Circumstances Beyond His Control

Some readers may be familiar with Sierra Leone thanks to the work of the tremendously talented Aminatta Forna, who last year came out with "Ancestor Stones," a fictionalized account of a modernized expat woman who returns to her grandfather's village in Sierra Leone after the civil war. Through the eyes of surviving female relatives, she describes the systematic destruction, over a couple of centuries, of an imperfect but functioning society, ripped apart first by proselytizing Christians and Muslims, then colonized by the British, exploited by mining interests, and torn and torn again by increasingly thuggish political factions. The country now would seem to be wrecked. Sierra Leone has among the lowest average incomes in the world; the life expectancy for men is 38 years, and for women, 42. But a Web site, Sweet Salone, run by a chatty and perky girl, shows another side to the place -- a country of tiny farms, close families and lush green jungle, a beautiful, mysterious land capable of being Heaven or Hell.

The boys, soon enough, find themselves in Hell. They travel trails by night, in perpetual fear of who might find them. They steal food and endure terrible hardship. They join up with other lost boys and, after encountering death on every side, finally come to a sizable settlement, Yele, "a village that was occupied by the military. It was a big village with more than ten houses. . . . In the beginning, it seemed that we had finally found safety . . . . All that darkened the mood of the village was the sight of orphaned children. There were over thirty boys between the ages of seven and sixteen. I was one of them."

The inevitable occurs: Yele is surrounded, and the boys are recruited to fight the rebels. At the age of 13, Ishmael is given an AK-47, plied with marijuana, pills and "brown brown," a combination of cocaine and gunpowder. He and his friends listen to insane speeches: "We are not like the rebels, those riffraffs who kill people for no reason," says one lieutenant. "We kill them for the good and betterment of this country." At night, back in camp, they watch Sylvester Stallone in "Rambo" over and over and emulate his moves. By day, they kill and kill and kill without mercy since they have been told, rightly enough, that the rebels are the ones who have killed their families. The boys suffer from wounds, headaches, nightmares, fear of death.