Reading about Sierre Leone this week, a book called 'A long way gone' by Ishmael Beah, narrating his life when he was only 12 during the rebel wars in the 90's - fleeing from village to village, loosing his family, seeing people get killed, burnt, raped, chopped and eventually becoming a child soldier at the age of 13 to fight against the rebels because there was no other way to live.
The rebels (RUF) with their AK-47s rose to power to topple the existing corrupt leader but were extremely violent and believed the only way to gain attention was by killing everyone. The British stepped in to help in the 2000, 9 years after the war started. The war ended ended in 2002.
Ismael was rescued by the Unicef in '96, had to go through drug rehabilitation process. He was a good kid - the first half of the book was him running from village to village starving, trying to survive - but went through a phase of extreme violence and drugs when he was recruited as a child soldier. A nurse Esther helped him psychologically with a lot of counseling, and he shared his story in NY in '96. Ismael went back to Sierre Leone - given his family died, his uncle in Freetown (capital of Sierre Leone) adopted him - but he was killed a year later in the war too.
Ishmael knew he was either going to be a child soldier again or get killed if he did not flee. He managed to escape through a neighboring country, to the US permanently.
Many times throughout the book his love for rap music saved him but all other times you end up bawling your eyes out. Today. Ishmael Beah is a human rights activist.
There's still many problems across the continent of Africa, blessed with natural resources but often abused. The movie Blood Diamonds was set during this time as well. There's still several hundred thousands of child soldiers around the world.
Sierre Leone is a small country with a population of 8.4 million people. It is is slowly healing - but with inflation over the past 42 years swinging between -3.3% and 178.7%. I can't help but think how beautiful it would be to have Bitcoin here - and for all parts of the world to be given a real fighting chance to heal.
War is heart breaking. If we do not end the war, the war will end us.
