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My name is Leo and I am a refugee. In 1998 when the civil war in Liberia was at its peak, my parents and seven siblings were forced to move house every three weeks to stay out of the line of fire. But one day when I was at school, the fighters and the rebels advanced on my neighbourhood and I was forced to dodge bullets and run for my life. I followed the crowd and crossed the border into the Ivory Coast still wearing my school uniform. At sixteen I found myself alone sharing a tent with other orphaned kids in the Danane Refugee Camp. I thought that my family had been killed. I tried to find them but with no telephones and so many internally displaced persons, it was impossible.
There was no official school in the refugee camp and so I approached a Catholic School outside of the camp. The school agreed to give me a uniform and books even though these things are the responsibility of the family in most of Africa. Two years later, I graduated at the top of my class. Back in the refugee camp, I tutored math and reading and led worship in the camp's church.
After a while I moved to the Buduburam Refugee Camp in Ghana. There I worked as an amateur journalist and sold stories to the BBC. I helped a mother of two who couldn't speak English apply for refugee status in Canada. I applied as well and was accepted. I arrived in Canada in 2006.
This winter I received an unexpected phone call. My friend from the refugee camp noticed a woman in a waiting room in Monrovia who looked exactly like me.
He asked the woman, "Do you know someone named Leo?"
"Do you know what you're asking?" the woman snapped and turned away.
My friend knew he was on to something and so he asked her again.
"I know someone who looks like you. Do you know Leo?"
"What do you know about my Leo?" she said with tears in her eyes. "He's dead."
My friend took her by the hand and rushed back to his apartment. He showed her a picture of me that had been taken in the refugee camp a couple of years earlier. The next thing I know I'm getting this phone call.
"Leo," my friend said, "I've got your mother on the line."
After nine years of separation, I finally found my family.
I'm really looking forward to seeing my family again face-to-face but this fall I begin study in the McMaster University Economics program. I'm working part-time as a bank teller and saving my money. I hope to see my family again soon but I don't know when that will be. In the meantime we call each other a lot.
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