The Moth - The Moth Radio Hour: Camouflage - Stories of Hidden Selves

Episode Date: May 3, 2022

In this hour, four stories about secret identities and true selves. A secular man immerses himself in a Christian world; a young woman pledges herself to a humble life of joy; a father writes in his son’s voice; and a young man from Sierra Leone is enlisted to serve in war. Hosted by The Moth’s Executive Producer, Sarah Austin Jenness. The Moth Radio Hour is produced by The Moth and Jay Allison of Atlantic Public Media. Hosted by: Sarah Austin Jenness Storytellers: Kevin Rose goes undercover at a Evangelical Christian university. Sister Carolyn Martin commits herself to a love greater than any other. Boris Timanovsky has a transatlantic pen pal adventure. Abraham Leno has a dream of college are threatened when war breaks out in his country.

Attention Houston! You have listened to our podcast and our radio hour, but did you know the Moth has live storytelling events at Wearhouse Live? The Moth has opened Mike's storytelling competitions called Story Slams that are open to anyone with a five-minute story to share on the night's theme. Upcoming themes include love hurts, stakes, clean, and pride. GoodLamoth.org forward slash Houston to experience a live show near you. That's the moth.org forward slash Houston. From Pierrex, this is the Moth Radio Hour. I'm Sarah Austin-Geness, and in this hour, we'll hear stories of camouflage and secrecy.

We always ask Moth's storytowers to be open, and these stories are open, but they're about hidden identities. Our first story comes from Kevin Rousse. He told this at a Moth main stage called Checkmate, Stories of Strategy. Here's Kevin Rus, live at the Moth. It was the first time I was going on a Christian date, and I was freaking the hell out. I was in my dorm at Liberty University,

the world's largest evangelical Christian university, and I was in the bathroom putting gel in my hair and my friends from my dorm were all around me giving me advice for the night, and one of them told me that the three rules of Christian dating are pay, pray, and say. You pay for the meal as the man you pray over the meal, and then you lead the conversation, or because lead doesn't rhyme, you pray over the meal and then you lead the conversation or because lead doesn't rhyme you say the conversation. And I was freaking out because frankly I'm not very good at going on dates, but I was also freaking out because

this was the first time that I was going to have to lie to her. We all tell lies on dates. I've told girls that I like going out dancing, that I cook on my own, that I didn't watch the royal wedding. But this was different because this time I was lying about who I was and why I was there at Liberty University. To back up, I didn't grow up in a Christian family. I'm not an evangelical Christian. I grew up as far away from that as possible.

My parents were dyed in the wool liberals who worked for Ralph Nader in the 1970s. And that was the conservative wing. Like I had other family members who actually on game night would play class struggle, which is the socialist alternative to monopoly. The box, if you're curious, features Nelson Rockefeller arm wrestling Karl Marx. A great game.

And then I went to Brown University, which most evangelical Christians consider Cuba with diplomas. But in the middle of my time at Brown, I was down in Lynchburg, Virginia, with my boss working on a writing project. And I met a group of students from Liberty University. And I remember them telling me about their school.

They told me it was the world's largest evangelical university. It had a set of sort of crazy rules called the Liberty Way that said no drinking, no smoking, no dancing, no r-rated movies, and perplexingly no hugs that lasted for longer than three seconds. This is actually a rule there. And they told me that they had classes in things like

creationist biology and evangelism 101 that all the students were required to take. And I was fascinated and a little bit scared. I went back to Brown feeling like this was the most foreign place I could imagine, much more foreign than like Tokyo or Rio or places like that. And this was also coincidentally the time in my college career when all my friends were starting to plan their study of broads.

And so I thought to myself, well, what if I went abroad to Lynchburg, Virginia and studied this culture of conservative Christianity and found out the worst things they do, how big it is, and intolerant they are, and then wrote a book about it. And so midway through my sophomore year, I withdrew from Brown, I shipped off to Lynchburg, Virginia, and I entered Liberty University as a student, and an undercover writer. I was going to write a book about my time there. And I arrived on campus, and I remember feeling the biggest culture shock of my life. These were students that had seemingly nothing in common with me. They didn't curse. They

sort of like talked like Kenneth the page, like, you know, Golly and G Wiz. They honestly believed the earth was 6,000 years old. And they had Facebook groups like, I hope the rapture comes before my student loans were due. Which is pretty good, I thought, not bad considering the genre. And so I started to settle in and on my first Friday night there, I went to Bible study because what else are you going to do on a Friday night at Christian College? So I was at the house of an older student off campus. I remember going upstairs after the Bible study and watching a guy and a girl

sort of kneeling together and praying very intensely and the guy is sort of holding the girl's hand and and the guy is sort of holding the girl's hand and staring into her eyes. And I sort of looked around the room like, is anyone seeing this? And a girl came over to me and she introduced herself as Kristen. She was sort of like, she looked like a young Tina Fey. She had glasses and long brown hair. And she acted like one, too. She was a little cynical. And the first thing she said to me was, they're fellow shipping.

That's Liberty speak for hitting on each other awkwardly. And I liked her immediately. And so we started spending more time together after that Bible study group, and we went on a few dates. And since you can't do anything on dates, since there's no physicality allowed, we had to actually talk to each other and get to know each other.

And over time, I learned that she was not very typical for liberty. She was an evangelical Christian, sure, and she was pretty pure sort of morally. But she read Harry Potter. She liked the Beatles. Her parents had made her come to Christian school. And so, through all of this, I found that I had found one person

who might even a little bit be able to get me. And of course, I couldn't out myself to her. But as we went on more and more and more dates, I started telling her things about myself. I started talking about my family and my upbringing and my thoughts about some of liberty's sort of more conservative doctrines. And it really sort of became an outlet for me as I was sort of struggling with the rest of this school. And at one point, I even was grilling

her so hard that she sort of stopped and looked at me quizzically and said, are you recording this? and looked at me quizzically and said, are you recording this? And I knew at that point that I had gotten a little bit too close. As a semester went on, I sort of experimented in every facet of Liberty's student life. I joined the church choir. I played on the Intermural Softball team.

I made friends in my dorm. And as all this sort of happened, I felt myself sort of becoming unmoored a little bit. I felt a little bit detached from the person that I'd come in being. I felt like I was almost being brainwashed, and so I remember sitting and typing emails to my family and friends back home and puzzling for hours about whether I should use they or we.

And I knew it was bad when a friend from home sent me a Wikipedia article about Stockholm syndrome. So my family and friends were not too thrilled about this. But the one thing that I had the hardest time sort of figuring out was what to do about Kristen because on one hand I really liked her. On the other hand I was an undercover journalist and I couldn't exactly in good conscience continue dating her and I realized that in some ways dating is about what you tell people but relationships

are different. They're about what you don't leave out. And so I knew that even though I had fun dating her, I couldn't really be in a relationship with her. And so midway through the semester, I called her and I said, I'm really busy lately. I've got a lot going on. I don't know if I can make it out to our date this weekend.

I sort of blew her off, frankly, and it killed me to do that. And I remember telling her, you know, it's not you, it's me. And for the first time in the history of that phrase, it was not a lie. And so the semester went on, and I would see Kristen around the school, but I didn't talk to her as nearly as frequently. And the semester went on, and I had sort of wild and great experiences. Some of what I saw there was awful. It was classes about creationism and the homosexual agenda.

And Jerry Falwell was the chancellor of this school. Jerry Falwell, who said that 9-11 was the fault of Gays and Lesbians and the ACLU, or as I like to call them, my friends and family. So this was not a totally comfortable experience, but it was a productive one. And I came away from the semester, sort of feeling more virtuous. And I never converted, but I felt

the sort of Christianity rubbing off on me. And I remember coming back to New York and I was at the Apple store and I had a broken laptop that I had dropped. And I went to the guy at the Genius Bar and he said, you know, don't tell anyone, but if you say that you didn't drop this, that it just broke, I can save you $400 in repair fees.

And I remember sort of sitting there tearing my hair out, like, God is gonna judge me if I do this. I can't in good conscience, and I know, this is not on any Christian virtue scale. Like it doesn't register. I know Steve Jobs is not like widows and orphans, but I still felt more virtuous than I had before I got there.

Except for one thing, I still hadn't told my friends there that there was this book coming out and that they were going to be in it. And so six months passed, and I went back down to Liberty. The book hadn't come out yet, and I gathered them one by one and told them that I was there in essence to sort of catalog their lives and our lives and and then I was turning them into the characters of a book and and I they forgave me I mean because you know like

forgiveness is Christian crack or what you know it's like But so they weren't mad They were a little confused and they felt that they had actually not done their job by not converting me So they apologized to me they were like we're so sorry that we didn't show you the way to God Clearly we screwed something up and on that trip I I learned that Christian had actually left liberty. She had transferred to a home close to where she lived and wasn't going there anymore. And I guess she felt sort of mismatched there, too. So there was one more person left to call before this book came out. And I called her and I sort of caught up a little bit and I told her that there was this book.

And she was going to be in it. And she sort of paused and then she paused some more and then she said, oh, so that's why you didn't know anything. She said, that's why you called it filipions instead of filipians. And she was everything sort of clicked into place. And the second thing that. She was everything clicked into place. And the second thing that she said was that she was glad that it actually wasn't her, that she hadn't done anything wrong.

And so after that call, we sort of fell out of touch. We both sort of in and out of other relationships. The book came out. And out of all the questions I got about the book as I was going around telling this story, I would say 90% of the time people would ask, what happened to Kristen? And I had changed your name, I should mention by that point. But people would ask, they wanted to know, had we ended up together, had there been a happy ending to our story, and I couldn't exactly tell them what they wanted to hear, but I said, yeah,

we're still in touch. And then more and more time passed, and I felt the categories becoming clearer in my life. I knew that I was not a Liberty student. I was not an evangelical Christian. My life sort of became much more like what it was before I did this experiment. But I couldn't sort of shake the one thing

that she had said to me, which was that you weren't just sort of using me for material for your book, or she said, you know, we, that was not your point in all this. And I had responded, no, of course, but I thought about that more and more. And so years after the book came out, just a little while ago, I gave her a call. And we talked and caught up again

and talked about the things in our lives that had been going on. And I said, you know, people ask about you. When I go out on the road and talk and tell this story, they want to know what happened to you, what happened to us. And she said, well, that, you know, that makes sense because we were pretty amazing. And she sort of chuckled. And I just sat there and smiled because I realized that for the first time since I had left liberty in that statement I had found a

Wii that felt real to me. Thank you. That was Kevin Rooves. Kevin is a colonist for the New York Times and he's the author of two books, Young Money and the Unlikely Disciple, which is all about the experiences you heard in this story. He lives in Brooklyn and he's still not an evangelical Christian. The events in the story took place over a decade ago, and yes, I did ask, what happened to Kristen? And he said, I haven't spoken to Kristen in a few years.

Although this reminds me, I should call her to catch up. I have to confess a secret of my own, and that is, I was hoping they would end up together. If you'd like to share Kevin's story or others you hear in this hour or anywhere in the math archive, go to our website, themoth.org, and find us on social media too. We're on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram at TheMoth. When we return, another story involving romantic relationships and hidden identities, as told by the nun who lived it, when the Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, and presented by PRX. This is the Moth Radio Hour from PRX.

This is the Moth Radio Hour from PRX. I'm Sarah Austin-Geness, and we're sharing stories of hiding and being hidden. Our last story was about hiding identity in a religious context, and this one is, too, but actually in reverse. Sister Carolyn Martin told the story at a special event that featured five Catholic nuns. The theme of the night was sister stories. Here's Sister Carolyn, live at the mall in St. Paul, Minnesota. One day when I was a teenager, I remember very distinctly being out in my little red convertible with the top down, and I was with my friend Celia.

And we were buzzing around Washington, D.C. on the Capitol Beltway and blonde hair flying in the breeze and having a great old time. And I remember Celia wanted to be a religious sister. And I thought, that's great. You'll make a wonderful sister. Me, I'm going to get married and have a big family. I was thought, that's great, you'll make a wonderful sister. Me, I'm going to get married and have a big family. I was Catholic, practicing Catholic, but not very devout, no real relationship

with the Lord, but she would make a great sister. So there we were out kicking around having fun, and she said, oh, by the way, would you mind stopping by the little sisters of the poor in Washington? It's this home for the elderly poor where I volunteer and I have a little business there. So fine. And we pulled over. And when we got out, the young mother superior came out on the front steps and she saw our guitars in the back

of the car and she said, well, why don't you bring your guitars in and sing and play for the residents? So we did. But you know, we were beginners, so we weren't really that good. But we went around and we sang and we played for them, and there were the most beautiful smiles on every wrinkled face. It was very touching. And of course, I didn't know at that time what I know now that many times older people have a little hearing deficit,

but they thought we were great. They thought we were great or else. And this is probably more likely, too. They heard with the ears of the heart, which old people are awesomet doing. But anyway, I also noticed the sisters serving in the background. They were happy. They were genuinely happy. You could see it and humble in their service,

but full of joy. And I remember thinking, here I am, a teenager, and I see people racing all around society, frantically looking for happiness. And these people, these women in all of their poverty and simplicity, they have it. They have the pearl of great price and I want it. So then one of the sisters invited me into a room where there was a lady preparing to go home to God. She was in the dying process.

And there was a sister kneeling at her bedside, praying with the lady, holding her hand, holding in her hand a lit candle, which is a symbol we have of their going forth to meet Christ, like the bridegroom's, bridesmaid with her lamp a lit. And I was so taken aback by that. I was a teenager. I had never thought about end of life. I had my whole life ahead of me. But I realized that right here in this room, right before my eyes, time was touching eternity. And then I started asking myself the big questions,

well then what lies after? Is there a God? Is there eternal life? What is there? And I knew that I believed in God. And I knew at that moment that whatever number of years there would be between the time that this happened and the time he called me home at the end of my life,

I wanted those years to be very meaningful and I wanted to spend them for him. So, there was just one problem and that was that I had this boyfriend and we were very serious about each other, very serious and we had envisioned our life together and our future together. And he had actually already proposed to me on two occasions, you know, after we'd spent

an evening together, begged me to marry him. And I felt an intense love for him and I knew the answer would be yes, but I knew being a teenager is really too soon. So the yes was going to come, but it hadn't come yet. So now God had swept me off my feet with this greater love, this beautiful love from the experience that I had had, and so how was I going to tell my boyfriend? And so I didn't want to hurt his feelings and so I kept saying,

if I wait one more day, one more day, one more day, I know I'm going to think of just the right words to tell him. The heel understand that it's not that I don't love him anymore, but heel understand about my vocation and my call. And the days passed and we continued dating, we go out to ball games and parties, we went to the roller rink, hung out with friends, but I couldn't think of the right words to tell them. And I was enjoying all the things that life had to offer, you know, the, the, everything that materially that I wanted and popularity and success and all, friends and all that and,

and enjoying the beauty of his love for me. But I still was embraced by this mystery. And I couldn't think of the words to tell him because you know vocation is a mystery. So the evening before I entered the convent. I felt like a heel, but I didn't want to hurt him so time was running out. So we went to a movie and after the movie I told him I am going to become a Catholic sister. He was so stunned, first of all he didn't know what a sister is and second of all what about the life together that we had planned and he was so stunned and he cried and I cried and we cried and cried. I remember my shoulder was all wet with his tears.

I can still almost feel it today and I can still almost feel the pain in his heart. There had been one instance where before that time I had been called over to get my pinning, you know, for my postural and outfit. And I remember he drove me over there not knowing what it was about. He didn't ask, so I didn't tell him. And I remember the sisters running around, you know, doing my pins. And I'm looking out the window

down at him sitting in the car full of pain for him and for the pain that would be in his heart. I almost felt guilty for the great joy that I felt in following my call, but then when this last night came and I finally had to break the news to him, it was very, very difficult for both of us. So the next day came, it was my entrance ceremony, and he came. I knew he would be there. He always wanted to be with me and he was going to for as long as he could. So my family was around me and he was in the pew immediately behind me at my entrance ceremony. And then when it was time for him to leave,

we were at the front entrance. And I couldn't kiss him, I couldn't hug him, I mean, as you know, it was different now, I was a postulent, and I was studying to be a sister, so we were with the sister who's in charge of the young women who had just entered, and he and I said goodbye, tears running down his cheeks, and he turned slowly and went down the steps. And it was a hot summer day, and that very kind sister said to him, wait, would you like a cold drink? And he turned around and he looked up at her, and he looked up at me with the tears coming down, and he nodded, yes.

So he came back up, she gave him a cold drink. He sifted, he made it last as long as he could. We just looked at each other in silence and the tears continued to flow. And when he couldn't make that cold drink last any longer, he gave her the empty cup, took one last look at me, turned around and went down the steps and disappeared. turned around and went down the steps and disappeared. But you know, I always can find him in the Eucharist.

I still love him, but my heart is expanded to this great love that accepts and welcomes everybody that God sends into my life. It's a much greater love, but he's part of it. So I find him when I go to prayer and I find all of the other people whom I love, and I've never regretted saying yes to God's beautiful plan for my life. That was Sister Carolyn Martin. Sister Carolyn has been a member of the Little Sisters of the Poor for 46 years. She's also a registered nurse. She said, this story took place 50 years ago, although I never even include a time frame

in the telling, because love is timeless, no matter how recently or how long ago one has been given that gift. I asked if she had seen her former boyfriend since the events of the story and she said, no, I have not seen him since the day of my entrance into the religious sisterhood. I wanted the gift of my life to the Lord to be total, no looking back except in the joyful gratitude to God

that the memories might inspire. I do pray for him in a special way on his birthday each year, but Jesus himself is now my guy. To see a photo of Sister Carolyn Martin pronouncing her first vows and a photo of four of the nuns who told stories at this show taking a selfie, go to the mall.org. to themoth.org. Next up is a classic math story from Boris Timonowski. Boris is the proud father of two boys,

and many of his math stories include them. This story is no different. He told it at a moth night when we partnered with the Penn World Voices Festival. Here's Boris, live with the off in Brooklyn, New York. I was overseas not that long ago on a business trip. And my last evening there, we all went out, and by then everyone was sick and tired of talking about work. So we drank and we talked about other things,

like kids and families. And this guy Vlad says that his nine-year-old daughter Julie has an assignment in her English class to find a penpell. And he asks if my son Joseph would be willing to correspond with her. I said, sure, because of course he would. And I fly back home to New York and I tell Joseph, and Joseph says, no. And he wouldn't say why, but I figured it must be because Julie's a girl. And Joseph is 11. And the way they teach him in school is romantic love is not a part of the curriculum yet. But on the other hand, they are already taught about abstinence and how sex leads to pregnancy

and pregnancy leads to additional responsibilities. So if Joseph came to associate girls with additional responsibilities and would last play time as a consequence, like last time for his playstation, I can't blame him for that, but what am I going to do? I don't want to break the promise that I'd already made to Vlad. So I thought, how hard can it be? I'll do it. And I went to Yahoo, and I opened another email account there, and I forwarded to Vlad, and I wrote to him that,

yes, Joseph would be happy to be Julie's pen bell. And I checked that mail box a few times in the week that followed. And it was empty, and I thought maybe I was off the hook. And then one night I came home late and I lived by myself. So I checked my match.com messages first. And then I went to this new email account and there was an email there from Julie. And I read it and I thought, yeah, I can do this because she wasn't asking many difficult questions. She wasn't asking what I learned from the past relationships. She wasn't asking what my true intentions are. She wasn't asking if I'm really divorced or just separating.

All she wanted to know was, do I have a path, what my favorite color is, and who I want to be when I grow up. But an hour later, I still didn't have an answer. Because what was it going to say? That it would be nice to make Senior Vice President by the time I'm 40? That the reason I don't have a pet is because I dread the thought of coming home one night and finding it on the floor dead.

That I've just gone over every color of the rainbow only to conclude that each color has some sort of unpleasant memory. Connected to it. It was hard to concentrate. It was late. I wasn't fully sober. My match that comes screen kept blinking because somebody without a photo wanted to chat. But I try to remember how I would have answered Julie's questions years ago.

So I ended up writing to her that my favorite color is blue because it's the color of the ocean and I have a parrot and when I do my homework my parrot is sitting on my shoulder. And when I grow up I want to to be a C-captain. And my parent and I will sail around the world. And when I walk up the next morning, I turn on my computer. This is usually when I check my match.com messages again. But this time, I was more interested in what Julie had to say about that whole C-captain thing.

Then in the messages that I had waiting for me from my adult female open-minded, easy-going, down to earth, outgoing, and adventurous, pan-pels that were written in response to the very adult messages that I sent to them. And there was an email in that mailbox, to the very adult messages that I sent to them. And there was an email in that mailbox and I felt nervous about opening it and I opened it and it wasn't from Julie, it was spam.

Something about signing up to have affairs with married women or signing up to find out if your wife is having an affair, something like that. But I kept checking for new mail almost, almost hourly that day. And in between checking for new mail, I asked myself all kinds of questions like, okay, so you want it to be a C-captain. And then what happened? And I remembered, I remember telling my parents that I want to be a sea captain.

And my mom said, she's not aware of too many sea captains who are Jewish. And my grandma said, what about Christopher Columbus? He was a Jew. And I remember everybody looking at my grandma, not saying anything, because pretty much anything my grandma said was ignored, because she kind of lost her standing in a family ever since she was seen crying at President Brezhnev's funeral. And my dad said that Christopher Columbus doesn't count because he had converted. And my other grandma, who always argued with my mom, no matter what the topic, she said,

what about her cousin's husband who was an accountant for a cruise line? And my mom said, it's not the same thing. And my grandfather said that it has no about captains. But what he does know is that TV repairs is a pretty damn good business to be in. And he said that one should look no further than his nephew Alec. His nephew Alec was a TV repairman. He visited us every couple of months whenever our old TV broke.

And he walked around with this beat up old rectangular briefcase filled with spare parts and all shapes and sizes. And he always looked like he was tired all the time. And I was remembering all of these things. And I remember how I was dreaming all of these things, and I remember how I was dreaming about standing on the bow of a ship with a sun in my face and with the wind in my face and the ocean wave splashes in my face. And I thought that so much has changed since then, because now if I'm thinking about being in a ship, I see myself walking up and down the deck of

some cargo ship anchored somewhere in the vicinity of Stet N Island in a fog with nothing but those old rastis shipping containers around me and how long it probably feels. And so I kept waiting for Julie's message and nothing was coming from her and about a week later Vlad called with some more questions. And then he said that he was really, really sorry, but Julie didn't want to be Joseph's pen pal anymore. And I said, why? And he said, he didn't know why, and I thought, maybe it's because he didn't ask her any questions. And Vlad asked me if I read Joseph's mail. And I said, no. So he read it to me over the phone and then he said that Joseph would probably very upset if he didn't hear from Julie again

And I don't know what made me said that say that yes, he probably would be And Vlad said that if Julie wasn't gonna write to Joseph then he would I said I told him not to worry about it But I must have sounded really upset because he said that no, he'll write to him, only he wanted me to tell him what to write. So I said, I'll think about it. And a week later, he called to remind me,

and I was in the middle of something, and I looked at this postcard from Florida that I had in my cubicle and I said, oh how about this? Dear Joseph, my favorite color is also blue and my favorite animal is the dolphin. And when I grow up, I want to be a scientist and study dolphins and live on a deserted island in the middle of the ocean all by myself. And maybe you and your parrot can visit me there sometimes

and bring me food and scientific supplies. And Vlad said that he liked it, and he asked me to type it up and send it over to him, because he wanted to make sure that he got it right. And I typed it up, and I sent it over, and he sent it back to me and yes, he got it right And I don't know how long an average penpell relationship lasts But I felt that hours had run its course

And this is this is how it ended But sometimes when Vlad calls he asked me how his penpell is doing and does he still want to be a C captain And I tell him that yes, his penpal still wants to be a C captain very much Because if he didn't and what does he want to be? Thank you That was Boris Timonovsky. Boris is a member of three bridges, theatre and Brooklyn. His sons are teenagers now.

He works for a financial software company, and yes, he still wants to be a sea captain, but he says he hasn't found the right continuing education class. Do you have a story to tell us? You can pitch us your story by recording it right on our site or call 877-799-MOF. The best pitches are developed for mouth shows all around the world. When we return a refugee originally from Sierra Leone is torn between joining the army and staying in school when the Moth Radio Hour continues. The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts,

and presented by the Public Radio Exchange, PRX.org. You're listening to The Moth Radio Hour from PRX. I'm Sarah Austin-Geness. In this hour, we're hearing stories of people who are in disguise. And next, in our final story, that twist is at the end. The story is from Abraham Lano. We met Abraham a few years ago in a Moth community workshop with the Aspen new voices fellows. These days, Abraham works to help refugees, and that's because of his own

experience as a refugee from Sierra Leone, which you were about to hear. Here's Abraham Lano, live at the Moth. Growing up in my house in Sierra Leone, there was always music. One family member only needed to do something like, Daddy sing bass, mama sing tenor, me and little brother will join right in there. And soon there was music all around the house. Mama sing tenor, me and little brother will join right in there. And Sundya was music all around the house.

We had fun playing a lot of household games, Scravo, Monopoly. But being a religious family, we were taught a lot of values. We were taught to love. Kita berguna banyak love. Kita berguna untuk mempunyai kumpas. Tapi di semua kainan. Mereka akan beritahu, ada kainan yang tidak berguna. Kita juga mempunyai kainan yang kita menggunakan di rumah

untuk kainan yang berguna. freezes that we used in the house to depict kindness. One was happy to share, happy to bear. One another's burden, that's why we're here. My parents gave a lot of importance to education, so at a very young age, I was already dreaming to become an engineer. Everything stopped. I was 16, and there was a war. Actually, the war that ravaged Cyrilion for about a decade started in the town where I grew up. My family and I crossed over from Cyr Leone into Guinea and we became refugees. Now life as a refugee was not easy.

At 16, I stood in line to receive food Russians. I learned to build a shelter and that is mud, sticks and some plastic shit. When the food Russians were not enough, my brothers and I worked as borders to make some money and bring home so that mommy can cook. Because there was no opportunity for me to go to school, I was on the street selling fuel in bottles. Kutakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakak I believe my family in Guinea, in the refugee camps, and I will return to Cyrillian whenever there was a cessation of the violence just for me to be able to go back to school.

This was my life for the 10 years that the war lasted. I will leave my family in Guinea, go to Cyrillian. There will be a war and then I will come back and join them. go to Sierra Leone. There will be a war and then our comeback and join them. In 1999, I was again in Sierra Leone. This time, I was in my first year of university, studying engineering. Another war broke out. My family was in Guinea. We had lost Kutakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakak and waiting for their time to die. I saw vultures eating dead bodies in the streets. I saw people whose limbs were caught. And what this, this to me was to, it changed me. It changed my life. I lost my innocence.

I became angry with the world. I lost my innocence. I became angry with the world. I became angry with myself. So I said to myself, the only thing I would do, I'm not going to run anymore, I'm also going to take a weapon and fight. So I decided to join a fighting group. Now, before I went to war to fight in the army, Kami ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni I'm a parent's house, now in Guinea. The telephone rang. And on the side of the telephone was my friend, with whom I had registered for the army,

and he said, Abraham, come, you've been selected. You're a cadet officer. This is our chance. Let's go to war. Promising him that I will return, I will come to him, I put down the phone. I turned and there was my dad. He had that look.

He wanted to know what I was talking about. So I told him, Dad, remember when I came, I told you my plans that I no longer want to run and now is the time I just got a call that I've been selected for the Army. I'm going and I'm going to fight. He told me, Junior, that's the name they call me home. Sit down. He said, for all the time that the war had lasted, I spared you some details, things that I now think you need to know. Kami'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u'u Kutakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakak porque yo mewio hiratio hiratio hiratio hiratio hiratio hiratio hiratio hiratio hiratio hiratio hiratio hiratio hiratio hiratio hiratio hiratio hiratio hiratio hiratio hiratio hiratio hiratio hiratio hiratio hiratio hiratio hiratio hiratio hiratio hiratio hiratio hiratio hiratio hiratio hiratio hiratio hiratio hiratio hiratio hiratio hiratio hiratio hiratio hiratio hiratio hiratio hiratio hiratio hiratio hiratio hiratio hiratio hiratio hiratio hiratio hiratio hiratio hiratio hiratio hiratio hiratio hiratio hiratio hiratio hiratio hiratio hiratio hiratio hiratio hiratio hiratio hiratio hiratio hiratio hiratio hiratio hiratio hiratio hiratio hiratio hiratio hiratio hiratio hiratio hiratio hiratio hiratio hiratio hiratio hiratio hiratio hiratio hiratio hiratio hiratio hiratio hiratio hiratio hiratio hiratio hiratio hiratio hiratio hiratio hiratio hiratio hiratio hiratio hiratio hirat Kutakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakak I can't answer to all the things that you have, all the questions that you have now,

but if you listen to me, I will pray. That we've been praying for how long and the war is still going on. I'm not going to sit to wait for another prayer to be answered. This is about my life. And this is what I want to do. I left the room. Kutakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakakak Jiroldam, jiroldam, jiroldam, jiroldam, jiroldam,

jiroldam, jiroldam, jiroldam, jiroldam, jiroldam, jiroldam, jiroldam, jiroldam, jiroldam, jiroldam, jiroldam, jiroldam, jiroldam, jiroldam, jiroldam, jiroldam, jiroldam, jiroldam, jiroldam, jiroldam, jiroldam, jiroldam, jiroldam, jiroldam, jiroldam, jiroldam, jiroldam, jiroldam, jiroldam, jiroldam, jiroldam, jiroldam, jiroldam, jiroldam, jiroldam, jiroldam, jiroldam, jiroldam, jiroldam, jiroldam, jiroldam, jiroldam, jiroldam, jiroldam, jiroldam, jiroldam, jiroldam, jiroldam, jiroldam, jiroldam, jiroldam, jiroldam, jiroldam, jiroldam, that the heart of the son that was missing in the war, and he grew friendship with them. When he went back to Holland, this tourist took upon himself to call every now and then

to ask, is Junior home? Finally today, on a faithful date that he called, they told him, yes datang di sini. Dia beritahu mereka, yes, Junya, dia datang. Tapi sebelum dia dapat mencari, dia beritahu mereka, tapi ada masalah. Jiraulah beritahu sebabkan kemungkinan saya, apa masalahnya? Mereka beritahu dia, dia tak boleh beritahu. Apa yang dia tak boleh beritahu? Sebab kita tak boleh beritahu dia, dia tak takkan beritahu dia di dalam tempat ini. Jiraulah beritahu, apa boleh kita, what can we do? What can I do? My parents said, the

only thing that we know would give this young man here is if he were able to go back to school. And he said, why not? They said, they are schools here, they are private. They are very expensive. But we can't afford it. Girard here in that said to my parents, please go find a way to open an account for him, register him in school, and I will pay for his education. Jiraud kept to his promise. He paid for me to go back to school. I went back to school. I went to college, and I graduated in 2002. I went back to the camps where I walk with refugees. But Jiraud dams, a tourist from Holland, is the reason I do what I do.

The truth is, I still have never met Girard. But he is kindness embodied for me. Every day that I do my work, I remember the words through his kindness that we sang in our house. Happy to share. Happy to bear. One another's burdens. That's why we're here.

Thank you. That was Abraham Leno. Today Abraham is the country representative for the American Refugee Committee, ARC, in Bukavu, Congo, where he oversees the management of refugee programs in the country. He's the father of three, and he said, telling my story helps my kids and my larger family to piece together our story, our refugee story. After Abraham told this story, we found Gerard Dams. But when we spoke to him in yet another twist

in a story with so many twists and turns, Gerard said, he wasn't actually the person who sponsored Abraham's education. It was a woman named Mrs. Koneck, the mother of a very good friend of Gerard's. Abraham was blown away by this news. He remembers writing to Mrs. Koneck a few times, but he thought she was Gerard's secretary. He said, that's just how I understood it.

Mrs. Koneck once told me that it wasn't even necessary for me to send my year-end grades to show how I was doing in school. She told me, I trust you. These are words of a stranger that have always stayed with me. Abraham said, I owe her so much.

She changed my life and the lives of thousands of refugees that I have served and continue to serve today. 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. Your host this hour was Sarah Austin Janess. Sarah also directed the stories in the show, along with Katherine Burns, Larry Rosen and Kate Tellers. The rest of the most directorial staff includes Sarah Haberman, Jennifer Hickson, and Mick Lolls, production support from Timothy

Loo Lee. The Moth would like to thank the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for their support of the Moth Community program, as well as Andrew Quinn and Rachel Stretcher from the Aspen Institute. Moth Stories are true, as remembered and affirmed by the storytellers. Our theme music is by the Drift, other music in this hour from the Drift, David Stanwood, Kackie King, Lee Farcad Torre, and Tumani Jubate. The Moth Radio Hour is produced by me, J. Allison, with Vicki Merrick, at Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. This hour was produced with funds from the National Endowment for the Arts.

The Moth Radio Hour is presented by PRX. For more about our podcast, for information on pitching your own story and everything else, go to our website, TheMaw.org.