I am always quiet so that I know what to say when I must speak.

My squad is my family, my gun is my provider, and protector, and my rule is to kill or be killed.

This days one must be careful to avoid awakening the pain of another.

Some people tried to hurt us to protect themselves, their family and communities...This was one of the consequences of civil war. People stopped trusting each other, and every stranger became an enemy. Even people who knew you became extremely careful about how they related or spoke to you.

I was still hesitant to let myself let go, because I still believed in the fragility of happiness.

A lot of people, when they say forgive and forget, they think you completely wash your brain out and forget everything. That is not the concept. What I think is you forgive and you forget so you can transform your experiences, not necessarily forget them but transform them, so that they dont haunt you or handicap you or kill you.

As a kid in Africa, you were so connected to nature itself because you went farming, watched the moon out at night, observed how the sky was different, and how the birds chanted different songs in the evening and the morning.