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Last year I spent a couple of weeks with ex-child soldiers from Uganda. These monologues are based on the snippets of conversation we shared, formal interviews and my own impressions.

II             Albert

The first thing I want to say to the people of Britain is that forgiveness is a two way street.

You have to let go of everything that has happened to you and to your family. You have to forgive those who harmed you.

Really forgive.

In return, you can let go of your own sin.

When you do you can almost see it drifting out of you, like smoke.

Now you are thinking what has this boy experienced that he needs to forgive?

What has he done that is so terrible?

The rebels stole my Father from me. They shot him, on his knees, in our kitchen.

When his body hit the floor I thought this life could not get any worse. Three months later, I was wearing their uniform, killing my neighbours.

They train you to be a soldier, a child soldier.

The training ends when you get a gun and a uniform. The only way to get these is to pick them from the dead bodies of government soldiers.

The rebels would give you two weeks to get your uniform, if you fail or refuse, they would say, forget it, we will kill you.

Many children refused to get a gun, or just couldn’t get a gun, and they were killed.

It was a very hard thing to do. Some of my closest friends were killed that way – they failed to get a gun.

I got my gun.

We entered an ambush on government soldiers and, just like when we trained, we would trail all the way around to the back of the facility and get behind the government soldiers.

Rebels who already had guns shot them. Their bodies crumpled. One dead soldier was close to me and I took his gun and his uniform and wore it. I was thirteen.

Much later, during another ambush I was shot in the leg by a government soldier. They held me captive, at gunpoint, pinned to the forest floor. There was no way I could run – I was scared they would kill me.

I was strong enough to tell them, I was abducted, please don’t shoot me, but those soldiers, they had friends the rebels had killed.

Somehow, they were kind enough not to shoot me. Forgiveness is a two way street.

They left me outside a hospital. I stayed at the hospital for a long, long time.

I didn’t know where to go.

I had been forced to be a rebel for so long that I didn’t know where I was from, I couldn’t remember my name.