Free Radiance of Tomorrow by Ishmael Beah

vessels and therefore can easily be filled with anything. I think stories and the old ways will bring them in contact with life, with living, and with godliness again. Of course, these aren’t the only things. There are practical measures that must be taken.”
    There was silence among them, but the children were playing games, laughing and clapping.
    If God could be anywhere, this was where he or she was tonight.
    No one could have anticipated that this was the last of such gatherings. The elders would have told other stories if they could have seen the strange changes that were in the wind of time. But at such beginnings, it was too early to hope for more; they had hoped only for incremental changes and reintroductions of old ways. They couldn’t think too far into the future.
    Oumu didn’t go home with her family that night. Instead she went with Mama Kadie and the two of them stayed up late into the night sitting around a small fire, their hands stretched out to receive its warmth. Mama Kadie told Oumu many stories until her voice became a whisper as the silence of the night deepened. She went on until Oumu’s eyes said she needed no more. It was the beginning of such gatherings for them and it continued for many other nights. Mama Kadie would sometimes ask Oumu to retell stories she had told her. The little girl would do so in a voice that was not of her age. Mama Kadie would smile, knowing that each story had found a newer vessel and would live on.

 
    4
    WAITING CAST A SPELL OVER EVERYONE in Imperi, and it ended when they found something to do. It wasn’t necessarily something life changing, but anything that brought about a routine that promised possibilities. Those who found nothing either left for other towns in search of employment or sat around, restless and irritable with everyone and everything.
    Since the first day that Mama Kadie’s feet landed in Imperi, the town had begun shedding its image of war, starting with its physical appearance. Now, a year later, it was difficult to see that most of the houses had been bullet-ridden or burnt. Everyone had done their best to change the condition of their houses so they regained their vibrancy with yellow, white, gray, green, and black paint. Those who didn’t have paint plastered their homes with fresh brown and red mud.
    The sounds, too, had changed, from hesitant winds and deep silences to the voices of children playing games, chasing one another, or playing in the river. The population had grown, but everyone still knew pretty much everyone else. Nearby towns and villages had also come to life, so the elders sometimes visited friends and vice versa. They would sit together eating cola nuts and discuss the old days when they were children and walking on the path was a pleasurable discovery. You would hear a man working on his farm, whistling tunes so beautifully that he put the birds to shame. Women and girls sang sweet melodies as they fished with nets in the river; farmers would lay out fresh cucumbers on the path for those going by to take a few and eat. Such things had returned during the latter part of the first year of Imperi’s revival.
    There were only a few unexpected occurrences. Some bulldozers came humming into town, clearing the roads that had been dead for years. Men in suits that made their foreheads sweat too much came with an air of self-importance to discuss the reopening of the only secondary school in the area. They had a meeting by the roadside, standing and squatting around documents they laid on the earth and held down with stones. They couldn’t go into the school because it was still overgrown. But they decided that the campus would be cleaned and the school reopened even though it was far from town. A few weeks later, the school was functioning again, although no major repair had been done. The old bodies of the buildings were painted to make them look new. There was no ceremony for the reopening. A short, very dark jovial fellow