Chanda's Wars

by Allan Stratton

  “How?” Esther demands. “At first there were the guards. Then after they left, he kept inside. We figured he wanted to be alone.”

  Mrs. Tafa plants the tip of her parasol on a paving stone and rests her chins on its handle. “Mr. Lesole was a proud man,” she says. “Now his tongue’s cut out. His head’s deformed. He can’t talk. He can’t swallow right. No wonder he wants to hide.”

  “Nobody wants to hide,” I say. “I’ll bet he’s just scared of what people will say. Like Mama. Like us. Well Mr. Lesole isn’t a secret. He’s a friend. Esther, Mrs. Tafa: You of all people should understand.” I kneel by Soly and Iris. “The two of you need to see Mr. Lesole. So do I.” Their eyes fill with terror. “If you get scared,” I say calmly, “just chant the alphabet. It’s how I got you home.”

  We walk alone, the three of us, hand in hand. As we go down the road, the yards go quiet. People pretend to hang laundry, rake the ground by their doors, or darn socks, but the moment we pass they turn and stare. This time, Soly and Iris don’t care. Their eyes are glued to the Lesoles’ front door. The closer it gets, the more they squeeze my fingers. I squeeze back.

  We enter the Lesoles’ yard, pass by the hammock, and stand on the threshold. I knock. Silence. The shutters are half-closed. I think someone’s watching us from the inside, but I can’t tell. I knock again.

  Soly tugs my hand. “Maybe we should go.”

  I’m thinking he’s right, when the door opens. Mrs. Lesole stares through the crack. “So you’re back,” she says.

  “Yes.”

  She glances at Soly and Iris. “We heard these two were in the bush.”

  “Yes.”

  An awkward pause. Soly wriggles a toe in the dirt. Iris twists around and looks up at the sky as if she isn’t here.

  “Mrs. Lesole, we’ve come to wish your husband a good recovery. The children want to know he’s all right.”

  “Do they.” Her breath catches. “Well he’s not all right. He’ll never be all right.”

  “We’re sorry.”

  “I’ll tell him you said so.” She grips the door frame. “A few days later, it could have been them that did it.”

  “Maybe,” I say. “But it wasn’t.”

  She wipes her eyes. “He was a beautiful man, my husband. I’ll tell him you called.” She shuts the door in our face.

  “What do we do?” Iris says.

  “I guess we go home.”

  We start to make our way across the yard. As we pass the hammock, Soly strokes Mr. Lesole’s pillow.

  Then, behind us, a strange sound. We turn around. Mr. Lesole is standing at his front door, in pajamas, slippers, and nightgown. He hides his face behind a park map. We look at each other. He lowers the map slowly. His neck and face are swollen huge. There’s bandages over his head and around his mouth and jaw. He motions the children to come to him. They take a few steps and freeze.

  Mr. Lesole hesitates. Then he bends over and starts to lumber around the yard like an elephant, his arm-trunk swinging freely. He lifts his hands to his ears. It’s Elephant Charge. Soly’s favorite. I smile, as he rocks from side to side, kicking the earth behind him. He raises his arm to trumpet. Instead, a mangled cry rips out of his throat.

  The children’s eyes fill. Mr. Lesole charges. The children know to stay still, but they can’t. They turn and run. He catches up, scoops Iris under one arm and Soly under the other. Then he settles onto his knees and hugs them fiercely.

  “Mr. Lesole, Mr. Lesole,” they say.

  He kisses the tops of their heads through his bandages.

  “Why aren’t I dead?” Soly whispers. “I should be dead.”

  “Me too,” Iris cries.

  Mr. Lesole shakes his head, no no no. They hold him tight. They weep into his chest. He weeps too.

  46

  EVERY DAY WE spend a little time with Mr. Lesole. His love for Iris and Soly has softened Mrs. Lesole. It protects the children from the whispers, too.

  The three of us are finally back at school. Iris has the occasional rage, but she’s still in my class, and Soly’s across the hall, so I get to work and keep an eye on them at the same time. At home, they continue to draw. Mostly the images are terrors from the bush, but every so often there’s a surprise. They’re with the chickens. Or helping me carry water from the standpipe. Simple things.

  This evening they color together quietly. When they’re finished, they call me over. They’ve made a picture of the family. Iris is the biggest, of course. She’s smack at the center, standing on my head. I’ve got Soly by the hand.

  Iris points at a bright triangle holding a box to its ear. “That’s Auntie Rose,” she says. “And that’s Esther. And Mr. Lesole. And Mrs. Lesole.”

  “It’s beautiful,” I gasp. “Especially the gold stars around everybody.”

  “They’re for Granny and everybody up in Tiro,” Soly volunteers.

  “The ancestors, too,” Iris corrects. She hesitates, then points to the top of the page. There’s a stork flying next to a crow with a clumpy foot. The tips of their wings are touching. “The birds, the birds are…” She stops.

  “I know,” I whisper. “I know.”

  A family picture isn’t the end of our troubles. Mandiki is in their heads and always will be. But at times like this, I know that something else is in there too. I feel myself start to breathe. To dream of a time, sometime, when they’ll be well.

  We’re at the Lesoles’ one Saturday afternoon, when Mrs. Tafa runs up twirling her parasol. She calls me aside. “There’s a young man got off the truck from Tiro,” she says, eyebrows arching off her forehead. “Name of Nelson Malunga. I put him in your front yard.” She winks. “You never told me he was so well developed, if you know what I mean. If he wants to stay over, he stays with me and the Mister. You don’t want stories getting round.”

  Nelson’s slumped on the wheelbarrow. When he sees me, he gives me a hug. Mrs. Tafa’s watching from over the cactus hedge. I bring Nelson to the swings in the empty sandlot. We rock on the wood seats, scuffling the grooves in the dirt under our feet. I can tell there’s lots on his mind, but he doesn’t know how to say it.

  “Your granny says to say hello,” he begins. “Your aunties and uncles too. They’ve sent some things, uh, some dried beef, some preserves. They’re in my bag at the house in the shade.” He clears his throat. “My sisters-in-law…My sisters-in-law, they’ve gone. They’re back with their people. One of them’s getting remarried. Maybe the other one, too.” He breathes heavy. “Cattle are fine. Your uncles, they help. They’ve been a big help. They’ve…they’re why I could get away.”

  He gets up and circles the swings in silence, kicking at the odd stone. “It’s a nice place you got. Nice place. Nice neighbor lady. She the one who phoned that night?”

  “Yes.”

  A smile flickers on his lips. “Nice lady. Bit strange though. Told me to comb my hair. Tried to wipe a smudge off my cheek with a dab of spit on her hankie.”

  “That’s Mrs. Tafa—‘Auntie Rose,’” I laugh.

  “Yeah. Well. She’s okay.” The smile vanishes. He sits back on the swing.

  Silence.

  “And…?” I say. I’m afraid to say more.

  “And, yeah, well, that’s the other thing.” He sucks a breath. “That’s, well, it’s hard. It’s hard.” He gets up and walks so his back’s to me. “He was just a little fellow. He never meant any harm. He was just so, just so…”

  “Nelson?” I get up. He puts up a hand. I stop.

  “He was never really quite right. Not after Papa and my brothers. That time in the bush…I don’t know how he held up like he did. Back home was another story. He started to fight. He’d fall on the ground and scream. Folks in town, they said he had the bush in him. It wasn’t true. I took him to the post. There was no one to call him names there. It was just us and the cows and the herd boys. You knew that the herd boys got saved? All but two of them. It was a miracle. It was—”

  I can’t hold b
ack anymore. “Nelson. Tell me. Is Pako okay?”

  “I hope so…I like to think so.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He looks up at the sky. “I thought he was tending the cattle. When they came back to the pen at night without him, I didn’t think much of it. I was used to him taking off. Next morning, I headed after him. Same path as always. I got to the waterhole before sundown. His blanket was in the hollow log. I figured he was hiding. I called to him like I always did and waited. Nothing. I went to wash up at the waterhole. That’s when I saw it. His bandanna, floating on the surface. He’d filled his pockets with stones, walked into the water, and drowned himself.” Nelson pauses. “He liked it there,” he says softly. “It was his special place. It was where he felt safe. I hope he’s at peace.”

  We sit very still.

  “I can’t go back,” he says. “I have nowhere to go.”

  I take his hand. “You have here.”

  Three Months Later

  NGALA’s CIVIL WAR isn’t over, but Mr. Selalame says there’s hope.

  Mandiki’s death has been a rock to the rebel beehive. His main army has splintered into three rival factions, led by his brother and two of his cousins. They’re so busy killing each other, they don’t have time for anyone else.

  At the same time, the Ngala government has offered pardons to the child soldiers. Some have left the bush, but not all. Many are orphans, kidnapped when they were little. They have nowhere to go, and no one who wants them. With the rebels, they get food, shelter, and the protection of a gun. Others feel safer in the bush than in Ngala’s overcrowded refugee camps, full of war victims seeking revenge. Another problem: There’s no pardon for the rebel leaders. If they’re captured, they’ll be hanged as war criminals. As long as that’s true, they won’t surrender, and as long as they won’t surrender, the Ngala children fear being recaptured and killed if they try to escape.

  What to do? Even Mr. Selalame doesn’t know. “The horror has to be punished, but the threat of punishment keeps the horror going,” he says. “Let’s be glad for small mercies. The rebels are back in Ngala. They’re too weak and distracted to come here again. At least not for a long while. If they do, next time, we’ll be ready.”

  Closer to home, things have been going well. Nelson’s been living with us in a single room beside the shed, built with cracked cinder blocks that Mr. Tafa brought home from his job at United Construction. They’re no good for shopping malls, but with a little cement and plaster they’re perfect for here. At first, I thought Mrs. Tafa’d have a fit about Nelson staying with us, but Nelson’s smart. On Mrs. Tafa’s morning walks, he always compliments her on her dresses, and when she’s had her hair done, well, he just won’t stop!

  Nelson does chores and plays with Soly and Iris. He’s like a papa and a big brother, both. He also helps with money; he’s sold one of his cattle to pay his keep. My uncles tend the rest of his herd in exchange for the use of his land. Sometimes, Nelson gets odd jobs at Mr. Tafa’s construction sites, but I know he misses the bush. He may have a chance with the Kenje River Safari Camp. Mr. Lesole’s back working again. Since he can’t speak, he can’t guide, but he’s got the best eye up there, so they’ve kept him as a spotter. He’s recommending Nelson for his tracking skills; Nelson would start as a busboy and work his way up, while he learns about the animals.

  Thanks to all that Nelson does around the place, I’m finally getting some rest. So much, in fact, I’ve started to work with Mr. Selalame on finishing my high school. “You’ll get that scholarship yet,” he beams.

  Mrs. Tafa and Esther tease that before that, there’ll be wedding bells. They can think what they like. I’m building my dreams one day at a time. Nelson, too. Each night, we sit outside and talk forever. When the air cools, we bundle ourselves together in a light blanket.

  I look up at the stars and imagine the ancestors: Mama, Papa, Auntie Lizbet, and the others. Here with Nelson, I can feel them smiling.

  Afterword

  CHANDA’S WARS TELLS the story of one young woman’s heartbreak, courage, and hope in the midst of terrible events in a fictional African war. The reasons children are used as soldiers may be complicated, but the effects on them are direct and horrific. Most end up broken by adult wars they cannot hope to understand. A very few, like Chanda and her siblings, find within themselves the resources to resist and to escape with what remains of their tattered lives. Chanda’s story reaches to the heart of the terrifying truth about child soldiers in a way that all of us, young and old alike, can understand. It makes it possible for us to imagine the faces of real children caught and trampled by the scourge of war in so many recent and ongoing conflicts in Africa. For those of us working actively to protect children from combat, there is something inspiring in the example of Chanda, who refuses to give in to fear and who risks her life in her quest to save her brother and sister. Ultimately, Chanda’s wars are everybody’s wars: Every young person stolen and recruited is our brother, our sister, our son, our daughter. We must all join the fight if we are to protect them from the horror of becoming child soldiers.

  The Honorable Roméo Dallaire,

  Lieutenant-General (retired),

  head of U.N. forces during the

  Rwandan genocide

  Author’s Note and Thanks

  THE CHARACTERS, COUNTRIES, and story of Chanda’s Wars are fictional, but the horrors are real. Children and youth are forcibly recruited for combat in strife-torn regions of Africa, as they have been, and continue to be, in conflicts around the world. Despite wars and genocides that demand global action, it must be remembered that Africa is a continent of fifty-four separate countries, most of which, as represented by Chanda’s homeland, are at peace. I urge anyone who is tempted to give up hope for Africa’s future to consider the past history of Europe.

  Work on this novel was made possible by the support and encouragement of friends and acquaintances from Uganda, Eritrea, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Mozambique, Tanzania, South Africa, Malawi, and Zambia, both living in Africa and in the African diaspora.

  For insight into the psychology of child soldiers, I am particularly grateful to the late Michael Oruni, director of World Vision’s Children of War Rehabilitation Centre in Gulu, northern Uganda, and my conversation with former members of the Lord’s Resistance Army rehabilitated at the Centre; Dr. Philip Lancaster, United Nations Lieutenant-General Roméo Dallaire’s executive assistant during the Rwandan genocide; Tariq Bhanjee of UNICEF; Justin Daniel Peffer of Plan International; Raymond Micah and Amanuel Melles of the African Canadian Social Development Council; filmmakers Oliver Stoltz and Ali Samadi Ahadi, who documented child soldiers along the Ugandan/Sudanese border; Dr. Anne Goodman and Michael Wheeler of the International Institute for Community-Based Peacebuilding; Thomas Turay of the COADY International Institute; Kathy Vandergrift, Rebecca Steinmann, and Ken and Cynthia Jaworko of World Vision; and Barbara Hoffman, director of the Association for the Children of Mozambique. I am also indebted to the wide range of materials available from Human Rights Watch, Save the Children, CARE, Defence for Children International, the Children’s Institute, médecins sans frontiers, Amnesty International, War Child, and other NGOs.

  The sections about tracking and animal behavior come from my experiences in the bush with Richard Chimwala and Angel M. Gondwe, guides at Wilderness Safaris’ Mvuu Camp, Malawi, and with scout Gideon Mpase and guides Ian Salisbury and Alex Cole at Kaingo Camp, Zambia. I also met with Susan Slotar, executive director of the Jane Goodall Institute, South Africa branch.

  My observations of village life were deepened enormously by Robert Thomas Gama, who introduced me to rural Malawi, and by Enoch Chidothi, Bakiri Wandiki, and James Asan, who were my hosts during my stay at Ulongwe, and who introduced me to local farmers, villagers, and Ligwang’wa, their late village headman.

  I owe my understanding of the power of spirit doctors to visits in Malawi with spirit doctor John Saisa, Father Claude Boucher of Mua Mission, and Felix Chis
ale of Zomba Plateau, and to earlier visits to spirit doctors in Zimbabwe and Botswana.

  Many thanks as well to my Harper editors Lynne Missen (Canada) and Susan Rich and Patricia Ocampo (U.S.); Alexis MacDonald and Christina Magill of the Stephen Lewis Foundation; Harriet McQuire and Althea Tait of Access Africa; journalist Michele Landsberg; and the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, and the Toronto Arts Council.

  Above all, I’d like to thank all those who invited me into their homes in cities, villages, farms, and cattle posts. I am forever grateful for their generosity of time, guidance, and insight.

  About the Author

  Allan Stratton is the author of the internationally acclaimed Michael L. Printz Honor Book CHANDA’S SECRETS. Its numerous citations include the Children’s Africana Book Award, Best Book for Older Readers; ALA Booklist Editors’ Choice; New York Public Library Books for the Teen Age; and a unanimous vote to the ALA Best Books for Young Adults list. Allan is also the author of the ALA Best Book for Young Adults LESLIE’S JOURNAL. He lives in Toronto with his partner, two cats, and a pond full of fish. You can visit him online at www.allanstratton.com.

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  Credits

  Jacket photograph © 2008 by Alexander Nesbitt / Aurora Photos

  Jacket design by Joel Tippie

  Copyright

  CHANDA’S WARS. Copyright © 2008 by Allan Stratton. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.