THE ROAD THAT MADE ME A CHILD SOLDIER It was a time of low tide; our parents were busy by the seaside While my friends and I were lazing and playing by the roadside Suddenly out of the blue, a big army truck halted by our side Carrying a roguish group of armed men so crowded inside They offered to give us delicious treats and then a joyride But we declined as we had been cautioned never to abide We had also been taught to steer far and very, very wide From such situations, to waste no time! To run and hide! But what transpired next was so sudden it tossed our guard aside They jumped out, surrounded us and begun to bark orders and chide To our utmost terror and confusion, brute force was mercilessly applied We were beaten senseless, quickly roughly gagged and tightly tied Nothing made sense! But it was plain to see that our goose was fried Rebel groups would deviously enlist the use of a traitor local guide Who presented them with road maps and information secretly spied From helpless villages, they knew everything, all movements carefully eyed They could appear and disappear as they chose, thus our childhood died Blindfolded and terrified, no we were petrified we cried, we cried and we cried We traveled for days our pleas for food and water were ruthlessly denied It was either be a soldier or be beheaded conditions set for us to decide We were trained to be monsters lacking humanity both inside and outside To this vile atrocity! How could Almighty God our father let things slide????? It was at that moment in time that my beliefs and faith begun to collide For men with power, ruled like gods and their reign of evil set free to glide To what I was forced to witness and do, gives me horrible shame not pride Part of the initiation was to kill our own or get killed, it was rule and divide Saw a groom get killed while watching this beastly dogs gang rape his bride Life to us was a nightmare with questions no man or God had answers to provide Long after the war I still get no sleep, I still have no peace thou indeed I’ve tried All I can think of is ending my burning pain and regret by committing suicide Because I became a part of what is now known as the Rwandan genocide Now I do not belong, I am all alone, my anguish prolong with none to confide My road to being a child soldier was a road to hell how well the two coincide And so am forever lost not letting bygones be bygones, into darkness I stride……. By Bernard Owor
Posted on: Sat, 26 Jul 2014 18:55:11 +0000
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