The story below was dictated to me by a dear friend in 2011. I initially transcribed it verbatim, and later translated it from Liberian English. I share it here now as Torkpah was keen for people to read it, and it's quite a story.
Torkpah Sumo
Let me tell my story in my own style.
You know, way back, we lived outside town. I didn’t go to school; we were way in the bush and there were no roads. I didn’t get an education; we knew nothing – we didn’t even know about education. So we made a big farm in the bush, but then they told us to come out, onto the road. We were scared, we thought they were going to catch us and kill us. So when the people came to catch us they said they were going to collect the people from all the towns: twenty people from this town, forty from this one, thirty from this one. They called all the children and brought them together so they could take them to school.
But for me, when these people were coming my father – you know your father likes you, your mother likes you – he said let’s go, way into the bush. Yes, those people came to collect us too, the government. Oh Liberia! You see, because there was no education, we needed to go away to be educated back then, so they wanted to force us to get educated. But then the people like us, our people said no, and they hid the children instead of letting the government send us to school. You didn’t trust anyone then, you see, so they didn’t want to send us, not knowing the good they were doing for those children. So my people told us that they would harm us, that they would kill us. And that’s the reason for some of us that we didn’t get educated.
So my father and my mother took me and hid me; they said I must not go. The people asked where their son was and they said I was not there, I had run away into the bush. And so the people collected a few children, brought them out of the bush, took them back to town and put them in school. But we stayed there were we were, we remained to make our farm in the bush.
My father married two, three, four women. So as soon as I grew big they said now that I was strong enough to work there was no need to put me in school, and they started looking for a woman for me. That was in 1943. 1943, I can remember.
So from then, as soon as I got a woman, I got to know that I should have gone with those people to Monrovia to go to school, that the people there were better people, they were educated. There were people that told me this, they knew. But I had been working, hard labour, working for those that said they hated the Monrovia people, not knowing that something better was there for me. The people that they took to go to school, plenty of them are dead now. Some people who took children were the Congo people, they saved people, it was them that said to bring the children from the bush and put them in school.
There were still other voices though. They said that you people are going to suffer if you go with them to town so we should drive those people away, not let them collect our children. My son to go suffer under somebody? No. My son was not going, not going to school, not going to learn anything. But at least, after that eye opener, then I said no, “Papa I got to go, I have to learn a trade”. That was 1958. No, ’52.
I was a man, I had one woman, then I went and got a second woman. I looked at it and said no, that’s a foolish thing, I said I was going to learn a trade. So I left my father, left my mother there, and I went to Nimba County, where I learned how to drive. I could not just stay in the bush while my friend was there on the road doing something better. I had to go learn something. I didn’t go to school and then I wouldn’t learn a trade either? I said no, it’s foolish. So this is how I decided to leave my pa. And from our town to the road, that was two days’ walking, there is no motor road there. Walking in the bush to come to the road, it took two days. Walk, walk, walk, get to the next town to sleep, in the morning wake up and walk, walk, walk before you find the road.
This was up somewhere near Tota Town. That’s in Bong County. You pass Kakata, you pass Salalah, after Salalah you reach Tota Town. You can go from there to Sanihey, across the St Paul river, the big water that’s there, way up in the country. You cross from there to Belle Yalla, it’s not far. So from leaving that area, I managed to get to know what education is – sweet, more like sugar! If I had known then I would be the president, I’d be the one ruling the country now. Oh you don’t know, you don’t know how it is. So that’s why today I don’t know book and why I got to Yekepa and learned the trade. From this trade that now I live by, then I was feeding my mother, my wife, my father; I even built a house, that time I was working in Yekepa.
I worked in Yekepa until my pa died, in 1973. My mother died in the war, in the bush. I didn’t see her bones. In the war the children ran away to a village behind ours, but my mother was old so they left her in the bush. She died, damn. I know nothing about it. My pa, I can go and see his grave, but my mother no, I didn’t even see the bones, up until today. All I know is that she died in the bush. But my pa died before the war, then it had just been my mother that was remaining, and myself.
The fighting came all around. We tried to find a way to come onto the road but there was no way. Soldiers came into the bush, tied us up, took all our clothes from us and took money – I had money! That time I worked for LAMCO, in Yekepa, I had money. I bought a sugar cane crusher and I had people under me, working. For thirteen years I was saving that money.
So from there, the war broke me down, took my money. I had three houses in Nimba County, in Ganta. I have two lots there, I built houses on them. I have four lots in Gbarnga. The house I still have now my family, my children, many of them are there now. They are living from the rent, making market and renting rooms… thirteen rooms in one big old house. I had the money! I was planning to come to Monrovia, buy a lot here, build and then make a will for my children to travel.
But the rebels took the money from me. They took the machine, took our property, everything. Then they burned the town. Two of my sisters died, my mother died. My father died before the war, so I don’t measure him. All my family died, the biggest children that were supposed to help me in my old age. I am not supposed to be driving like this now. They were supposed to say “Oh papa come on, come on and sit down now, come, come. Sit down in the shop, be selling small-small things. Papa how you coming on?” Those children were supposed to take care of me. I had twenty-four children. Three wives. Any woman I took, there were babies. And right now, I have fourteen grandchildren. The daughter in Saclepea there has ten children. The other one there in Broadville has five. I think five. No four. Something like that.
So the children that are gone, the big-big ones, they died. One died in an accident. He was working for Charles Taylor, in the SSS. And then the other one, he died in Monrovia. He was taking lessons, courses at JFK. He graduated, and after graduation right here while he was walking in the street his friends asked why they were promoting him, making him a big man over them, so they killed him with medicine.
I think this is the one that brings me down. There is nobody to support me so I have to go try for myself. I didn’t plan this, that’s the problem. The big-big children, the ones that were going to support me, are the ones that are dead now. The children that remain, they don’t care for me. They don’t care for me. I called one today, in Kakata, and said “come, I’m hungry, come help me”, but he said “oh papa, no money, I got to go to Gbarnga, to help the old lady, to help this other person”. He said he had no money, just “I will try, I will try”.
But the other one in Saclepea with the ten children, this year she brought me 2500 LD. She gave it to me and said one thousand was for me, one thousand for the woman. So that was a big thing my daughter did for me last year. That’s the only one that cares. And the other one is away in the bush making farm and she can send food for me. Where she married her husband, that’s the place they farm. So they will support me with food.
So, Josie, I have more to say. There are more stories there. So next time, I will explain more than that.
Torkpah passed away in January 2014.
Let me tell my story in my own style.
You know, way back, we lived outside town. I didn’t go to school; we were way in the bush and there were no roads. I didn’t get an education; we knew nothing – we didn’t even know about education. So we made a big farm in the bush, but then they told us to come out, onto the road. We were scared, we thought they were going to catch us and kill us. So when the people came to catch us they said they were going to collect the people from all the towns: twenty people from this town, forty from this one, thirty from this one. They called all the children and brought them together so they could take them to school.
But for me, when these people were coming my father – you know your father likes you, your mother likes you – he said let’s go, way into the bush. Yes, those people came to collect us too, the government. Oh Liberia! You see, because there was no education, we needed to go away to be educated back then, so they wanted to force us to get educated. But then the people like us, our people said no, and they hid the children instead of letting the government send us to school. You didn’t trust anyone then, you see, so they didn’t want to send us, not knowing the good they were doing for those children. So my people told us that they would harm us, that they would kill us. And that’s the reason for some of us that we didn’t get educated.
So my father and my mother took me and hid me; they said I must not go. The people asked where their son was and they said I was not there, I had run away into the bush. And so the people collected a few children, brought them out of the bush, took them back to town and put them in school. But we stayed there were we were, we remained to make our farm in the bush.
My father married two, three, four women. So as soon as I grew big they said now that I was strong enough to work there was no need to put me in school, and they started looking for a woman for me. That was in 1943. 1943, I can remember.
So from then, as soon as I got a woman, I got to know that I should have gone with those people to Monrovia to go to school, that the people there were better people, they were educated. There were people that told me this, they knew. But I had been working, hard labour, working for those that said they hated the Monrovia people, not knowing that something better was there for me. The people that they took to go to school, plenty of them are dead now. Some people who took children were the Congo people, they saved people, it was them that said to bring the children from the bush and put them in school.
There were still other voices though. They said that you people are going to suffer if you go with them to town so we should drive those people away, not let them collect our children. My son to go suffer under somebody? No. My son was not going, not going to school, not going to learn anything. But at least, after that eye opener, then I said no, “Papa I got to go, I have to learn a trade”. That was 1958. No, ’52.
I was a man, I had one woman, then I went and got a second woman. I looked at it and said no, that’s a foolish thing, I said I was going to learn a trade. So I left my father, left my mother there, and I went to Nimba County, where I learned how to drive. I could not just stay in the bush while my friend was there on the road doing something better. I had to go learn something. I didn’t go to school and then I wouldn’t learn a trade either? I said no, it’s foolish. So this is how I decided to leave my pa. And from our town to the road, that was two days’ walking, there is no motor road there. Walking in the bush to come to the road, it took two days. Walk, walk, walk, get to the next town to sleep, in the morning wake up and walk, walk, walk before you find the road.
This was up somewhere near Tota Town. That’s in Bong County. You pass Kakata, you pass Salalah, after Salalah you reach Tota Town. You can go from there to Sanihey, across the St Paul river, the big water that’s there, way up in the country. You cross from there to Belle Yalla, it’s not far. So from leaving that area, I managed to get to know what education is – sweet, more like sugar! If I had known then I would be the president, I’d be the one ruling the country now. Oh you don’t know, you don’t know how it is. So that’s why today I don’t know book and why I got to Yekepa and learned the trade. From this trade that now I live by, then I was feeding my mother, my wife, my father; I even built a house, that time I was working in Yekepa.
I worked in Yekepa until my pa died, in 1973. My mother died in the war, in the bush. I didn’t see her bones. In the war the children ran away to a village behind ours, but my mother was old so they left her in the bush. She died, damn. I know nothing about it. My pa, I can go and see his grave, but my mother no, I didn’t even see the bones, up until today. All I know is that she died in the bush. But my pa died before the war, then it had just been my mother that was remaining, and myself.
The fighting came all around. We tried to find a way to come onto the road but there was no way. Soldiers came into the bush, tied us up, took all our clothes from us and took money – I had money! That time I worked for LAMCO, in Yekepa, I had money. I bought a sugar cane crusher and I had people under me, working. For thirteen years I was saving that money.
So from there, the war broke me down, took my money. I had three houses in Nimba County, in Ganta. I have two lots there, I built houses on them. I have four lots in Gbarnga. The house I still have now my family, my children, many of them are there now. They are living from the rent, making market and renting rooms… thirteen rooms in one big old house. I had the money! I was planning to come to Monrovia, buy a lot here, build and then make a will for my children to travel.
But the rebels took the money from me. They took the machine, took our property, everything. Then they burned the town. Two of my sisters died, my mother died. My father died before the war, so I don’t measure him. All my family died, the biggest children that were supposed to help me in my old age. I am not supposed to be driving like this now. They were supposed to say “Oh papa come on, come on and sit down now, come, come. Sit down in the shop, be selling small-small things. Papa how you coming on?” Those children were supposed to take care of me. I had twenty-four children. Three wives. Any woman I took, there were babies. And right now, I have fourteen grandchildren. The daughter in Saclepea there has ten children. The other one there in Broadville has five. I think five. No four. Something like that.
So the children that are gone, the big-big ones, they died. One died in an accident. He was working for Charles Taylor, in the SSS. And then the other one, he died in Monrovia. He was taking lessons, courses at JFK. He graduated, and after graduation right here while he was walking in the street his friends asked why they were promoting him, making him a big man over them, so they killed him with medicine.
I think this is the one that brings me down. There is nobody to support me so I have to go try for myself. I didn’t plan this, that’s the problem. The big-big children, the ones that were going to support me, are the ones that are dead now. The children that remain, they don’t care for me. They don’t care for me. I called one today, in Kakata, and said “come, I’m hungry, come help me”, but he said “oh papa, no money, I got to go to Gbarnga, to help the old lady, to help this other person”. He said he had no money, just “I will try, I will try”.
But the other one in Saclepea with the ten children, this year she brought me 2500 LD. She gave it to me and said one thousand was for me, one thousand for the woman. So that was a big thing my daughter did for me last year. That’s the only one that cares. And the other one is away in the bush making farm and she can send food for me. Where she married her husband, that’s the place they farm. So they will support me with food.
So, Josie, I have more to say. There are more stories there. So next time, I will explain more than that.
Torkpah passed away in January 2014.