Dancing with Child Soldiers

Jeremiah charges into the hall in an uproar after ditching his bike just outside the door in the blazing heat of a Sierra Leone dry season. The wiry, athletic, 17-year-old former child soldier once told me he had started killing before he knew his own age. Now he finds an open spot on the floor, just beside me in the circle. In no time, he's railing about what made him so late for this week's group. A local policeman had fined him 5,000 leones for riding without a bicycle license. Outraged, Jeremiah denounces the officer as corrupt and stokes vitriol among his peers across the dusty room...........