I didn’t want to go, but my mother needed to help defend the villiage and I needed to live, but I didn’t understand any of that back then.

Big men herded those unable to fight away to safety in the woods until the fighting was over. I remember crying; I remember pulling against my captor, trying to be set free. In the distance we all could see flames rising from our tribal home and hear the bite of steel against flesh. I could do nothing. Only a child, I wasn’t even able to free myself from the woman that held me. All I could do was cry.

We stayed in hiding for the rest of the day, the men who lead us there standing guard and looking for survivors. If anyone were alive after the attack they would know where to come.

Throughout the day fighters staggered into the secret camp to solicit help putting out the fires in the village. The raiders had left, but by the talk, it seemed like much of the village had been destroyed. How? We were great warriors, how had we been so easily overcome?