The Insider recently caught up with Mama Wion, a 27-year-old native of Liberia who now calls Concord home. Wion lived happily in Liberia during her formative years.
“We were living a simple, happy life,” Wion said. “Then the war came and it all went away in a minute.”
In 1989, civil war broke out in Liberia as Charles Taylor began his thrust for control of the country. The fighting soon swept up the Wions, and 8-year-old Mama found herself split up from her parents and on the run.
“Children went this way, parents went that way, we were just trying to survive,” Wion said. “You don't have a minute to think, you just have to survive, you just want to live.”
Wion fled the country and ended up in a refugee camp, all alone in a teeming tent city. She would eventually learn that her father, two brothers, uncles and cousins had all been killed. Wion lived in the camp for 12 years before she was able to immigrate to the United States. In 2006, she ended up in Concord.
Now, Wion works as a nursing assistant at a local nursing home. She discovered that her mother was still alive and well back in Liberia. After all those years of separation, they now talk by phone every day; in fact, Wion was able to pay her a visit in Liberia and hopes to do so again in July.
Wion said loves living in Concord. “It's just a peaceful place to live,” Wion said. “I feel more happy, more free. It's just a wonderful place to live. Everybody, move to New Hampshire!”
While she lives a much more comfortable life here than she ever could have at the camp, she is still haunted by the events of her childhood.
“When you come from a war country as a child, it affects you,” Wion said. “I still have nightmares. I try to forget stuff, but it's hard to forget stuff like that. When I'm watching TV and someone shoots someone else, my mind instantly goes back there. . . but there's nothing I can do. I just have to live with that.”
