Catalyst for Peace (formerly Catalyst Peacebuilding)

We have made it to Makeni—and found an Internet café! It seems like an incredible change from Kono—where the heaviness of the war hangs over the city like a thick fog. The last week has left me with more questions than answers, more uncertainties than insights. Mostly it leaves me feeling like I don’t know what I think or believe about anything—which is usually a good sign of learning.

In Kono, we met Rebecca. Rebecca is 20 years old. She had a beautiful smile and her hair was braided and sticking out across her head. She nursed her baby as she recounted her experience in the war. She has a 7 month old…she also has a 7 year old, from when she was raped in the bush during the war. She began her story by saying how when the rebels first came she was with her mother—her mother cried and cried and was almost killed trying to save her—her mother pleaded with the rebels saying “please, this is my only daughter,” but she could not stop them. Right before she was finally taken, her mother washed her feet and face with water as a way to protect her—as a way to say “god go with you.” I imagine it was the memory of that moment that kept Rebecca going, gave her the strength to get out of the bush, gave her the strength to continue living, gave her the strength to have a child in the bush—a child she took care of and loved and raised—a child that was the result and living memory of the defilement of rape and sexual slavery. Rebecca, too, fought. She burned houses. She was injected with cocaine. She did escape. But, when she finally found her mom, her mother refused her. To this day, her mom and sisters still only call her “rebel.” When she reached this part of the story, she could not continue. She began crying. I, too, shed tears. Where is healing to be found in stories like Rebecca’s? There was nothing I could say or do.

It is important to understand the complexities of the situation in Sierra Leone. I often have a hard time wrapping my mind around the atrocities carried out at the hands of children—but they were, as many have said, “the worst of the killers.” Reintegration is a journey. To accept the person who killed your family, burned your village, raped your grandmother back into your community is a tremendous challenge. And the way Sierra Leoneans are finding ways to live side by side continues to amaze me.

As we walked through a small village, Tombudu, we ran into a humanitarian worker. He explained that he was getting the tour of the village from a former RUF and former CDF. It’s hard to imagine it, but that is the truth found in almost every village across Sierra Leone. I wonder how reconciliation will be sustained—how peace will be cultivated in the hearts of the coming generations. Is it a sustainable peace when the imminence of violence drives people to accept former combatants back into their homes? So many people we have talked with have said, “There is no other option. We must move forward.” It takes remarkable courage and wisdom to begin rebuilding communities, victims and perpetrators side by side, but the journey toward reintegration and reconciliation is a long one.

I wonder how Rebecca will find peace. I wonder, too, how her children—those whose father’s were rebels, will remember the war. What peace is being built in the long-term? There is still a strong stigma around “rebel babies.” I wonder how those children will be raised—how their memories and stories will impact the generations to come.

There is a strong sense of community in Sierra Leone—it is an unbelievable resource for peace. People understand their interconnectedness—they have a tradition of “Palava huts.” Small, circle huts where villages came together to work through a problem, to make decisions as one body. Their dependence on one another for life—the way they recognize the need for each individual has led to spaces where sharing, where harmony, where conflict transformation has been built into the social fabric of their villages. It is easy to see the disparity between cities like Freetown and villages like Myama in the Kono district. The capacity people have to live together is an incredible testament to the human spirit—to the possibility of reconciliation. But it does not diminish the challenge or complexities that are also seen in these villages. For the women who have been rejected by their families, for the children who are stigmatized for having “rebel blood,” for communities that have found ways to live together—yet still struggle, daily, to find peace—reconciliation does not come easily and the question of Sierra Leone’s future remains.  There is much to learn from the people here—from their emphasis on community, from the relational accountability that becomes so strong in places where interconnectedness brings life. They recognize their dependency on one another and strive to work together—even in the most difficult situations—as a way to continue living. I hope I bring the heart, the ears, and the compassion to understand the enormous challenges and enormous steps people are making daily to bring sustainable peace to this country.