Joseph's Story

Joseph is a third-year mathematics education student at Eastern Polytechnic.  I have been giving him individual mathematics instruction for two terms now. He is the only junior math major.  He is a very amiable young man, and I enjoy working with him because of his positive attitude and determination as a student.  I wanted to learn more about his life story, so I interviewed him on his birthday.  What follows is a summary of what he told me.

My name is Joseph.  I was born on the 15^th of March, 1984.  I was born in the Bonthe District in Gbonge Junction, Kpanda Kremoh Chiefdom.  My late father’s name was Alimamy.  He had two wives. I am the eldest of three sons of my mother, Saffiatu. My younger brothers are Foday and Alimamy.   My father’s second wife bore my brother, Feika, and my four sisters: Margaret, Fatmata, Iye, and Maseray.

Gbonge Junction is a small village of about 15 houses.  My father was a cassava farmer who also had a second job as a driver for an old man in the village who could afford to buy a car.  One of my memories of early childhood was working with my family growing and harvesting cassava.  The whole process takes a year.  First, the land has to be cleared of brush and burned.  Then the plot is plowed and planted.  Weeding is done twice during the growing season.  After one year the cassava roots and leaves are harvested.  The land must lay fallow for five years before replanting.  I have a scar from a stick that accidentally impaled my hand while I was clearing brush.  I remember the nurse who removed the stick.  His name was Alex. Rice with cassava leaf still is my favorite meal.

One day when I was with my father and mother in the cassava field, RUF soldiers came.  They told my parents that they were taking me to be a “small soldier”.  There was nothing my parents could do as the men had guns and would kill anyone who crossed them.   I remained with the RUF from 1992 to 1995.  I was assigned to Captain Umoru’s unit, but was not given a gun.  I worked for the captain’s wife fetching water, doing laundry, and other chores children in Sierra Leone can do.  At the time the RUF were fighting with the Kamajors, a Mende civil defense force sponsored by the government.  We were pushed to move to several towns in Sierra Leone; Kpegbelia, Beduma, Bandawoh.  Finally, we crossed the border into Liberia.  I remember distinctly standing with a woman by a tree when an artillery shell landed near us.  The woman was killed.  It was then that I ran from the RUF.  I was assisted by a man named Foday who was from my district.  We found our way to the refugee camp in Siejeh. At the camp we were given a mat to sleep on, blankets, a pot, and food.  I started school again.

In 1996 war in Liberia forced the camp to shut down in April, and we were relocated back to Sierra Leone.  The United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) took us to various locations in Sierra Leone.   I went with Foday to his town, Mattru.  After a while I went back to Gbonge Junction to visit my family.   The rebels had destroyed everything. When I went to my mother, she cried when she set eyes on me because she was not thinking that I was alive.  It was in my absence that my dad passed away.  I didn’t set eyes on his body.   My mother told me that my father had been beaten to death by the rebels.

I told my mother that I wanted to go back to school.  Really it was not easy, but she tried her best to see that I went to school.  She processed gari (from cassava root) and managed to pay my first term fees.  In Mattru, I started junior secondary school in the year 2000.  I passed my Basic Education Certificate Examination in 2005 which allowed me to attend senior secondary school.  I graduated from St. Joseph’s Technical and Vocational Secondary School in 2008 at the age of 24. In 2009 I began teaching at the National Islamic Primary School in Mattru. It is not easy being a primary school teacher in Sierra Leone.  A primary teacher must be knowledgeable in several different subjects.  Also, he must stay in his classroom all day long.  On the other hand, I had only twenty to twenty-five students. I am currently practice teaching in a class of more than 80 students.  I taught at the National Islamic Primary School until the 2014-15 school year when I came to Eastern Polytechnic.

I came to the polytechnic after the Ebola crises.  During the crisis we would sometimes be confined to our house compound for three days or sometimes a week at a time.  All students who came to Eastern Polytechnic in the fall of 2015 had their temperatures taken and were given a brief medical inspection before being allowed to register.  Even when I started college, some lecturers were afraid to spend time in the classrooms with Ebola on their minds.  In the 2015-16 school year, the lecturers went on strike for a whole term because the government was not paying them.  This year things are somewhat back to normal, except that the government still delays salary payments for up to three months.  Getting a college education is not easy for a student.  It is hard to gather together the 1.1 – 1.5 million Leones necessary for the yearly tuition.  Then there is the 300,000 – 500,000 Leones needed for living expenses.  A student finds it practically impossible to get a loan for these things.  My mother tries very much to help me out, but at the college level she cannot afford to pay my fees.  However, because of my hard working, sometimes people have felt sorry for me and helped to pay my fees. 

My younger brother Foday drives an okada (motorcycle taxi) in Rutile.  My youngest  brother, Alimamy, lives in Bo with a family of a woman that I met in Mattru.  She asked me if my brother would like to come live with her family.  My brother accepted the offer. He does small chores in the family compound and helps out with their shop.  He has yet to finish secondary school. When I graduate from Eastern Polytechnic, I would like to work at an NGO or for the government.  If I can’t get a job in either of those two areas, I will be a senior secondary mathematics teacher. 

I have really suffered in my life, but I give thanks to God for what he has done for me.