang from the bushes onto the path in front of us. Raising their machetes and hunting rifles, they ordered us to stop. The men were the voluntary guards of their village and had been asked by their chief to bring us back.

A large crowd had gathered in the chief’s compound for our arrival. The huge men pushed us to the ground in front of them and tied our feet with strong ropes. Then our hands were pulled behind our backs until our elbows touched, making our chests tight from the pressure. I was in tears from the pain. I tried to roll on my back, but that made it even worse.

“Are you rebels or spies?” The chief stamped his staff on the ground.

“No.” Our voices trembled.

The chief became very angry. “If you do not tell me the truth, I am going to have these men tie stones to your bodies and throw you in the river,” he roared.

We told him we were students and this was a big misunderstanding.

The crowd shouted, “Drown the rebels.”

The guards walked into the circle and started searching our pockets. One of them found a rap cassette in my pocket and handed it to the chief. He asked for it to be played.

You down with OPP (Yeah you know me)

You down with OPP (Yeah you know me)

You down with OPP (Yeah you know me)

Who’s down with OPP (Every last homie)

The chief stopped the music. He stroked his beard, thinking.

“Tell me,” he said, turning to me, “how did you get this foreign music?”

I told him that we rapped. He didn’t know what rap music was, so I did my best to explain it to him. “It is similar to telling parables, but in the white man’s language,” I concluded. I also told him that we were dancers and had a group in Mattru Jong, where we used to attend school.

“Mattru Jong?” he asked, and called for a young man who was from that village. The boy was brought before the chief and asked if he knew us and if he had ever heard us speak parables in the white man’s language. He knew my name, my brother’s, and those of my friends. He remembered us from performances we had done. None of us knew him, not even by his face, but we warmly smiled as if we recognized him as well. He saved our lives.

We were untied and treated to some cassava and smoked fish. We ate, thanked the villagers, and got ready to move on. The chief and some of the men who