The beginning

I will never forget the beginning. The day was February 16, 2003, I had just come home from soccer. When I stepped through the doorway into our small hut, with dirt on the floor and a straw celling, my mother was crying."Mother," I asked, "why are you crying?"



"It has begun," she cried "I knew it was coming, but I never did a thing."



"What has started?" I replied, squeezing my soccer ball in fearful anticipation.



"A war," my mother whispered, so soft I could barely hear her voice. "They want to kill each other, and we are caught in the middle." That was all I needed to hear before my head was spinning. At first I was in shock, surprised at how naive I had been towards the situation to where now, I was struggling to understand what was happening. But then, I felt angry, not at those fighting and killing, but at my mom for not getting us out of here before the war started. Shocked, I quickly quelled my anger and directed toward myself. What was happening to me? Why was I sitting here blaming my mother when she had done nothing to start this war? All those events happened in an instant, but this scene has stuck in my head forever.





After that, gunshots came from outside our house. "Quickly", my mother called, "hide under the table." So we both fell to our hands and knees and crawled on the dirt to our living room table. Huddling together, I felt a warm comfort from being this close to my mother, but this moment of serenity was quickly cut short as 3 men burst into our house. They all wore tattered an mismatching clothes, each with a machete in one hand, and a pistol in the other. Cloth's draped around their heads disguised their identity, but I could tell from the way they had entered our house, that they were not friends of father.





"أتيت الذي في أيّ وقت يكون داخل هنا ، خارجا الآن!,"the men screamed as they waved their weapons- Who ever is in here, come out now! My mother put her hand over my mouth and motioned for me to stay quiet. The men left and we thought the threat was over, but what we didn't know was that the threat had just begun. More men marched into our house, all of which were wearing green camouflage army pants, and had machine guns slung over their shoulders. "It's the janjaweed,"my mother hissed." أخذت أيّ شيء قيّمة وتركت الإستراحة" yelled their leader, as he scanned our house with beady eyes- Take anything valuable and leave the rest. The men wasted no time, and immediately began stripping our house dry. Mother and I had to think quickly, and we decided on a plan. In one swift motion, we both darted out from under the table and sprinted toward the door. As we ran past one of the men, he looked up in surprise, but before he could say anything, I kicked him in the leg, sending him sprawling onto the ground. After what had only been a few seconds, we were outside. Mother and I ran and ran, not stopping to see what was happening around us. Soon, we were outside our town and into the open. Mother and I stopped for a break, and when we turned around, we were filled with horror. Beeda Ardiba, our home town, was alight, being burned to the ground by the janjaweed."[أه] جودتي " said mother as she put her hand to her heart- Oh my goodness.