...fierce battles for my being...

Going through the photo archives at work, the pictures in the Sierra Leone file scare me. In the midst of pictures of beautiful children with eyes so dark like pools of liquid chocolate, of the shiny new school buildings with courtyards and sturdy brick, of teachers and amputee students living, surviving and finding hope - in the midst of all these pictures, there is a picture of an axe, haphazardly constructed from a rusty pipe and makeshift blade (still sharp enough to cut through bone), tossed carelessly on the ground.

The first couple of times I came across this picture, I didn't realize why it was there, or what significance it held for Sierra Leone.

Today, when I saw it for the third time, the words of Jonathan White from his seminar on War Affected Children two weeks ago came rushing back at me and it hit me like a blow to the face.

"The civil war in Sierra Leone was one of the bloodiest, cruelest and most devastating in history. It was a war fought with axes and machetes, paid for by diamonds and blood".

Then I thought of Mariatu, and I shivered because she is beautiful and strong and survived it, and we are all so small in the face of her courage.