Long Way Gone

Last night I got to attend a lecture at Vanderbilt by Ishmael Beal. He is the author of the book Long Way Gone. It's his story of being a young boy when the civil war in Sierre Leone started, the death of his immediate family and then his recruitment into the army as a child soldier. Reading the book is beyond anything you watch on tv. He confimed last night that movies like Blood:Diamond(which is an awesome movie) dont even touch on the violence of war.
Hearing him speak was so inspiring. He is a storyteller by nature. His tribe, the Mende people, have oral traditions they past down so he learned at an early age how to captivate an audience.
There were a few things that were really impacting:
-He is only 27 and is actually taking his experiences and impacting the world at large. He is a international speaker for the UN, works for Human Rights Watch and is on the council to influence laws and policies related to child soldiers. and he's only 27!
-He spoke of the UNICEF workers that were working at his rehabiliatation center and how the other child soliders and he would beat them up severely, cut them, curse at them and the workers would come back, stitched up, and say, "its not your fault"....over and over they would do this until the spark of humanity left in the young boys would come back and began to change them. That is such love.

He has been out of the army for over 10 years. He still only sleeps 3 hours a night, the nightmares continue, the affects of trauma are still present. But he has taken those things and made them into something positive. He had a really good therapist or he is an extremely resilent young man. He doesn't let those horrors continue to negatively affect him.

It was good for me to engage with something on a global level. I listen to NPR news every morning. But besides my hubby, do i rarely talk about things we listen to and how it impacts me. Afganistan and the bombings, Kosovo and its liberation, Pakistan and its current voting polls. These things swirl in my head and in my heart and so to get out and actually hear a speaker and in engage with a friend afterwards was truly what this girl needed.
Even though we are heavily involved in our community and I get the privilege of being on the benevolence team....its good to talk about the world. It's a passion/calling and I need to continue to nourish it.

If you are interested read the book and learn more at www.childsoldiers.net
And PS. if you dont have children and your my friend, talk to me about global things. I like it! Or if you do have children, lets talk about ways we can make our children global minded.