Eyes Like a Lighthouse (Luke Nephew - Liberia)

Daniel.
I wouldn’t trust a picture or a thousand words to tell my brother’s story. I wouldn’t even trust a thousand pictures. He is a survivor of chaos and conflict but his is not a war story. Despite it’s pain and trauma, it’s not a tragedy, but a song of joyful possibility. Daniel tells it to me sitting on a porch next to a dusty road in the community of soul clinic where he is widely known and loved as a brother, friend, activist and organizer. Our conversations are interspersed with a steady flow of greetings from people passing by- he’s a politician but not at all. And without asking, his story starts to flow out gently.

One of five kids born to a mother and father who were police. Come war time this made the whole family targets for torture and murder. So when the rebels came and his parents fled, he was left alone with his brothers and sisters. When they had to run, he recounts, they went in all different directions and he kept running until he found a house where he was taken in by a woman who cared for 20 children. This became his home. The woman could only afford to send five of the kids to school so Daniel couldn’t go. He articulately describes the frustration of being deprived of the learning he so boldly advocates for today. Daniel says he ate anything he could find and somehow persevered as one of twenty kids in a time of desperation. A child separated from his parents and all his siblings. Eight years later, his mother returned from a refugee camp and found him. He smiles, looks at the ground and says, “oh yes, we cried that day.”
And now, here we are in the thick heat of a Liberian afternoon, speaking of collective struggle, of nonviolence, of organizing the youth to lead their nation toward a better future. His posture, calm and confident, is so clearly heroic. I’m inspired to the point of tears by his faith in hard work. He volunteers his time, day after day, traveling all over Liberia to educate people about Gender Based Violence in an Anti-Rape campaign. As the Deputy Director of the United Youth Movement Against Violence, he works tirelessly for his people. He laughs and tells stories. He is gentle but ready at all times. Ready to keep loving, keeping fighting, keep writing his story of hope.

I look him in the eyes. Twenty three year old eyes that have witnessed more death and birth than the eyes of most elders. Eyes like a lighthouse. Eyes that write stories, better than any words or pictures. I’m watching him write in bold, on streets, against all odds. He writes with that idealism that youth have the audacity to carry between our shoulders. We hug goodbye. Not one of those is-it-ok-to-be-hugging-? hugs- We hug like life is fragile, beautiful, and worth every single sacrifice we make. We hug because we trust each other to keep making sacrifices, making change, making peace. We hug to remind each other, that despite any distance, we work together. And as we walk down the dusty road together, I realize the best part of the story: it’s just beginning.