Salifu Kamara speaks to the eighth grade.

By Molly R.

The class of 2014 just finished reading the book A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah, the story of Beah’s journey as a child soldier during the civil war in Sierra Leone as part of our African Connections unit. We were fortunate to have Salifu Kamara, another former boy soldier from Sierra Leone, come to talk to us on March 31.

The room was silent. The air was thick. We all were waiting for Salifu Kamara to speak. At first glance Salifu looks like the average college student: collared shirt and tie with a leg injury forcing him on crutches. But Salifu is far from average, for hiding behind his eyes is the haunting past of his childhood.

Salifu grew up in Sierra Leone during the civil war. He grew up in a poor house on a small farm where he had no bed and little education. But nonetheless he was happy. He would play soccer for hours on end like any other African child. When Salifu was nine, the army rebels came to his village and destroyed everything he once knew. He watched his family die, his sisters get raped, and his life change forever. Salifu became a child soldier in the rebel army at the age of nine.

While most nine-year-old children are learning how to multiply and do long division, Salifu was learning how to use a gun and how to kill. He stayed with the rebel group for about two months, making little friends along the way. The one boy Salifu was able to connect to was gruesomely ambushed while sitting next to Kamara. If there’s one thing Salifu remembers about being in the rebels’ army is that he was taught to be forceful, and was taught to kill. “My gun was my everything.” Salifu described, “Without it, you were gone.” Salifu didn’t even know what he was fighting for. It wasn’t until his arrival in the United States that he learned the war was over diamonds.

After running away from his fellow comrades, Salifu went into hiding, yet still acted as a rebel by being forceful. Not a day went by that Kamara didn’t think to himself and say, “Today I could die.” Salifu wasn’t able to escape Sierra Leone until three years ago; when he was 20 years old, he came to the United States with a few friends. Since his arrival he has been attending Clark University in Worcester, MA and enjoys speaking publically to raise the awareness of the plight of child soldiers that still exist across the world.

“Glory I lost in childhood I will regain,” Salifu says. Salifu is still haunted by his past but he’s striving to move on and make a brighter tomorrow. He likes to publicly speak in front of the younger generations to help make a difference for future child soldiers. Yet as positive as Salifu strives to be there are still moments were he becomes truly depressed. He says, “On parents day for Clark University all my friends would come introduce their families to me. Oh this is my mother and father, they would say. And I was happy for them. I was. But afterwards I went to my room, thought about my own family and cried.” At a young age Salifu was deprived of the one thing everybody needs – love. He was never able to have his mother hold him when he was scared, or tell him it was going to be okay. He had to make do for himself. “Love was forcefully taken from me,” he acknowledges. Having survived through Sierra Leone’s living Hell, Salifu has twelve goals he emphasizes people to strive for:

1. Love others as you love yourself.
2. Give to others.
3. See others for who they really are.
4. Rejoice through suffers
5. Never laugh at others
6. Be mindful
7. You can always find your way
8. Be vigilant
9. Give hope by loving others
10. Be the first voice to say no, fight for freedom from inequality
11. Be the change you want
12. Love always deeply and be there for others.

Salifu Kamara is one of the most inspirational people I have ever seen. Even throughout all his daily challenges, adapting to American culture and walking on crutches, he strives to be a good person. When people ask how he managed to turn his life around he simply replies, “I don’t know…God?” or “God brought me here.” Salifu is trying to forget the past. The people he knows from Sierra Leone he considers to be a part of his family, greeting them by “brother.” Yet the former child soldier has no desire to return to his homeland: “The trust is gone, I’m afraid if I return the rebels will show up again, burning down houses and the violence will be back.” Salifu refuses to read the book A Long Way Gone, and even though he is friends with the author, they never talk about their experiences or Sierra Leone.

Salifu Kamara is an amazing person. His personal strength and ability to love is something we should all strive for. The major issue he stressed during the presentation was your ability to love. “Just hug a child and say I love you. Kids need to be protected, and we all still need love.” Salifu has gone through hardships that my worst nightmares can’t even compare to. To embrace the world alone, with no family, is a scary thought. Yet somehow Salifu managed to overcome seeing the world at its worst, seeing suffering, villages burned, gruesome sins and his whole family gone. Salifu finds comfort in speaking publicly for he feels that the more he can educate younger generations the higher chance change will come.

When Salifu was finished with his inspiring speech, the air was once again thick and everybody sighed in relief and counted their blessings. With a thunderous applause, I think its safe to second what Salifu said and say that, “My heart is with all of Sierra Leone’s surviving refugees.”

Photo Credit: Peter Smith

Just a few days ago, one of the most important Asian festival past by us, and it is the Moon Festival. Lucky for Worcester Academy, it’s introduced and celebrated at the school. However, people were mostly enjoying the food, and the companionship of friends without comprehending the significance of this festival and we also ignored the most important thing about this festival, the moon.

Moon Festival happens on August 15th of the Lunar calendar every year, and it is usually in the middle of Fall, so it’s also known as the mid-Autumn Festival. However, the most significant thing about the moon festival is of course, the moon. The Lunar calendar is actually a calendar that is based some what on astronomical events and the moon festival suppose to be the day in the year that the moon is closest to earth and it figure the biggest and roundest through out the year. Moon Festival then seems to be a festival enjoyed by people who are interested in astronomy, however, that is not the case. Moon Festival is in fact the second biggest traditional festival in China, only second to Chinese New Year. Moon festival existed in China as early as 1000 B.C. Nowadays, nobody know who first thought about it and how it really originated, but there is a very beautiful Chinese folklore associated with moon festival.

Once upon a time in the world, a hero called Yi Hou shot down 9 extra suns using a bow from God and leaving only one sun on the sky, making earth more comfortable for human beings. He later married a beautiful girl called E Chang. Because Yi served people with God’s will, he received a special pellet from a Goddess. Anybody who eats the pellet will be able to leave the mortal earth and become an immortal God in the sky. Yi didn’t want to leave his wife behind on earth, therefore kept this pellet in his wife, E’s cabinet. Later that day, a rouge who heard this rumor broke in to Yi and E’s home when Yi was not there, and asked E to give the pellet to him. E being a female knows that she cannot win the battle and swallow the pellet herself to prevent it from being used by evil means. Of course, after E swallowed the pellet, she left her mortal body on earth, and her spirit flew out to become a Goddess. Because her love for her Husband Yi is so great, she flew to the star nearest to the earth, the moon, and became a Goddess there. After Yi came back and heard the story, he was anguish and sorrowful from the fact that his wife was being forced to leave him. When he looked at the moon that day, it’s the biggest and the roundest moon that he had ever seen, and he decided to make this day the Moon Festival to remember his wife, now the Goddess of Moon. Later this Festival became to remember any lost family members or loved ones who are far far away from each other. People feel that by looking at the moon when it’s roundest, the spirit of people who are dead or far away can be connected with each other.

The full moon itself soon became the symbol of united family for people. In this increasingly developed world, the concept of united is getting more and more attention. With the moon cake and dumpling representing the shape of the moon, eating them during moon festival becomes a tradition. That being said, the moon festival is not just a festival of eating special kind of food or observing the big and bright moon; it’s a memorial festival where the connection between family member is strengthened, especially when they are away or gone for long. With food only serving as tool, Moon Festival is far more than just food.

Photo Credit: Dennis Wong, icools, Thai Jasmine

Top 10 Ways to Make Money

10. Get Rich Quick Schemes

As tempting as they are, get rich quick schemes hardly ever work. Although it may seem like a good idea to buy the guy on TV who is selling a book on how to get rich by selling a book, it is probably not wise to take his advice. Most get rich quick schemes don’t work and more often than not, you end up losing your money.

9. The Lottery

One of the least likely way to get rich is through buying lottery tickets, but one way to try and get rich is to buy a lot of lottery tickets and hope one of them is the winner. Good luck!

8. Odd Jobs

Odd jobs such as babysitting children can be a great way to make some extra cash part time. Though not always a lot of money, babysitting, a few hours here and there for thirty dollars each time can really add up and it’s a great way for teenagers to make money.

7. Real Estate

A popular new way to make money is to buy cheap houses and fix them up to sell for a profit, or as it is referred to in the industry as “flipping” houses. The problem with this is that sometimes it can cost more to fix up the house than the profit made.

6. Online Poker

If you’re good enough, online poker can actually be a real money maker. Online websites such as pokerstars.com allow you to use a credit card to play for actual money against real people. My cousin made enough money to buy a car with cash! This is hit or miss though as you must be a skilled poker player to actually make money.

5. College

One solid way to earn money is to put the money you already have towards tuition. With a college degree it is likely that you will be able to get a job and make money doing that. Although this isn’t the quickest way to make money it is one of the safest.

4. The Stock Market

The stock market is one of the more risky ways to make money as you can lose your money in an instance. There is skill to making money in stocks as to knowing when to sell before stocks go down and when to buy before they rise. Although the stock market is not doing to well now, it will always go back up. If you get skilled at it, there is plenty of money to be made in stocks.

3. Selling Your Own Product

It is possible to make money selling your own product without spending much of your own money. The key is to sell something that you know about. If you know hundreds of fabulous recipes then you should sell a recipe book or an instructional cooking video.

2. Online Marketing

A lot of money is to be made these days in selling things on websites such as Ebay or Craigslist. By selling old junk that isn’t used anymore you can get cash from people who want to use that stuff and see your junk as their treasure. One man used Craigslist to trade up from a red paperclip to his own house!

1. Become a Blogger

Believe it or not there is an immense amount of money to be made blogging. By selling ad space on a popular blog website, people are making six figures salaries. For example the blogger of the Perez Hilton celebrity gossip website makes over 100,000 dollars per month in advertising. With the spread of technology going as it is, blogging is the best money maker right now.

Photo Credit: Verb My Noun., liewcf, Tracy O

Besides maybe fast food chains, Apple is one of the only corporation to keep its head above water, and stay away from a decline in sales.  Apple can attribute that to its products, and its product’s popularity.

Apple continues to come out with the most up to date technology.  Almost every six months there is a new update to the iPod, iPhone, Macbook, or any other Apple product.  We live in a society where having the new thing or device means everything, and updating from old technologies is an essential.  Upgrading is a way of life for people in our society.  That one factor that has led to Apple’s continued success, as even though the economy is going through a very difficult situation, Americans have put purchasing the newest technologies as a priority a major priority.

The other reason for Apple’s continued success through the bad economy is because of the growing importance of technology in our daily lives.  Technology is used in almost every profession, school system and household across the country.  And with that being said, Apple is one of the leading providers of new technology.  Their computers and software are used in millions of businesses in America.  Their iPods sell not only to young adults and children, but it also appeals to all age levels.  Even Apple’s most recent development, the iPhone, has become one of the highest selling mobile phones on the market today.

This trend hasn’t hit home with all corporations producing new technology items, as numerous companies have began to falter.  Other companies are trying to devise plans to help compete with Apple.  Even software pioneers like Microsoft have been considering opening up stores in malls and shopping centers (like Apple) to compete with the Apple corporation.  Apple is known for producing the best technologies and Americans have not forgotten that during these economic hardships.

Apple has been one of the fortunate companies in America’s sinking economy.  There have been two factors that have led to Apple becoming much more recession-proof compared to many American Corporations; the continued desire of Americans to update their belongings, and more importantly their technological products, and also the popularity of Apple products.  Due to these two factors, Apple has been able to keep its head above water even through difficult economic times.  Only time will tell if it continues down that path.

At the beginning of professional sports, players never used agents.  Players worked on their own when it came to signing with a team or working on a contract.  Money was still an issue in sports at this time, but it was never the issue.  One of the reasons athletes became professionals was to earn a living, but that wasn’t their main purpose.  Athletes like Bill Russell and Ted Williams played because they loved the games, the competition, and the joy of playing their specific sport everyday.  There were no labor disputes between the unions and owners, and no holdouts for players wanting to get played more.  Players acted on their own agenda, not based on an agenda of a greedy agent who is whispering in their ear (see Manny Ramirez and Scott Boras).

Contracts are dealt with differently now than they were before.  Agents act as a translator between a team and a player.  This creates multiple problems.  First, it creates a lack of communication between the player and team.  This could eventually harm the relationship between the two if the player actually signed with the team.  Another problem with this is that the agent is working for one goal only, to make more money.  This could alter the athletes decision because instead of picking a team because they actually like the team or the city, they would make their decision based on how much money they are given.  Obviously you cannot fault someone for trying to get paid as much as they can for their career, but it begins to get a little overboard when a person makes a decision on a team because one is paying 1.5 million more a year than the other (even though you would be getting 165 million with that team, Mark Teixeira).  Am I blaming the players for this? No, as I believe the agents are the reasoning for this.  They are working for their own interest, not the interest of the players.  They are the driving force behind pro sports being completely controlled by money.  They claim they are working for the players by getting them the most money that they can get, but they are really just working for their own interest and wealth.  That is the reason why contracts in sports are breaking through the roof, even with the economy plummeting.  Sports would return to the days of people playing to just play the game, not to make millions, if agents were eliminated from the picture.

Photo credit: Tracy O

Think about it. What happens when the new iPod comes out? Chances are you already have an iPod, and it works perfectly fine. Chances are your iPod is actually the latest model, and you already have hundreds, if not thousands of songs on it. Chances are the whole time all you’ve been doing is waiting for the next iPod to come out, so you can go to your parents, and say, “I have to have it!” We are victims of our own addiction. We’re addicted to consumerism, and buying new, [unnecessary], nice things.

So what happens when you log onto apple.com, or when you see that commercial you’ve been waiting for? You go to your parents, or if you’re already at the age where you no longer depend on your parents, yet you still have an addiction to consumerism, you go yourself, (shame on you), and you buy the new iPod. Some go to the store, some buy online, and unfortunately, some wait until others buy it and steal it. Some try to hide their guilt by waiting a while, to then buy it used or refurbished online. But what happens to the old iPod? It gets handed down, stored, or forgotten. Eventually, it gets thrown out.

The problem is the iPod contains materials that aren’t recyclable, which go to the incinerator. For those of you that aren’t as environmentally aware as others, incinerators are used to burn trash, as well as being among the top sources for releasing harmful toxins into the air, which inevitably deplete the ozone layer. Basically, when you throw away an iPod, you inevitably are contaminating and polluting the very air we breathe and depend upon. The problem is it’s not just iPod. It’s computers, electronics, appliances, cell phones, and anything else you might have a hard time trying to explain if you took it apart.

We are our own worst enemy. Our addiction to technology inevitably adds to the bigger issue: global warming. It may seem like just an iPod, or just a laptop, but when you multiply that by millions, it adds up. What we need to do is get over our need to impress others, and stop worrying about stereotypes and image. Because if you really think about it, the majority of the time new electronics are purchased, it isn’t because the old one isn’t functional; it’s to impress people.

So the next time someone comes to you with the issue of global warming, ask them, “what are you doing with your electronics?”

Photo Credit: juanpol

Photo Credit: pfala

During this past week, the large insurance company AIG had a little problem. Actually, they had a large problem. AIG went bankrupt. This is a big problem for everyone currently investing and using AIG, as well as a sizable problem for the company. This might come as a shock to many people because AIG is a large company, and it is rather unusual for companies to get into such gargantuan problems such as these. After declaring bankruptcy, to some it might have looked like the end of the company known as AIG. The outcome is rather interesting though. Instead of a slow and painful decent and eventual disintegration of the company, our government loaned a large sum of money to this godforsaken company. This act by the government seems like a nice thing to do, but really it was quite necessary for some. If AIG were to fail, and be no more, many people as well as businesses would be out of work, and in some serious, well you know what I mean. My father being the treasurer of a rather large company, called KAZ, who invested in AIG, was not affected because the certain branch that my father is part of did not fail.

For those of you thinking that it was a good thing that the government bailed out this failing company, you are wrong. One who thinks that this was the right thing for the government to do is wrong for a multitude of reasons, actually. This act was so wrong because now as other companies start to fail, and possibly go bankrupt, they too will look to the government for assistance, and guidance. This cannot happen because the government does not have enough money, as well as resources to help all the failing companies. It is a well-known fact that our economy is in horrible shape right now, as evidence by the extremely weak dollar. Our economy has a weak dollar because we have a poor stock market, expensive oil, a president who is non-desirable, and a deficit of multiple billion dollars. Other reasons that the government should not aid in the preserving of companies is that a certain company might be failing for natural reasons, and why prolong a drowning company when it is clear that that company wasn’t made to survive.

An argument for the government to bail out AIG would be that so many people have invested in AIG, that it would be horrible for all those people to bet burned in that way, not have any insurance anymore. This is a valid argument, but it is flawed. It is flawed because companies just don’t go under overnight. It takes a while. The flaw is that people should have been keeping track of how their insurance company is doing, because if they get hurt, get in an accident, or anything bad happens to them, it is the insurance that is going to help pay for the damage. After talking to my father, he said that he was constantly checking on the company. He knew that the company was in trouble before it fell into bankruptcy, but didn’t do anything because the branch in which his company was filed under would not be affected.

So all in all, the government should not have help the insurance company AIG with their money problems. If they were a failing company, people should have noticed it, and either done something about it, or changed insurance companies. This government, by the way, is the same government that convicted O J Simpson not guilty of murder.