I. I was watching the cows that day, says Isaac. Also goats and sheep. I was eight years old. It was a sunny day.
Some older boys came running and said that men were shooting all the boys and men in the village, so we started running toward the forest. Then it got all crazy with dust and fire and guns.
When I got to the forest I tried to hide but the forest was full of people. I could not find my family. I waited in the forest all day for the shooting to stop but it didn’t stop. When night came we heard the men on horses in the forest looking for us, so we went deeper into the forest.
It seemed like the whole world was hiding in that forest.
The night grew cold but we could not light a fire and when a dog barked it was hushed immediately so the men would not find us.
In the morning we walked to the next village but the men raided that village too, and the people there ran into the forest, so the forest grew more crowded. We all kept walking, just to go.
This went on for three days.
In the villages every boy and man was killed, and every girl taken alive. Old men and women were left alone.
In the forest if you were lucky someone gave you something to eat, and if you were unlucky you ate from the trees.
After five days the elders in my village sent word that all young boys and young men from our village who were in the forest must keep walking east toward the border. They knew that if we came back to the village we would be killed next time the soldiers came. So I did not see my family again for a long time.
There were hundreds of us boys in the forest, ages six to nineteen. We walked all night and slept all day. Sometimes we killed a bird and ate it.
I walked with my cousin and three boys from our village. We five walked together. You held the shirt of the boy in front of you and a boy held your shirt behind you. I lost my shoes and made socks from my sleeves. It rained a lot but the rain was warm. There were always hyenas. They were looking for weak people to eat. You would hear them laughing. You would hear lions also. They weren’t so bad. You would find them sleeping in the road. If you slept in their territory that was bad for you. Sometimes when you were looking for a bush to sleep under you would find a lion or a leopard under that bush.
It was a silent journey. Not many boys felt like talking. We knew we had lost our parents. It smelled like trees and flowers. I cannot remember every day. We walked for three weeks through the forest. We walked three hundred miles. I lost my cousin. Finally we came to the border, and that was the end of one journey and the beginning of another.