How my father’s stories shielded me from civil war

我父亲的故事如何使我免受内战的影响

The Outlook Podcast Archive

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2022-04-06

38 分钟
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Wayétu Moore was just five years old in 1990, when Liberia's first civil war broke out. The family were forced to leave their home near Monrovia, and to flee on foot to the relative safety of a remote village. Throughout the journey, Wayétu's father Gus was determined to shield her and her sisters from the horrors of the conflict around them, and made up stories to explain what they saw. After months hiding in a remote village, a young woman with a gun arrived. She was a rebel soldier, named Satta, and announced she'd been sent by Wayétu's mother, who had been away studying in America, to bring the family to safety across the border in Sierra Leone. Years later, living in New York, and by now an established writer, Wayétu set out to track Satta down and thank her for what she did. Presenter: Emily Webb Producer: Laura Thomas Get in touch: outlook@bbc.com (Photo: Wayétu Moore. Credit: Yoni Levy)
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  • Hello, I'm Emily Webb and this is the Outlook Podcast.

  • But before we dive into today's story, I want to tell you that from Monday 25th April, we will be bringing you a new weekly podcast called Lives Less Ordinary.

  • It's your opportunity to hear some incredible personal stories.

  • We already have some jaw dropping tales lined up.

  • From a bike riding bank robber to a woman who discovers her fiance's shocking secret life, to the witch savior of Papua New Guinea.

  • Every episode shows just how surprising and extraordinary human beings can be.

  • So if you notice a new image and name, Lives Less Ordinary appear in your feed.

  • This is our new look.

  • We'll continue to bring you amazing personal stories from all over the globe.

  • After next week, we'll no longer be offering a daily podcast of Outlook, but you can still catch up with the Daily show online at bbcworldservice.com outlook now onto today's story.

  • A writer who fled Liberia as a child, but used stories to make sense of her experience as a five year old.

  • A favourite story of Wayetu Moore's came from the film the Sound of Music.

  • In it, the von Trapp children are being raised by a singing nun turned governess and an absent father after the death of their mother.

  • Now, Waeti's mother was very much alive, but she was in the US studying far from the family home.

  • I saw definitely a familiarity there.

  • I saw a household with many children, a household with caregivers or a caregiver who was a proxy for a mother at the time.

  • And that was similar to what we were going through, my sisters and I.

  • We had like a second cousin, a third cousin, and actually my maternal grandmother moved in and was helping my father to take care of us.

  • Tell me about your family home where you'd be watching this film.

  • So we were in the community of Caldwell, which is one of the suburbs of Monrovia, which is in Liberia, West Africa, and you had an actual yard and people would have maybe half an acre or an acre of property that was, that was theirs.