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to see who these other youngsters were. He could tell that Colonel was the head of this group, as he sat facing the others, upright, his head higher. When Colonel spoke, they all quieted and listened. Ernest knew that Colonel would test him before allowing him to join this group. When he walked into the house, he had already accepted being under the command of Colonel. He was attacked by Colonel as soon as he came closer, thrown to the ground. With a knee in his back and his face in the dust, he explained that he had been sent to them by the elders. He was let up and told where to sleep. He sat away from Colonel and his group, all of them observing him and whispering things they didn’t want him to hear. He sometimes averted his eyes to avoid the strong stares from Colonel. Ernest’s mind was too occupied with Sila and his children to worry about becoming an outcast from this group for now. But he didn’t mind sitting near other youngsters, who he knew understood things about war that he didn’t have to explain to them. This was a small but necessary comfort.
    What was common among most of the arrivals was that in whatever conditions they found their homes, they started to live in them. Gradually, they cleaned and fixed things, erecting walls of mud brick instead of cement and patching with any materials that were available in nature. Soon, some of the houses had a mixture of tin roof on one side and thatch on the other.
    Among the returnees were those for whom the older people couldn’t find faces in their memories. These groups brushed spaces for themselves and built huts. They waited for weeks, and if no one arrived to claim the abandoned houses, they moved in and started renovating. The elders agreed that all were welcome. People had lived temporary lives for so many years that they needed any form of stability. Sometimes this meant building a hut or mending a home. They did it slowly, fearing it would be destroyed again. But when others came to town and weeks passed without any disturbances, their anxiety lessened and they rushed to complete whatever they had been working on. The simple joy of finishing something without running away from it or watching it be destroyed or disintegrate had become rare and was still gaining trust in the minds of these returnees.
    *   *   *
    Something unexpected happened one afternoon while the elders sat on the logs greeting more arrivals. The heads of two girls, three boys, their mother, and their father emerged in the distance. Pa Kainesi felt the wind about him warmer than it had been. He could not explain why he suddenly felt the presence of his heart more strongly. He stood up, and his friends asked if he was well. His legs took him toward the path, and it was there that he set eyes on his son, Bockarie, and his family.
    Bockarie, his children, and his wife had gone missing during the war, and Pa Kainesi hadn’t heard anything about their existence. Bockarie had also thought that his father had been killed, since he couldn’t find him anywhere. They were one of those few lucky families who had not lost many members. Bockarie had managed to keep his family together throughout the war with a few separations here and there. His wife had gone missing for four months, and he and his children had found her at a refugee camp on the Liberian border, one of the countries next door. Their oldest daughter, too, had been lost and spent months homeless in some town in the north. The oldest son had escaped multiple recruitments. They had all known hunger and suffering intimately; they had all been close to death. Bockarie told his family that as soon as the war was over and things were safe, they would go home, even if it meant walking for weeks.
    Upon arriving now with two additional children—twins, a boy and a girl born during the war—Bockarie passed by his former secondary school, where he had taught before the war came. The school was deserted, overgrown with trees and grasses,