Written from the point of view of a young boy from the east end of Freetown who details personal and family life experiences amidst one of the most brutal civil wars on the African continent.
It was no secret that Grandma was particularly fond of her youngest grandchild, which happens to be me. Everywhere Grandma went, I went along. I was nicknamed Grandma's “walking stick” to my displeasure. However, I did enjoy the perks of being a ‘lastina’: she always had my back.
As I transitioned into a teenager, my interests turned to girls and hanging out with my friends. And because I wanted to be able to defend my future girlfriend like I had seen in The Karate Kid movie, I enlisted our neighbour to train me. My plan backfired one Saturday afternoon when my Uncle caught me taking karate lessons. I was punished intently to deter my participation. The greatest irony is that I was being beaten because “Kung Fu” was deemed physically exhausting and could lead to a medical crisis. Pfft, it was as if they thought the good old authentic African “discipline” meted to me, was somehow physically replenishing. Needless to say, I had no guts, liver or gall to voice out that thought because my parents just didn’t play like that.
With the absence of karate training, I sought comfort in the thoughts of spending quality time with my crush. She was a beautiful girl, tall with a skinny frame and a smile that instantly made me feel warm and fuzzy in my belly. She had a low haircut, was a little bit bossy, had a bubbly personality and a slight gap tooth causing her to pronounce certain words with a cute lisp.
Since we had once danced to more than three songs at her cousin’s birthday, and because her cousin was one of my close friends, it was virtually a done deal that she would be my girlfriend. I just needed to find the right moment to ask her out and make it official.
***
The first Monday morning in January of 1999, businesses in Freetown city came alive after the usual festivities and fun-packed Christmas celebrations. Kissy Street, now Sani Abacha Street, was laced with the aroma of hot black coffee and freshly-baked ‘Fula’ bread.
On the first day of school, I was excited to hop on a Poda Poda with my friends at Garrison Street. While we lived in the East end, our school was bound West in Murray Town. I met with my friend Royston who always seemed to have the whitest shirt even after running through a notoriously red dirt area called ‘red pump’; Kofi was a video game junkie like me and also a budding footballer; and then there was Macfoy and the other boys from the east with whom we joked and laughed all the way while sharing incredible accounts of our holiday experiences.
We were filled with much euphoria as we became reunited with our mates. Some left for the holidays as boys and returned as men. Thankfully, I was still a boy. But not for much longer.
The first day of school ended almost as quickly as the holidays had flashed past. We skipped the last period and took the slum bay route of the city to get home. We used our transport fare to purchase snacks and treats while teasing and bantering with each other on the way. I returned home thoroughly exhausted, finishing my late lunch without any fuss. I showered and went straight to bed. The next day would be grandma’s 80th birthday and it was certainly going to be a good day.
Then came the morning of Tuesday the 6th which was ushered in by gunfire.
My family and all residents of the East of Freetown were greeted by fleeing crowds with their loads. Then there was a short lull of silence, followed by rapid gunshots, RPG bursts and the overpowering smell of tear gas & ordinances. The long senseless civil war of eight years had been building up to a climax, with rebel forces now storming the capital city for their bloodiest quest: “Operation No Living Thing”.
Tuning to the national radio stations for information was pointless, all they played on repeat were Buju Banton reggae songs and Canterbury Cathedral renditions of the Psalms of David. There had been warnings of a planned invasion of Freetown but somehow the security forces slept on the intel. Or did they? The official instruction on the radio was for residents to remain indoors.
At the time, I had experienced the coups of NPRC 1 & 2, AFRC, and the ECOMOG intervention of 1998 in which Nigerian-led troops crawled in through waste gutters to liberate us so I naively expected the best outcome.
And while I dreaded any harm befalling me or my family, my most pressing concern was my childhood crush on the other side of the city. Was she safe? How would this "rebel thing" affect our big date at Aqua Sports Club on Saturday? The landline phones had been shot down and this being the era just before the smartphone and social media, there was no other way to know.
On Wednesday, the second day of the siege, a bomb landed on the house across the road from our family home. The house next to it belonged to the Jarrets’ which also went up in flames. Like a symphonic domino knockdown, a gentle harmattan breeze lifted the flames across the road and set the tip of our roof ablaze.
At the time, our house was a fifty-year-old wooden structure which had been renovated right before the holidays complete with a fresh lick of paint but that did not save it from going up in flames like a crispy bonfire on a breezy evening. Neighbours with ancient grudges laughed at our misfortune as our house was transformed into cinders. But as it is said proverbially in Krio “the rain does not only fall on an individual doorstep.” Moments later the same wind floated the flames over to their structure.
The smoke was worse than grandma’s wood-smoked jollof cooking on Christmas day. The hardest decision for us was deciding what to take and what to leave for the raging inferno. The fire started around 1:30 p.m. and by sunset, it had ended its wicked scheme. A block of five houses and churches had been raised to the ground.
That night, my family huddled in the back kitchen/coal storeroom/de-factor chicken shed. I realized then that there was no going back. Things would simply never be the same again. Despite the loss of centuries' worth of the family’s heirlooms and personal belongings, the lives of my loved ones were surely the most important treasures we still had. The value of life was irrevocably imprinted in my young mind.
At random intervals, my mind would race back to my Sega Mega Drive games console, the "LA Gear” trainers with flashing lights, and my red photo album which contained cherished memories of good times with friends, family, and most importantly the pics of my crush and I cutting the cake at my thirteenth birthday party.
These blissful reminiscences were often rudely interrupted by sporadic machine gunfire. The pro-government forces and the rebels continued the scattered fighting often with airstrike support from the ECOMOG jets. Radio Democracy 98.1 had been relocated outside of the city to Lungi and was providing pro-government news and updates including broadcasts of BBC’s Focus On Africa. Several people were killed when they came out to the streets believing wrong info from the government radio station, they were sadly ambushed and killed by the rebel forces. We didn’t know what and who to believe.
Who knew that our burnt-down home would turn out to be a blessing in disguise? The rebels assumed our compound had been deserted and this dissuaded them from ever breaching the perimeter.
The battle raged on for nearly a fortnight. With our home located in the east, on the main entry road to the city, it was implausible for our family of seven; a grandparent, a dad and a mom accompanied by four minors; to safely cross nearly 20 km of city terrain loaded with snipers, Nigerian bomber jets playing cops and robbers. We didn’t fancy being converted to human shields for either side so we were forced to wait it out behind enemy lines.
***
Mom had given me a cassette player as a gift for passing my secondary school entrance exams. Pre-invasion, music had been my escape. I’d listen to all sorts of sounds and get lost in them. My playlist was eclectic, with songs from Penny Penny, Michael Jackson, Angelique Kidjo, Peter Andre etc. Fused with electric Euro Dance sounds from Ace of Base, Vengaboys, Black Box, Robyn, Snap, etc.
Over the holidays I made a tape with handpicked music for my crush. It was a mixtape before I knew what a mixtape was. I dubbed songs from Janet Jackson, Mary J. Blige, Backstreet Boys, Brandy, Keith Sweat, Backstreet, Will Smith, and Celine Dion and titled it “The Love Tape”. During the fire, the mini-cassette player and my entire music collection were incinerated. On those sad nights behind enemy lines, I would perform many of those songs to myself, mostly in my head to escape the dreadful reality around me. Usually, I would be accompanied by a call and response of gunfire in the background.
After what felt like countless days of terror, the siege ended almost as unexpectedly as it had started. In the days leading up to D-day, there had been propaganda reports from both pro and anti-government forces that each was making gains on the other.
That particular afternoon after much intense fighting, it became eerily silent.
Behind enemy lines, one quickly learns how to identify the sounds of the different weapons. The rebels were more reckless and sporadic in their shooting while mostly clusters and bursts of shots came from pro-government forces.
There had been heavy rebel gunfire and then a lull till early evening.
We then heard pro-government soldiers doing a door-to-door sweep. The overwhelming smell of smoke, burnt flesh and destruction around us dominated our senses. We had no energy to celebrate other than breathe weary sighs of relief.
At dawn, Grandma’s eldest son accompanied by his son arrived to rescue us.
As we pulled off from our burnt-out bunker, no one said a word, but it was clear that we were all thinking the same thing.
Driving through the city littered with half-decomposed corpses strewn with jubilant feasting vultures, burning cars, and shelled-out buildings was all too surreal for my senses. They looked like scenes my older brother and I had seen of the Vietnam War in Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket film. The once-ancient megalith of our city had been practically razed to the ground.
What happens after everything falls apart?
Days turned into weeks and weeks into months and then we were picking up the pieces.
***
Our school reopened in May, this time, the reunion of us boys was sombre. Our boyish excitement had been replaced by something else, it was as though we had all become men for all the wrong reasons: we had seen things.
The saddest part remains that I never actually got to go on that date with my crush.
Grandma relocated to London and as her ‘walking stick’, I followed suit. With that, I was also involuntarily removed from my crush, my friends and my social life in Freetown. I told my sweetheart I would be back soon, but I never knew that “soon” would be twelve years. These are some of the things we lost in the fire, which became an intricate set-up for the next chapter of my life.
*Author’s note: This is a work of nonfiction. Names of individuals have been altered for privacy.
Nick Asgill is a Creative content producer with a passion for developing African culture stories and youth talent in Africa and the Diaspora entertainment spaces. Born and raised in Sierra Leone, Nick found his way into the entertainment industry in London through the “Prince's Trust” Urban Voices program and was mentored by Nigerian entertainment trailblazer JJC Skillz. Nick holds a Bachelor degree in Media Production and has won awards in related fields.