harbinger SHAWNEE MISSION EAST
“
ISSUE 9, JAN. 26, 2004
What’s Inside
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East alum works on Mars rovers “Big Fish” review Teens and the law
I really just wanted to die. I was in the bush, I couldn’t find home. But something in my brain said ‘keep going.’
So I kept going.
”
Hawa’s
journey From Sierra Leone to SM East, freshman overcomes hardship and handicap
D
story by Ross Boomer
ipping her hands into the water, Hawa Whalen could hear gunshots roar
across
the
Sierra
Leone
landscape.
The rebels had entered her village of Mamoa, quickly approaching the pond where she was fishing with some friends of her mother. She tried to run, but to no avail. Hawa was captured, alone, without her family, at the age of twelve. The rebels took her and ten other people to another village to spend the night. All she could think of was her fate. But she didn’t cry. Those who cried would be killed.
After a sleepless night in a crowded hut, the captured were lined up outside. The rebels gathered long sticks and machetes. One by one the prisoners placed their wrists beneath a wooden rod, conveniently allowing the blade’s swift motion to sever their hands. Hawa could only watch the line get shorter and shorter; her fate, closer and closer. “I was thinking [about running away,]” Hawa said, “They are going to take my hands off. How am I supposed to do my hair or dress myself? But you can’t run away.” Finally, the moment came when only a girl was between Hawa and the blade. She had a weakness for blood and died on the spot. It was Hawa’s turn to step up. Hawa felt nothing after the blood-splattered knife had done its job. It wasn’t until she saw the remains of her hands in a pool of red that she felt any pain. All she could do was cry. And walk. Hawa was left in the African bush for nine days, alone, wandering to find her village and family. Miraculously she survived. Placing chewed cocoa leaves on the stubs of her hand, a remedy her mother had taught her, she stopped the bleeding and roamed the foreboding landscape. Hawa also managed to find food. Using the
•
photos by Jessie Fetterling
stubs of her arms as well as her jaw she was able to eat wild bananas and drink pond water. “I was scared but not that much,” Hawa said. “There were snakes and animals. But they couldn’t do anything [compared to the rebels]. I really just wanted to die. I was in the bush…I couldn’t find home. But something in my brain said ‘keep going.’ So I kept going.” On the ninth day Hawa’s uncle found her asleep near the village. Her family had gone into hiding, their hope for finding Hawa having faded, while the uncle had stayed looking for food. Of Hawa’s entire family, including her mother and father and five siblings as well as aunts and uncles and cousins, she was the only one caught by the rebels. Following her discovery, Hawa was taken to UN soldiers stationed in nearby Masiaka who sent her to a hospital in Freetown. There she had her first surgery, a stitching up of what was left of her hands: a left stump and right thumb with a pointer finger stub. Four months passed in the small, crowded hospital before Hawa was reunited with her family. “I was dead to them.” Hawa said, “And here I am.”
continued on page 12