
“I am a child soldier. I am 11y, I am from Congo, and my name is Jerome. I lived all my life moving around. My father has a group of friends that live moving around. They are always fighting. They are all very strong, and very brave. I wanted to grow up and to be a fighter and to kill people just like my father. But now I am very confused, and I don’t know what I want to do when I grow up?!
When I was 9y, my father started to use me to help his group, and I learned how to use a Kalashnikov. Its very heavy for me, but I can carry it for many hours, it hurts but I am a big boy, and I don’t complain 😉 . Last year I started to fight. Many kids at my age are already strong fighters. My father told me that our group is so powerful that bullets can not touch us, and that if I am brave, bullets will dodge away.
Few weeks ago, I was in the middle of the beautiful green mountains of Congo and there was heavy fighting. I think I killed one man from the enemy. I hope he is dead because they want to rape every woman like my mother and my sisters… In that heavy fighting I was shot in my leg… maybe I was not brave enough… and I got lost from my father. 3 days after somebody took me to a health center, and I was having a lot of pain and I couldn’t move… They call it Tetanus, and doctors say that its too bad I didn’t have vaccine for it… but I don’t know what is a vaccine.
I came by helicopter to this hospital where there are black people and white people, and they are all very friendly. I don’t know where is my family… I was almost dying of that Tetanus, but they gave me good treatment, and now the only problem is the knee that was destroyed by the bullet, and I had many operations. I have to walk with my crutches… and the other day I saw an helicopter in the air, and I was pretending that I was shooting the helicopter using one crutch as a Kalashnikov. One white nurse came to me and told me that if I shot down the helicopter, then the pilots can not save young boys like me from the war. I felt very bad and I said I was sorry… Everybody likes my smile, they say I am the joy of the hospital and I love them very much too. Sometimes I cry because I miss my mother, but this people of the hospital have been nice to me. They say people are happy because its Xmas. Maybe Xmas comes with vaccines, because I also don’t know what it is… They say I can ask for a present to celebrate Xmas, and I asked for vaccines… But they say, I can ask for something else because I received vaccines already, so I asked for a pencil and papers, so I can make drawings and go to school one day, and maybe one day I can read…
I think I want to stop to be a child soldier, I hope my father will not be mad at me.”