Diamond trading for oil, gas, weapons, drugs, and any number of illicit goods was no secret around here. Moses knew that it went on the same way everyone knew that it went on. He'd been a diamond miner himself as a teenager and in his twenties. Until the civil war.

“Now, they call us 'san-san boys,'” he said. I assumed he meant those who could no longer do the work, like him.

At first I was surprised at the man's apparent openness. Some of his stories seemed too personal to share with a stranger, especially one who might be an American journalist, or maybe even CIA. But the more he spoke, the more I realized that talking about what had happened to him might be all he had left.

“We lived over that way.” He pointed abstractly in a direction without looking.

“My wife sold palm oil at market. I had two fine sons. When the RUF soldiers came to Kono, they came for us like the others. It was at night, in the rain, so there were no torches. They say to me, if I watch them kill my boys, then they will spare my wife. And when I did as they told, they killed her anyway.”

The RUF was the revolutionary force responsible for the death of thousands. He was devastatingly matter-of-fact about it-a terrible family massacre, not unlike the ones in Washington, I thought.

“And you lived,” I said.

“Yes. They put me on a table and held me down. They asked if I want short or long sleeves for after the war. Then they cut my arm, here.” He pointed, though of course it was obvious what had happened.

“They were to cut the other arm, but then an explosion came from the next house. I don't know what happened after that. I fell unconscious, and when I woke up, RUF soldiers were gone. And my wife too. They left my murdered sons. I wanted to die, but I did not. It was not yet my time.”

“Moses, why do you stay here now? Isn't there anywhere else for you to go?”

“There is nowhere else for me. Here at least sometimes there is work. I have my friends, other san-san boys.” He smiled at that revelation for some reason. “This is my home.”

We had walked all the way into town by now. Koidu was a sprawling village of dirt roads and low buildings, still recovering from “the war” six years ago.

I saw a half-finished hospital as we walked, and a mosque in decent shape, but other than that, 1 found mostly abandoned buildings, burned-out husks of small homes, everywhere I looked.

When I offered Moses money for his trouble, he said he didn't want it, and I knew not to force it on him.