Aminata Bandi

Most nights, I dream of silence. Not because I love peace—which I do—but because silence is a luxury where I come from. In our village, the quiet never lasts. One minute you’re hearing birds or kids laughing, the next it’s yelling, gunfire, and the smell of smoke in the air. We’ve had fights break out during weddings, even funerals. Ask someone why we’re fighting and no one really knows. Land, pigs, pride, payback—everyone has a different answer. But the truth is, it’s just always been like this. Absurd and terrifying.

I’m 23 now, living in Port Moresby. A long way from the chaos I grew up with, though not far in kilometres. It was chance, really, that I escaped. Or maybe not just chance. When I was ten, an NGO came to our area. They set up a small school in a tin-roofed building next to the market. Most of the other girls didn’t go. Some had already been promised to men twice their age. Some were told school was for boys. But my mother—who had never learned to read—dragged me there herself and said, “This is your fight.”

I was a fast learner. I knew this was my only chance. I walked an hour each way every day, through muddy tracks, past men who laughed or stared too long. I studied by candlelight while gunshots echoed in the valley. Somehow, I made it through. Now I’m in my third year studying law here in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea. And right now, I’m filling out the last pages of my scholarship application to a university in Singapore. My chances are good—they said so during the last round of interviews. I keep thinking: if I get this, everything could change. Not just for me.

I want to help my family, yes. But more than that, I want to return and work to stop these wars. I want to sit in courtrooms and fight for people who’ve never known justice. I want the next girl from my village to grow up with books instead of bullets.

Sometimes, in the early morning, I hear shouting in the streets here and it takes me back. But then I remember where I am, and how far I’ve come. I may still be scared—but I am not stuck.