Mama: My name is Mama and I came from Sierra Leone. In New York my mother… my mother has seven children, three boys and four girls. And I'm like today we are sitting here [as a group of refugee youth, and] I already feel like when I'm back home, I feel like you people are my friends back home and it make me to think about my friends back home, we used to talk together, do things together.

I had one friend Fanta, she's in Guinea. I'm already thinking about how when I came from the war I was living near her, but she don't know me, she don't know where I came from but she told me that I'm gonna be her friend and I was her friend and she said anything you want you can tell me and I will give it to you. She was the first friend I had when I went to Guinea and what it did, well, it helped me like sometimes if my mother's not home or didn't cook nothing, I could go to her, me and my sister would go there and she could give us food, even if we don't ask her, she give us food. She already helped us and I -already I'm thinking about her.

And first time when I come here, when I come to the United States, I call her, but she's not there. She went different way, so when I call, she's not there, so if I want to send a letter, I don't have anyone to send letters to. Sometimes I say I feel bad like when I go to school and the teacher shouts at me, I feel bad about those stuff that happened to me --it make me mad.

The thing that happened to me… I'll go through my story. One morning when I was in Kabala me and my big sisters. We was sleeping as my mother say, we were sleeping when my father wake up to go to pray. My house had an outside and you can put a mat on the floor and pray. So my father went to take prayer water then we heard him go outside. Then when my mother went outside, my father was killed, my sister was outside too. My big sister, but she's dead. She was outside. When they shoot my father, she went to touch my father and they killed my sister. And that morning me and my mother and my brothers that's the time my big brother sent a resettlement to us. That's the time my big brother got lost from us. He went in Conakry. I don't know how he managed to have papers to come in the United States. We went to Guinea, different part of Guinea. My brother sent papers to us then we come here in United States. And that's it.

Raeshma: The brother that… have you seen him again or heard from him. The one you said that was separated from the family?

Mama: When she heard when they killed my father, then when she went to… when they killed someone, you went to hold the person. They shot her back then they went. My mother said we should go out, we should not stay in the house, then my mother hold our hand then we went under the bush and walk and my mother knows some people in Guinea and we went there. So we were slaving until we had money and rent our house, start doing stuff go sell and have money.

Sometimes my mother go to… when we were in Guinea, she go to the small villages and go take the bananas and apples and other things, blankets for me to sell. Sometimes people come from different way again and buy from my mother.

Raeshma: So the whole family worked together.

Sumitra: How did you get to Guinea?

Mama: We was walking until we get to a water and we take a boat after that we made a car and get in that and go in Guinea.

Raeshma: How long did the whole trip take you?

Mama: About three weeks.

Question: So how many people were walking?

Mama: Some people were walking, but my family, my two brothers and my big sister and my little sister, my little sister was little that time.

Raeshma: Even the one that's a baby. Yeah. Mama, what I mean is, did your family have any idea that it was dangerous in the village or that people could come this way, or…

Mama: They killed my father because in Kabala, where my father was living on 19th street, he was, he used to go to the [mosque], to teach people Quran, to stand in front of the people make them to pray, stuff like that and they used to hate Muslims over there so they came and killed my father like that.

Sumitra: So before that day you didn't feel like that there was anything… how was it before that day?

Raeshma: Did you feel safe?

Mama: Yeah, I felt safe before that. Everyone was scared. Like, when you heard the gun sign, you could go somewhere that you don't know where you are going, like if we are going, we heard a gun sign on the other side, we get back to where we are coming from again and go back again --just go around and round before you reach where it's safe.

Raeshma: And were the people --do you know who they were who killed your father?

Mama: Never.

Raeshma: And the people in the community, did they help you to leave?

Mama: No, everybody's running. Everybody's going. The war is in the place, everybody's running away to go, you don't even look at each other's face.

Question: How is it for you now in America. Do you feel a little more safe?

Mama: Sometimes when, like, when I'm playing I don't think about this stuff, like when people make me happy and we play together. But sometimes when my teacher talks to me in class, if I'm feeling bad I think about something very hurt me. So it make me sad at that time. Like somebody talk to me it make me mad, I feel bad I talk about something.

Raeshma: So these teachers are not very nice to you?

Mama: No, they're all very nice to me. The other kids… well, they do it to me. When I know how to beat you, I will beat you, I won't get mad if you say something to me, because you're a kid and I'm just age as you if you cross me, we'll fight, if we cross each other.

Sumitra: What makes you mad?

Mama: Cause sometimes like when I think if I'm sitting in class I don't want anyone to talk me, I don't know why I feel like that, but when I sit in class sometimes I don't want nobody to talk to me and I don't even want the teacher to call on me.

Raeshma: But when you're with us, it seems like you're so… you talk to everyone, you laugh with everyone, you seem so social. Something about the classroom makes you feel very alone?

Mama: Sometimes. I don't know what happened.

Question: Is your mom here?

Mama: Yes, my mom is here. My brothers are here, my sisters are here. One my stepfather, he was in Kabala, he was in Freetown with his son and his daughter we don't know where they are right now. But my mother said something about they –so I don't know.

Sumitra: How long were you in Guinea?

Mama: Maybe four years something like that.

Raeshma: And you never went back [to Sierra Leone]?

Mama: Never.

Raeshma: What kind of place is Kabala?

Mama: Kabala is no a village. It Kabala village is Conadu (?) It has it's own village, but it's not a village.

Sumitra: Can you describe what is outside your house?

Mama: My house was like we have rooms and banister you can move outside and walk around whatever you want. And the Arabic school I was going to, we have to put a black something on, covered, go there, they teach us Quran and after that we come home. My house was like in the front door and three rooms and when you go outside they have rocks, little little rocks. Sometimes you can sit there. Houses like me everywhere else. Cause when I was in Kabala, I was so little, we don't go out cause my father already have money. We don't look for work. When I went in Guinea, that's the worst, because my mother don't have money, we work a lot, but at first we don't work, my father have a lot of money.

When I went in Guinea, I didn't go back to my country.

Raeshma: While there was fighting going on, how long were you there and were you even aware of that, before your father died, were you even aware that there was civil war going one?

Mama:Yeah, it was like when the war was in Sierra Leone, in the capital, in 1991, the war didn't reach to us yet, and we were sitting over there and it was to come little by little. 1998 the war came there.

Raeshma: And that was the same year that your father… 98?

Mama: Yeah.

Sumitra: How did you get news of the war?

Mama: When I was back home, my father have a TV and you could see it in newspapers, something like that. And some people from Freetown would talk about it, some people would go visit, do something like that and they would talk about it.