I've spent the week working with the Planned Parenthood Association of Sierra Leone. A team of eight of us have worked all day every day preparing their contraceptive forecast and procurement requirements for 2011 and 2012. And while I'm only a consultant to this organization, they have treated me as one of their one and welcomed me so fully into their midst. Yesterday, they surprised me with a parting gift--two dresses (made specifically for me! fit perfectly without someone even measuring me!!), some fabric and pillowcases, and a wood-carved giraffe! They even had a photographer come to capture the moment. Anyone who knows me knows that I teared up during this sweet moment of gratitude. It's really been such an honor for me to come here and work with this team, and it's also been a privilege to be around people with such strength, faith and determination.
This country experienced eleven years of a horrible civil war from 1991 to 2002. I'm not going to recount the whole thing here. If you'd like to read about it, there are books, movies, etc., and of course wikipedia! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sierra_Leone_Civil_War In a few sentences the war started and was led by the Revolutionary United Front, a band of militia trained in Libya and financed by Charles Taylor (former president of Liberia and now on trial for crimes against humanity in the Hague). Ultimately Charles Taylor and the RUF were after control of Sierra Leone's diamonds. They first invaded in the diamond rich area in the east of the country. RUF militia took over communities, forced young boys and men to join their ranks, used rape to control communities, mutilated people (cutting off limbs, hands, lips, ears) to send messages to other communities that the rebels were coming. They would take control of diamond mines and give the farmed diamonds to Charles Taylor in return for weapons and ammunition so that they could continue their terror (so that "dirty stone" that Naomi Campbell received was one such diamond).
Over the course of a number of years and futile attempts to destroy the RUF, Nigeria Forces (the ECOWOG- Economic Community of West African States Monitoring Group) made some progress in pushing back the rebels from invading Freetown, but ultimately they were unsuccessful. The rebels invaded the eastern portion of Freetown and destroyed this part of the city. It wasn't until 1999 that the UN established a presence, but then later when UN personnel were held hostage by the rebels in 2000 the British intervened and deploying troops, evacuating foreigners, and establishing civil order. After the government regained control of the country, nearly 72,000 RUF militiamen were disarmed and either arrested or reintegrated into society that the war was declared officially over in 2002.
Through the course of this week, a few of the PPASL staff have told me some stories- their own personnel stories and experiences of the war. It was hard to listen and impossible to even imagine the fear and strength they had. They have all lost friends, relatives, and neighbors. You can't not see the effects of war here. In faces, in lost limbs and hands, destroyed buildings, even in the air. Here are just a few stories- I am hardly doing them justice but it gives you a sense of what happened here:
- one man fled his own in the Eastern region when the rebels invaded, he later moved again when the rebels continued to move further into the interior, he moved a third time, and then a fourth time into the capital city of Freetown. He received a scholarship for internally displaced students to attend secondary school in Freetown, but ultimately even freetown wasn't safe.
- one man who lived in the center of Freetown awoke in the middle of the night to the sound of bullets flying through his neighborhood. He and his mother and eight young siblings fled their house. In the end he was separated from all of them save his 7 year-old brother. For two weeks they hid and searched for their mother and siblings...they eventually found them nearly two weeks later in the city hospital (also hiding).
- another man who also lived in the center of Freetown similarly escaped his house in the middle of the night with his family and got on a boat to go to Guinea to seek refuge (nearly 1/3 of the population left Sierra Leone and became refugees in surrounding countries). However before he left, the rebels did demanded all the food in the house else they would take his uncle's car. This man obliged and gave them every bit of food in the house yet they still wanted the car. The man resisted and now has a long scar on his arm from where the rebels (likely high or intoxicated from whatever substance most of the armies used) slashed him with a knife. Though he did get to keep his car, he now always carries a reminder of that day.
Needless to say, I will forever keep these stories in my memory as well as all of my lovely experiences here in Sierra Leone. As the Director of Programmes here said to me in the car yesterday, "The war made us stronger. It helped all of us become stronger in our faith, it helped us live together in peace no matter your religion or tribe. We are all trying to move our country forward." Please check out my picasa site (link near the "Globe" icon on this webpage) for more photos! Thanks for reading
1 comment:
Beautiful gifts, Erin! And brave, brave souls you were with... Have you read the book, "A Long Way Gone"? It is a moving read. I imagine that hearing stories in person is even more so.
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