Fabricated, Forged and Forgotten: The Moth Radio Hour

This episode originally aired on November 29th, 2022. In this episode, stories of who we are and what we present to the world. White lies, falsified documents, playing dress up, and big transformations. This show is hosted by Jay Allison of Atlantic Public Media, producer of The Moth Radio Hour. Judit Samper Albero uses her artistic talent to save money. Shaun Gohel accidentally manifests a girlfriend. Dave Moran prepares to argue in front of the Supreme Court. Camille Qurban almost has her cover blown at a child's birthday party. Ishmael Beah describes his transformation from innocent child to cold-hearted soldier. Podcast # 793

• 0:13Speaker 00

  This is the Moth Radio Hour. I'm your host, Jay Allison, producer of this radio show. In this hour, stories of identity fabricated, forged, and forgotten. First up is Judith Samper-Albero from our 2014 Moth Community Showcase. The showcase features some of our favorite stories told through our community workshop. Those favorites include this story, which revolves around a forged bus pass in London. Here's Judith, live from the Housing Works Bookstore in New York City.

• 0:48Speaker 01

  Hola, me llamo Judith, soy española, y a mucha honra. But, well, maybe you want me to talk in English, right? I don't know. Maybe you can understand me better. All right. So, before telling you my story, I need to tell you a little bit about my culture. I'm from Spain, so I'm gonna let you know how the Spaniards are. The Spaniards, we love to get things for free. The more we can get, the better. Just imagine you have a bowl of candies, and the Spaniard will get one for themselves,

• 1:30Speaker 01

  and one for the cousin, one for the mother, one for the father, the sister, the daughter, for all the whole family. If there is nobody in the room, they will take all the candy, and the bowl, because it will look amazing in the living room. Well, when I was 25, I was an artist student in London, and I was broke. As you can imagine, paying rent or paying for food, it was a struggle, and certainly it was paying for transport. One day, I was waiting for my bus at the stop, and I was looking at my bus pass and thinking, "This would be so easy to falsify."

• 2:11Speaker 01

  And, you know, like, I'm an artist, I can't do things, so I was thinking, "Oh, my God, I can't do this with my eyes closed." So I decided to give a try. And the first time I tried, it was... I was a bit scared. But you know, it worked. It worked! So, like, after a couple of weeks, it just became a routine to start my week clicking around the computer, hitting print. Y ya está! I was ready to go. So, I don't know, after a couple of months doing that, it was so easy, that I didn't feel that I had any more fake bus pass. It was totally real for me. So another day, I was just going to downtown London for a party,

• 2:56Speaker 01

  and I was going in the bus, like, listening to my music, looking through the window. And I feel like somebody's tapping my shoulder. I turn around, and I see an inspector asking for my bus pass. So I just hand it to him, and as soon as I give it to him, I remember that I'm giving him a bus pass that is fake. And I look at his face, and I can notice that he knows it too. So the next thing he does is taking his notebook. Name, please. And without even thinking, I say, "Antonio Gonzalez", which obviously is not my real name. And Antonio Gonzalez is kind of the most spurned name, the most common name that you can find.

• 3:41Speaker 01

  It would be like here, Saint John Smith, something like that. But you know, I thought, "Okay, he's gonna put me a fine. It's a fine that they give to everybody when they don't pay their tickets, like, it's twenty pounds. And that's a shame, because that would be a few less beers tonight. But what can I do? Just we'll pay, that's it." So the next stop, he made me go down the bus, and there is a line of ten policemen waiting. Two of them, they grab me by my arms, so high that my feet can barely touch the floor. And like in a movie, they bring me to the police station, reading my rights. When I arrived there,

• 4:22Speaker 01

  I managed to sneak my ID into my panties. Because I realized they think I'm Antonio Gonzalez there. And I don't want they think I lie about my name. So, after that, they freeze me, and they take everything I have in my pockets, they take my purse, everything, and they couldn't find it. And they asked me as well where I bought the bus pass. And I say, "I bought it on the street. I didn't know even it was fake." So, I don't know, they didn't believe me too much, but... They have to ask if I wanted a court-appointed lawyer.

• 5:01Speaker 01

  And I say, "Of course, you know, I needed to defend my innocence." So I have to wait for a couple of hours until he came, and they brought me into a cell. They took off my shoes, they opened the door, and I see like a cement bed with a blue mat, like this one that you can find at the gyms. A metal toilet, and in front of it a camera. So they cannot lose any detail. They can't know even if you are constipated there. In those two hours, I was thinking about my story, what I was gonna say. Like thinking about where I bought it exactly, from who I bought it, but... Without trying to give too many details, I didn't want it to point to anybody in concrete,

• 5:42Speaker 01

  because I'm a good person, you know? So my lawyer came, I tell him all my story, and they bring us to an interrogatory room with another police officer, with a police officer. And she start recording and make me all kind of questions. I start answering, but none of my answers seems to please her. And she start playing with the fact that my English, that English is not my mother tongue. So everything I was saying, she was changing the meaning of everything. And after like forty-five minutes, like going back and forth, back and forth, she just asked me if I wanna talk later.

• 6:26Speaker 01

  And then my lawyer, again like in the movies, look at her and say, "Can I talk to my client, please?" So she stopped the recording, leaves the room. My lawyer turned to me and say, "Listen, this is how the things work in England." Like, the police here has a ninety percent of solved cases. And that's because you need to say what they wanna hear. So when she come back, just say to her that you are a student, you don't have much money, you knew it was fake, you know it's wrong what you did, you regret, and you're never gonna do it again. At that point, I was so convinced of my story and my innocence that I wasn't...

• 7:08Speaker 01

  I wasn't like, I didn't want to do that. I was like, "Why have to say that?"

• 7:15Speaker 01

  But you know, I saw, you know, I was like, the whole night there. I was like, five, six hours with him. And I was thinking, "Okay, maybe he's the lawyer, maybe I should follow his advice." And the police officer came back, and I say my speech. And after that, she doesn't make me any more questions or say anything else. She stopped the recording, leave the room, and when she come back, she said that they are gonna release me. So I say, "Great, I'm just feeling great. Everything is finished. They are gonna release me as soon as they certify my identity." Yeah. Antonio Gonzalez. So at that point, my whole world crumbled. I was like, I just start crying and crying.

• 8:00Speaker 01

  And the lawyer and the police officer, they were handing me cleanest. They didn't know what was going on. I couldn't even talk, keep crying, until I managed to say to them that I lie about my name. And then the lawyer was looking at me, and he was kind of smiling, thinking, I think he knew I was a young person, I didn't know what I was doing. But the police officer, the police officer thought that I was a terrorist. So after that, it took me like hours to make them believe which one it was my real identity and demonstrate that I wasn't a criminal, because they thought that too.

• 8:37Speaker 01

  During all that time, I never once pulled out my ID. Because you know, I thought it was gonna be an insult to the police officer who freeze me before.

• 8:52Speaker 01

  So, I think at the end, they just, they just felt sorry for me. And they thought it was enough, like, having me the whole night like that. I think they thought it was enough punishment. So they let me go without any fine, at the end. No fine, nothing. So when I get out at 6:00 in the morning from the police station, the only thing I could thought about, it was, "How I'm gonna get home now with all my bus pass?"

• 9:22Speaker 01

  And, obviously, I learned my lesson. After this, I never in my life, even there, I will falsify another bus pass. But you know, lately, I've been observing at the MoMA membership car. Because $25 to get in? Come on, I should be free. Thank you.

• 9:50Speaker 00

  That was Judith Samper-Laberro. Judith is from Vienna, a Mediterranean city in Spain. She moved to the US nine years ago and currently teaches at California State University and works as a virtual reality specialist and illustrator while continuing to develop her passion for art. She loves camping with her dog, too. Judith told us that luckily, her bus pass forgery has only come back to haunt her one time. Last year, during her green card interview, this issue came out and she had to request her criminal records from England. They let her go home without a warning and it didn't affect the process of her permanent

• 10:32Speaker 00

  residency beyond an extra three months of paperwork and some anxiety. She told us, thankfully, youthful stupidity gets cured with time.

• 10:48Speaker 00

  Next up is Sean Gold, who told this story at our Open Mic Story Slam series in New York, where WNYC is a media partner. If you're off, here's Sean.

• 11:03Speaker 02

  So, it's the first night of summer camp and I'm trying really hard to bond with the other guys in the dorm when one of them goes, "Hey Sean, tell us about your first kiss." And I'm like, "Oh." This is my nightmare question for two reasons. One, I am a huge dork. At this point in my life, at 16, I've only kissed like my PSAT book for good luck. And, um...

• 11:27Speaker 02

  And two, I am in the closet, so anything about intimacy in general makes me retreat into my body like a shy turtle. But luckily, I have prepared an answer for this very specific question, a fake answer. So I turn to him and I go, "Uh, my first kiss was Sarah Brown. We met at Disney World."

• 11:53Speaker 02

  Sparks flew. Uh, we had our first kiss outside the France Pavilion at Epcot. Uh, but unfortunately, you know, we lost touch and the guys are like, "Ah, very good, yes."

• 12:07Speaker 02

  So, we're leaving the room and one of them goes, "Hey, did you really kiss Sarah Brown?" And I'm like, "Oh, as a matter of fact, yes, I did." Um, and he goes, "Huh, that's so crazy because like, you know, she's here." And I was like...

• 12:24Speaker 02

  Who, who is here? So, it turns out that there may or may not be a Sarah Brown in Florida, but there definitely was a Sarah Brown at this camp in the girls' dorm. That in itself is not a problem because then I was gonna go to Plan B. "Oh, wrong Sarah Brown, common name, common mistake." But, um, what I didn't anticipate was that this news would pinball across camp and get to Sarah, and that made her nervous because Sarah, like me, had never kissed anyone. And she didn't want people investigating her kissing history and then making fun of her for never having done so. So, instead of saying, "No, I don't know who this guy is," she said, "Uh, yeah, like, we did. It's not a big deal."

• 13:12Speaker 02

  So, the next day, I'm eating a turkey sandwich and this, like, throng of guys comes up to me and they're like, "Yo, dude, we talked to Sarah. She remembers her kiss." And I'm like, "What?"

• 13:25Speaker 02

  But, but, but, but, like, but I didn't think she'd remember. That's so crazy. And they're like, "Yo, this is great. Like, you're gonna have a reunion and this summer, you're gonna hook up." And I'm like, "Oh, crap."

• 13:43Speaker 02

  So, I kid you not, the next six days, I basically hid in the bathroom for 45-minute intervals, uh, trying to avoid this hormonal, uh, twilight-obsessed, roving mob of teenagers hungry for a romance, uh, to make happen in real life. Uh, but all good things must come to an end and I emerged from the bathroom one day and lo and behold, there is Sarah Brown. Uh, and she comes up to me and she goes, "Oh, hey, Sean, uh, I'm Sarah."

• 14:16Speaker 02

  I think it's really funny that you told everyone we kissed. And I was like, "Oh, hey Sarah, I think it's really funny that you exist."

• 14:26Speaker 02

  Like, it's like the legend of Bloody Mary. Like, I've said your name enough times that you've manifested yourself and are like, gonna ruin my life.

• 14:40Speaker 02

  And we make a little bit more small talk, and then she goes, "You know, like, we don't, we don't have to keep lying, like, we can just like quickly make this true." And she gives me the look, and then I'm like, "Oh my gourd." I, I like, I'm just processing the fact that my fake gay beard has manifested herself and is now proposing the summer fling that everyone thinks we already had at Epcot.

• 15:09Speaker 02

  And the second thing growing through my mind is, I, I don't want to make this real, but also, I, I don't want to keep lying, and it's like, I, I'm in this weird in-between where I don't want the social capital, I'm lying solely as a defense mechanism, but my lies have backfired, and instead of making me disappear, they've been pushing me further and further into the spotlight. So I realize, in order to stop this roller coaster, I just have to be honest with this girl, and I'm like, "Sarah, I can't, I..." And she looks at me, and she like squints her eyes, and I could see the wheels turning, and she goes, "You can't."

• 15:51Speaker 02

  And I say, "Yes." And she goes, "Because of your religion." And I go...

• 16:11Speaker 02

  Kind of, yes, yes.

• 16:15Speaker 02

  So actually, that pretty much settled the matter. The, when you bring up Hinduism in rural Pennsylvania, people are just like, "Okay, cool."

• 16:26Speaker 02

  But not only was I thankful that the story died, I was really thankful that, you know, at this time in my life, this secret was such a burden. And I was really thankful for that moment. So I could see that in an environment as difficult as high school, there were other people sort of putting on a performance. And it made me feel a little bit less alone. So, thank you.

• 16:57Speaker 00

  That was Sean Gold. Sean won the Story Slam that night with this story and went on to tell another story at our New York City Grand Slam, which brings winners from 10 Story Slams across the city to compete. In a moment, stories of personas and costumes. One donned by an actor at a children's party, one worn by a lawyer arguing in front of the Supreme Court, when the Moth Radio Hour continues.

• 17:39Speaker 00

  The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.

• 17:47Speaker 03

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• 20:13Speaker 00

  This is The Moth Radio Hour. I'm Jay Allison. In this episode, our stories are about crafting your image, playing a part, faking it until you make it, and dressing for the job you want. That's what our next storyteller, Dave Moran, has to do when called upon to argue in front of the Supreme Court. Dave told the story to Grand Slam in Ann Arbor, where we partner with Michigan Radio. Here's Dave Moran.

• 20:43Speaker 05

  “Mr. Moran,” the deep, baritone voice rang out. I stood up with my hands shaking violently and walked to the lectern of the Supreme Court of the United States. Four months earlier, the court had granted review in a case that I was representing an indigent defendant who had been convicted of a crime greater than he should have been convicted of, and I had never been to the US Supreme Court before. So I didn’t know what I was in for. And the first thing you do when you’re a lawyer and you’re going to a new court is you read the court rules. And I read the court rules, and one of the first things I noticed is that “a counsel shall appear,” and I quote, “in dark, conservative business attire.”

• 21:24Speaker 05

  Well, I’m a law professor, and I dress badly, so I went to the department store at Briarwood Mall, and I went to the men’s department. And after teaching a class at the end of the day, and I was wearing pretty much what I’m wearing today: khaki pants, polo shirt, 5 o’clock shadow. And I said, “I need a dark, conservative business suit.” And the man looked me over, and he said, “Job interview, sir?” And I said, “No, US Supreme Court argument.” I’m certain he didn’t believe me, but I got the suit. And of course, the other part of things you do when you’re preparing for US Supreme

• 22:09Speaker 05

  Court is you do a lot of preparation. So the case was about the double jeopardy clause of the Fifth Amendment for those lawyers present. I read every case I could to get as ready as I could, possible. But the problem is, I’d never even seen a US Supreme Court argument. So in March 2003, a month before my scheduled argument, I flew to Washington and went to watch an argument of another criminal case. And the argument started, and first thing that I noticed was that this is a really small room, those of you who've been there know this, this is a really small courtroom, and the lawyer is just a few feet under the nose of Chief Justice William Rehnquist. And the argument started, and it was a death penalty case, and the lawyer arguing for

• 22:49Speaker 05

  the inmate was getting into it with Justice Scalia about what the record really showed. And it turns out Justice Scalia had this weird habit of he would ask a question, and you would think he was done, and it'd be a deep breath and a long pause, and then there'd be more question coming. And the lawyer was very eager, and he kept starting to answer the questions, and then Justice Scalia would ask some more. And this happened two or three times, and suddenly Chief Justice Rehnquist leaned forward and said, "You will let Justice Scalia finish asking his questions. There will not be two people talking at the same time." Now, the lawyer at the podium didn't seem phased at all, he just went on with his argument after a quick apology. "But if cameras were allowed in the courtroom, you would have a video of all of the blood

• 23:32Speaker 05

  draining out of me." So, I came back home, and I told people in Michigan about this terrifying experience, and everybody had a Chief Justice Rehnquist story, how he loved to chew out attorneys. If an attorney sometimes got the name wrong, the justices don't have nameplates on the bench, and so some attorneys mistake the name, and he would say, "That was Justice Souter, not Justice Kennedy." Or, the worst thing you could do would be to answer a question and start the answer with, "Well, Judge O'Connor, it's Justice O'Connor." So, I was terrified that I was going to go there and be humiliated in front of my friends

• 24:14Speaker 05

  and family, all of whom had been invited to go to Washington for me. But I prepared as best I could, I wore my suit, made sure it fit, and we flew to Washington in April 2004. Now, the night before the argument, we all agreed to meet the friends and family and other lawyers on the team. We met at a Mexican restaurant just a few blocks from the Supreme Court. I ordered enchilada squeezes, they were delicious. I thought, you know, margaritas might help me sleep, so I had... One margarita, and then I had another margarita, and I thought, "Three margaritas, not a good idea." So I had two margaritas, and I got a good night's sleep. And I got up the next morning, and we walked to the court, and waited, and waited, until the case was called.

• 24:58Speaker 05

  Mr. Moran. And I walked up there terrified that I was going to be humiliated, handshaking, and I said, "Mr. Chief Justice, and may it please the court," and started the argument. And quickly, the questions started coming, and the tension melted away, because as a lawyer, I'm very happy to answer questions. It's easier than just making a speech like this. And Justice Scalia asked a lot of questions, and I counted to myself, "Thousand one, thousand two, thousand three." And I waited until I was sure he was done, and I began to answer. And the questions came, and I thought that it went pretty well. It was thirty minutes of argument in front of that court. And the case was over, and I walked out the doors, down the magnificent marble steps,

• 25:42Speaker 05

  and thought, "That was pretty fun." And I've been back five times since then. And I've won some, and I've lost some, but every single argument has been fun, and I haven't been chewed out by any of the justices. And I must say that Chief Justice Roberts runs a much nicer, more friendly court than Chief Justice Rehnquist. But every time I walk out of there, walk out those great doors and down those magnificent marble steps, I think to myself, "Damn, that was fun."

• 26:23Speaker 00

  That was Dave Moran. Dave is a professor at the University of Michigan Law School, where he co-directs the Michigan Innocence Project. He always eats at the same Mexican restaurant the night before a Supreme Court argument, and he always orders the enchilada suizas and two margaritas. And he buys a new suit.

• 26:46Speaker 00

  This is the second story of Dave's that's aired on The Moth Radio Hour. And while this story features him dressing up, his first story was about him dressing down, way down, and posing nude for a drawing class. To hear that story, as well as see a photo of Dave fully clothed on the steps of the Supreme Court, visit themoth.org.

• 27:22Speaker 00

  Next up, Camille Qurban. Camille told this story at a Story Slam in Sydney, Australia, where we partner with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, ABC RN. Here's Camille, live from Sydney.

• 27:40Speaker 06

  Hello.

• 27:43Speaker 06

  I'm Fairy Twinkletoes. At least.

• 27:48Speaker 06

  At least I was. I worked at the Fairy's Wishing Wand on Unley Road for four years, so I've been to about 400 children's birthday parties.

• 27:58Speaker 06

  The Fairy's Wishing Wand was the name of the shop, and it was run by a woman called Pauline. She used to smoke like a train during the parties, but then burn marshmallow incense to cover up all the tobacco stench.

• 28:11Speaker 06

  I did all the parties either at the shop, or he went out to their kids' house. And if you did it at the shop, then you had to do it in the enchanted forest.

• 28:20Speaker 06

  It wasn't that impressive, really.

• 28:23Speaker 06

  There was like a big bunch of fallen gum tree leaves in the corner that Pauline had spray painted gold. That was the enchanted tree. It had some fairy lights in it, but most of them were blown out.

• 28:36Speaker 06

  I met Fairy Lavender, she trained me up. Fairy Lavender wore like a skintight purple leotard, a big purple fro- fro skirt, like this purple head garland thing, and big wings and size nine silver jiffys.

• 28:53Speaker 06

  I was horrified when I saw it, it was tizzied and bowed and belled, and I got given the exact same uniform but in pink. I was on my way to the first party and I was in Fairy Lavender's car. She was fanning her hold'em berina up the freeway, giving me tips. She was chugging down the lass of her up and go, telling me what to do and what not to do and everything. "Whatever you do, just don't give them your wand," she said, "'cause they'll hit you with it."

• 29:22Speaker 06

  I looked down at the wand and it was just this spray painted, jewel encrusted hunk of MDMAF. And I was really scared. But she said, "Chill, just follow my lead." So I did. And before too long, Twinkle Toes was in demand. I was really good with kids, I'd babysat for years. I babysat Chelsea Lambert that lived down the road from mum and dad's house. She used to run down the street without telling her dad she was coming, always under the guise of wanting her hair done. She'd have a brush and a handful of bubbles and whatever and she'd push through the door and say, "I need plaits, dad can't do 'em."

• 30:02Speaker 06

  I always obliged, 'cause Chelsea was gorgeous. She was boisterous and bubbly. She came bounding in one day when I was running off to work. Mum said, "No Chelsea, I'll do your hair today because Camilla's got to go to work at Subway."

• 30:18Speaker 06

  When I rocked up to the fairy party that morning, I heard the normal cheer and chatter in the lawn. I walked in to the lounge room and the mum called out that the fairy was here and I saw them all come running in off the lawn. And coming up the rear was Chelsea with eight plaits flapping.

• 30:40Speaker 06

  She stopped dead in the doorway. Her lips were pursed and her forehead was just wrinkled with confusion as she stared at me. I was horrified. I didn't know what to do. I couldn't break the fourth wall, man, but...

• 30:58Speaker 06

  I didn't know how I could get through it and I just decided I was gonna have to give the most convincing fairy performance of my life. I don't know, like Academy Award fairy-ing. She sat down with the little girls in the circle and... When I sang the songs at party, I sang like an angel. And I'm tone deaf.

• 31:24Speaker 06

  When I told her the stories, I put on all the voices. When I painted their faces, I put in extra detail. I covered them in glitter. I gave out all the marshmallows. I wanted to convince her. And by the end of the party, she was smiling and laughing and lapping it all up. And I was like, "I've got these kids eating fairy bread out of the palm of my hand."

• 31:49Speaker 06

  I hugged them all and gave them little hugs at the end and said goodbye and everything and she muscled in and she gave me a hug. She put her arms around my neck. And then when the little sticky marshmallow mouth, she whispered in my ear, "Bye, Camille."

• 32:09Speaker 06

  When she pulled back from the hug, she eyeballed me. She had a bit of a crooked smile and a twinkle in one eye. I just blushed.

• 32:19Speaker 06

  And then she turned her little plaited head and like outside and straight to the swing set.

• 32:25Speaker 06

  She came round a couple of days later. And she said to me, "That was you at that party, Camille, wasn't it?"

• 32:36Speaker 06

  Sometimes believing in something for the sake of other people can be really magical. So I looked at Chelsea and I said,

• 32:47Speaker 06

  "No, that was fairy Twinkletoes."

• 32:53Speaker 06

  Chelsea's now 22 and I still can't admit that I'm fairy Twinkletoes.

• 32:58Speaker 06

  Thank you.

• 33:06Speaker 00

  Camille Claire-Bon is a production manager for Broadcast News and Current Affairs Network. She says she's also a sometimes actress, terrible coffee snob, a neat freak, and a mother.

• 33:25Speaker 00

  Do you have a story you'd like to tell at The Moth? You can pitch it to us right on our website by leaving about a two-minute message summarizing your story, or you can call us at 877-799-MOTH. That's 877-799-6684. We listen to all the pitches and we develop many of them for Moth shows all around the world.

• 33:53Speaker 00

  Remember, you can share these stories, or others from The Moth archive, and buy tickets to Moth storytelling events in your area, all through themoth.org. We have Moth events year-round. You can find a show near you, and come out and tell a story. You can find us on social media, too. We're on Facebook and Twitter @TheMoth.

• 34:17Speaker 00

  When we return, writer Ishmael Bia chronicles his transformation and that of his village when war comes to Sierra Leone. That's when The Moth Radio Hour continues.

• 34:44Speaker 00

  The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.

• 34:54Speaker 07

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  You're listening to the Moth Radio Hour. I'm Jay Allison. Our final story in this hour comes from the writer Ishmael Bia. Ishmael recognizes the identity of his village by its soundscape, and recognizes himself by the narratives he stores in his mind. Both of these are soon changed by war in his country. A caution, there are some vivid descriptions. He told this story at a Moth event celebrating the 100th birthday of the New York Public Library. Here's Ishmael Bia.

• 37:36Speaker 07

  The evening always began with several commotions. One of them was the arrival of people from their various places of work, from their farms, from whatever form of employment they had. And they all came, greeted each other, and went into their houses. The second commotion was by children, boys and girls being sent to knock on the doors of these very people who had just arrived, to invite them to dinner, to have this grand meal of the day. And during this meal, all the young boys and men ate from the same plate, and all the girls and the women ate from the same plate as well.

• 38:19Speaker 07

  When the eating started, which I was part of, the eldest, or the oldest person at that gathering, of the male, particularly the one that I ate with, would stop eating first, and then the second oldest would stop. And as it went down the line, then the boy, and the youngest person would be left at the plate with enough food for them to eat. And this was how the evening began in my small village in the south of Sierra Leone, West Africa, where I'm from. After we finished eating, the fire had already been set with firewood, and the darkness had come in very quickly, that the only source of light were the flames of the fire that leapt into the air.

• 39:03Speaker 07

  And we sat around and waited for stories to be told to us. This was how we learned how to understand our history, the history of our families, of ourselves, our roles in the community, how we would function as children, but also as adults. These stories also, this oral tradition, started many, many years ago before I was born. And this was a way that brought to us a way of listening actively, so that we can hear not only with our ears, but also with our heart, with our eyes, and we can hear beyond the words that were being told to us. At one of these gatherings, I must have been about nine years old, my grandmother sat next to me,

• 39:46Speaker 07

  and she whispered into my ears. She said, "I want to let you know that each person's mind is their own personal library." And as life breathes this moment through you, those moments becomes memories, and those memories become narratives, and those narratives become chapters and books that you put on that shelf of your personal library.

• 40:16Speaker 07

  And this is the only library that you have access to whenever you like. You can open and close it whenever you like. You can decide to nourish it. You can decide to use the information properly or improperly, or as it suits you. After my grandmother told me this, I began on a quest to decide that, well, if I'm in charge of this personal library of mine, I want to make sure that I stack on those shelves in my mind the best possible images, sounds of my background, of my upbringing, of this place that I grew up. Where I grew up was so remote that most of the things that reminded me of what time of the day was were the sounds of nature.

• 41:00Speaker 07

  I could tell what time of the day was by the position of my shadow, and I didn't have a watch or any of these kinds of things. So the next morning, after my grandmother told me this on my way to school, my school was about a thirty minutes walk, but I would get up very early to go to school because going to school was very unpredictable. You left about an hour and a half to two hours because you didn't know what you encounter on the way. As a young boy, in the place where I grew up, and every adult was responsible for you. Every adult was responsible. Your aunt, uncle, or could even be your mother and father. And so on the way to school, you greeted people elaborately, not the New York greeting, hello, goodbye.

• 41:44Speaker 07

  It was more of you ask, how are you? How is your family? How is school? And you went on and on. And it was rude to just say, I have to be in school. I'm going to be late and I will be flogged because of that. You had to participate in the greeting fully. In addition to this greeting, an older person would randomly ask you to perform a task, which could be, uh, could you fetch firewood for me? Could you go to the river and bring water for me? So young people had to get up very, very early to make sure that they can actually, you know, for this thirty minutes, right, they could, uh, think about two hours. And sometimes it took that much. On my way to school, I had a plastic bag that had the one X notebook that I had in it.

• 42:27Speaker 07

  And also my shoes were wrapped in this bag so that it won't be coated by the dust. It was very dusty, so I walked barefoot. And I allowed my mind to partake in the beautiful sounds that welcome the morning. First, there was a call for prayer that was very loud, a zan that went deep into your heart. And then in addition to that, there were various birds singing. The vigorous ones were the sparrows and the doves. And my grandmother also told me that they sang vigorously because they wanted to wave goodbye to the night and welcome the day. And they did that every morning very vigorously.

• 43:09Speaker 07

  As I walked on, there are also sounds of brooms as people swept their yard. So the sound of the brooms mowing the dried leaves filled the air as well. There are also the sounds of buckets that clattered in the arms of children as they went to the river to fetch water. There are older people sitting outside clearing their throat, uh, to remind young people who were still sleeping that it was time to wake up. There were people who were sharpening their cutlasses and stones, and that sound actually made your tits sour as you. walked by. And there was the sound of bells being rung. These were iron bells hung in the arms of mango trees. They were being rung as a call for school.

• 43:51Speaker 07

  When I got closer to my school, which was near a stream, I would wash my feet and then I'll put on my shoes so that I will ride looking very clean. We stood in line, there were cleanliness check up, check your hair. Uh, if it was combed, I wouldn't survive at this point. Um, and then, uh, you know, we went into the classroom, which was the very one building that we had. It was a mud brick house with no roof. And we would take out the few benches and some of us would sit outside under the mango tree. And there was a blackboard and the teacher would start teaching. Now, we didn't have very many books, so if we had one book, it was only the teachers. So for example, when we read Shakespeare, many occasions, the teacher would come.

• 44:35Speaker 07

  And he or she would recite to us. We're reading today, so so and so played. You know, Julius Caesar, for example. And the teacher would read, friends, Roman countrymen. And we would repeat, all the children, friends, Roman countrymen. Lend me your ears, I've come to bury Caesar. Lend me your ears, I've come to bury Caesar. This is how we learned. You made notes. And in order to gain access to these books, you became friends with the teacher. So after school, you could go to the teacher's house so that you'd be able to read the book. Now, based on how you behaved in the community, how you took care of the book, the teacher will slowly trust you to allow you more time to read, but also lend you the book to take away and bring back.

• 45:19Speaker 07

  Now, if you, the book was dirty, then you lost that privilege. So we became very close to our teachers. The teachers also were part of the community where they would actually come to your house in the evening to make sure that everyone was doing their homework.

• 45:34Speaker 07

  I didn't like this very much when I was a kid. But in retrospect, it helped me. So, in order to gain access to this book, you had to become part of the life of this teacher. I remember when we read Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson. The teacher made a good deal of making us react the story in the classroom. And every young boy wanted to be Jim Hawkins. So we walked around our community pretending that we were Jim Hawkins of our very small village. Now, all of this sound and all of this nurture and this knowledge began to change a few years later, when I was 11 years old. When people began to come through my town, these are people who had been affected by the war that had started in my country. And they spoke about what had happened to them,

• 46:17Speaker 07

  how their houses have been burnt, their families have been killed, how they have been walking for days, weeks, months. There was a gloomy feeling that came about. And later on, when I was 12 years old, the war reached my part of the country.

• 46:35Speaker 07

  The sounds that I heard in the morning that woke me changed and they were replaced by gunshots. I was separated from my family during the first attack. I started running from this war and I didn't know where they were. The belief that they could be alive was what kept me moving. And I was with a group of boys, seven of us. We constantly started walking on the countryside trying to look for our family. The sounds were no longer the same. The very sounds that woke me up as a boy, the birds singing, the call for prayer, people going to the river to fetch water, we are no longer there. Nature itself was afraid of what had come about. The only sounds that greeted night, or day, or the wind that sailed

• 47:16Speaker 07

  was the sounds of guns or grenades exploding in the distance. And this was what feared my life completely and I began to slowly forget and distance myself from the very sounds that I'd heard as a kid. Now, I began running from this war for about, close to a year, I was constantly running. Everything had changed tremendously. And I came across somebody who told me that my family was in a small village that would be able to find them. So we started running to this place and we began to hear the sounds of the village. And these were sounds that were familiar from when things were peaceful. There were women singing as they pounded rice in mortar, we could hear that. And we began to rush, we could see, uh, we could hear sounds that promised that

• 48:01Speaker 07

  life was possible somewhere. When we got closer to the village, under the bushes, in the banana farm, we s- we heard somebody, uh, chopping up the bananas. And it was a man that I knew as a boy, named Gassimo. And he came from under the bushes and he said to us, "Oh, can you boys help me carry the trunks of banana into the village?" And of course, even though we were in a rush, then we could not refuse, uh, to, to, to do this, so we helped Gassimo to take the bananas to the village. As we were going with the banana, he told me, "Oh, your parents are gonna be very happy to see you, your brother is there, everyone is there, and everyone's been waiting to see you, they've been worried that you may not be alive."

• 48:45Speaker 07

  So I was very excited, and we started hurriedly going down into the village, we began to hear gunshots, we began to see smoke and fire coming from the village, we began to hear men screaming at the top of their lungs, their screeches covering the sounds of women and babies that were crying, and there'll be gunshots and bullets flying in the air, so we ran from the hillside and tried to lay in the bushes so that we wouldn't be struck by stray bullets. After everything died down, we arrived into this village, and we realized that everybody who had been in this village had been killed. People had been put down, face down and shot in the back of their heads, and their blood was the only thing coming out of their bodies, was the only thing connecting them.

• 49:28Speaker 07

  As we walked around the village, trying to hope that somebody would, would have been alive in this village, we heard in one of the buildings that were consumed with fire, nails popping, tin roofs flying into touch roofs and creating more fire, we heard this noise coming from this building. And people were banging on the doors, and the fire was consuming the house. And when the door broke open, the two people that came running was a woman and a little boy.

• 49:58Speaker 07

  Everything happened so fast that we became rooted where we were standing, we couldn't move at all. They ran back and forth, they would hit a tree, and they would run the other way again, and they would hit another building or another tree, and they would run the other way. Finally, the woman stopped moving, and the boy sat on the omelette tree and put his head down and stopped moving. As we walked around, we began to see other bodies as well. People in different postures of pain, some holding their head as, you know, life departed them in that particular position. And we saw different kinds of things, ashes of people, burnt remains. As we were seeing these kinds of things, I became quite angry because I blamed Gassimo for making it possible for me not to see my family again. And I attacked him.

• 50:43Speaker 07

  I wanted to hurt him tremendously because at this point, the pain of knowing what had happened was so great that I wished I had seen my family one last time before this happened. I didn't understand that he had actually saved my life, so I actually wanted to kill him. My friends removed me from him, and between ourselves, we started fighting because we blamed each other for maybe somebody was walking slow, so and so forth. As we were fighting amongst ourselves, we heard a noise of people coming to the village, so we ran and hid into the nearby bushes. And we saw young people come into the village. Two of them particularly were about my age, at this point I was 12 years old, and they wore military outfits and guns.

• 51:23Speaker 07

  One had a gallon of petrol or kerosene with matches, the other had weapons, and they were laughing about how they got this village really good, how they were able to get everyone and kill them, and nobody escaped. As we lay in this bush, under the shrubs, without being seen, looking at these young people, I did not realize that a year later, I would be one of these same people, one of the same young men that I was seeing. That I'll be one of those people going around. And stacking a different kind of narrative in the library of my own mind. But not only that, I grew up in a place where we also believed that when an older

• 52:04Speaker 07

  person dies, a library is destroyed or burns. And now we were going around destroying the very same knowledge, the source of knowledge that could add to our own narratives. And we didn't know what kind of library we were creating. And worst of all, we were destroying the source of knowledge that perhaps could help us understand how our narratives would actually pan out. Thank you.

• 52:41Speaker 00

  That was Ishmael Bier. Believing his family was dead, Ishmael was pulled into the violence and recruited as a boy soldier in Sierra Leone. His memoir about his experience, A Long Way Gone, has sold more than a million copies and it's been translated into 40 languages.

• 53:08Speaker 00

  That's it for this episode of The Moth Radio Hour. We hope you'll join us next time, and that's the story from The Moth.

• 53:28Speaker 00

  This episode of The Moth Radio Hour was produced by me, Jay Allison, Catherine Burns, and Meg Bowles. Co-producer, Vicky Merrick. Associate producer, Emily Couch. The stories were directed by Jennifer Hickson and Larry Rosen, with additional Grand Slam coaching by Jody Powell. The rest of The Moth's leadership team includes Sarah Haberman, Sarah Austin Janes, Kate Tellers, Jennifer Birmingham, Marina Kluch, Suzanne Rust, Brandon Grant, Inga Glodowski, Sarah Jane Johnson, and Aldi Kaza. Moth Stories Are True is remembered and affirmed by our Our theme music is by The Drift. Other music in this hour is from Epidemic Sound

• 54:10Speaker 00

  and Blue Dot Sessions. Podcast music, production support from Davey Sumner. We receive funding from the National Endowment for the Arts. The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. Special thanks to our friends at Odyssey, including executive producer Leah Reese-Dennis. For more about our podcast, for information on pitching this, your own story, and everything else, go to our website, themoth.org.