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From Kidnapped to Resilient: My Incredible Life Story

• DAVID • Season 2 • Episode 2

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David Kanu shares his deeply personal journey from birth in Sierra Leone to life in a Ghanaian refugee camp, exploring how these formative experiences shaped his identity and worldview.

• Born in Sierra Leone, West Africa as the oldest of four siblings
• Mother fled her marriage and country with David and his brother for their safety
• Experienced a traumatic kidnapping at age 4 when separated from his mother for five days
• Life in Ghana included both struggles and simple joys like mango trees and playing with friends
• Family eventually moved to a refugee camp called Zanzuli while seeking resettlement
• As the oldest child, David took on significant responsibilities including caring for his younger brother
• Mother instilled strong values about presentation, hard work, and responsibility
• Developed an exceptionally close bond with his mother following the kidnapping trauma
• Learned early that as a Black child he would be "held to a higher standard" than others
• Recognizes how childhood trauma created patterns that affected his later relationships

If you enjoy this podcast and want to hear more of David's story, please support through the link on his account. Sharing with friends and family or contributing financially helps make this content possible. The next episode will continue with his life in Africa.


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Speaker 1:

G'day guys. How are we going? I hope everyone's well today. Like I said, this is going to be more of an in-depth introduction into me, into my life. I had a thought that I haven't actually spoken to you guys really about who I am and why I'm here and what's brought me this far. So my name is David, david Kanu.

Speaker 1:

I was born in Sierra Leone, that's in West Africa. For those of you that don't know, just look on the map. For those of you that don't know, just look on the map. Now I am the oldest of, I'd say oldest of four kids. I have myself, my brother Paul, and I have my sister Esther, sharon and Promise. I obviously was born in Sierra Leone and my mum had a husband at the time. However, the struggles of you know Africa and the western world. You know mum has her own story to tell and I don't think that's for me to share, but for a number of reasons, she chose to protect herself and leave that marriage Fast forward.

Speaker 1:

My mum and my brother and I, we ran and fled and it's not captivating. Start. Hey, I just thought I'll give you guys a story time into David. Now I am 30 years old now At the time of this recording. I am a father of a beautiful six-year-old girl. I am unemployed at the moment. I am really nervous for the next chapter, but I'm also quite excited. The reason why I am here, like I said at the start, is to give you a bit of a story time.

Speaker 1:

I was born in Sierra Leone, west Africa. My mum is Marilyn and mum was married to a really handsome man, as she tells me all the time In Sierra Leone. He was part of the military and, for all the differences, he was Said to be a great guy. Basically, because of Some personal reasons that only my mum should be the only one To share that story. She fled from Sierra Leone, from her marriage. In doing so, we went to another country called Ghana, and that's where I spent most of my adolescent years. We basically were. It was just my mum and my brother and I, and she was, yeah, trying to find a better way of life. We mum made friends with at this time, I'll let you know, I was probably I don't know maybe between two, four years old. Give or take. Mum, you know, made friends with a young man, a really kind man, whose name is Fashu Fashu Kanu, and that's where I get my name from. As a result of running away from her past, she decided that I would take on her best friend's name. There was no relationship there, it was just a brother and sister relationship, but he basically looked after her, myself and my brother, and just so she can move forward, she decided to take on his last name. I, you know, gave it to me that that's where I get my name, kanu, from.

Speaker 1:

In I remember as a little kid, mum would go into the city to sell products, sell things, so she can have money, so she can buy food to feed us. She would leave my brother and I in the care of maybe neighbours or friends and she'd go and sell things and if she didn't, she would go and plait hair. So she'd go and do that and get paid a certain amount of money and then that money in whatever that she got for that day. She would then take that and go to the market and buy uh, food for the for the couple days or for the week, depending how well that went. Um, actually, unfortunately um in one of those instances I remember a little bit of it. Mum actually later on told me the story in full. I just remember segments of it. But how it goes is I was, we were all.

Speaker 1:

Mum was hanging out with some friends and I was playing with their kids and having a good time, and mum wanted to go and, I think, pick something up somewhere where she'd you know, step away for a little bit. So she said to me come on, david, let's go, I just gotta go pick this thing up and you can come with me. And the friends all sitting there said, oh, the kids are having fun, leave them, let them have fun, let them play. They're having a good time. And mum, obviously reluctantly, was like oh, are you sure? They were like yeah, yeah, yeah, let the kids play. Mum said okay, well, david, I won't be long. I Mum said okay, well, david, I won't be long, I won't be long, I'm just going to go quickly and grab, you know, grab something and I'll be back. Now, just for context, she would have been gone for maybe 30 minutes to maybe an hour. So she left me there and I was playing with the kids.

Speaker 1:

The following parts. I can't say that I remember it, thankfully. This is what mum told me after the fact. But basically she went and did what she had to do and then maybe an hour, you know a little bit. After she came back to you know where I was, where she left me, and she said uh, thanks, guys for looking after my son. Uh, my sons, uh, where, where are they?

Speaker 1:

You know, they looked at her bewildered and confused and shocked, like, uh, what do you mean? Um, what do you mean? Mom's like oh, I left my kids here with you because I just, you know, started you guys said, to live with kids. And they're like no, you didn't leave your kid with us. Like what are you talking about? Mom was like stop joking, to live with kids. And they're like no, you didn't leave your kid with us. Like what are you talking about? Mum was like ha-ha, stop joking, stop making a joke. And they were like no, your kid's not here. I don't know what happened, your kid's not here. And then you know it dawned on her mum that hang on, something's not right here. And they swore black and blue that I was not left there. You know me, I was not there at all, that you know, mom must have taken me or I must have gone somewhere. And mom was like no, I left my sons here, I left them here. And what are you saying to me like where is, where is my kid? And they're saying no, no, no, no, no, he's not here.

Speaker 1:

Mom lost his mind and and she, looking everywhere for me, couldn't find me. You know now, mind you, I was lost for I believe, three days. Mom could not find me. So she'd go to these people's home and she would say, where's my son, where's my son, where's my son? And you know they would. They would basically shut the door, not and ignore mom. Mom would go there with pots and pans standing at the bottom of the of the building and because it, because I believe she said it was a multi-storey building, so she would stand there and she would clap, smash the pots and pans together, give me back my kid, give me back my kid. She did this for three, four days and they kept on. You know she'd wake up early in the morning, go to their house and do it pretty much all day and they would just do the same, ignoring her and pretending that I wasn't there. Um, and then on the I suppose on the fifth day, they just had enough.

Speaker 1:

The husband actually was a psych of the woman is like listen, give this woman back her, her, her son, she's not never going to stop, like you can give it back. I said I'll tell her where her son's gone. So you know, obviously, eventually this woman comes down and says, okay, fine, um, your son is actually being held um somewhere. I'll tell you where it is, I'll show you where, where, where it is. And so she takes mom to the place and you know, um, now she I don't want you to misunderstand this she, her, her telling mom where I was was not her being finally finding a heart or being a good person. Actually, it was more her. She sort of thought that there was no chance of mum ever finding me or really finding me.

Speaker 1:

Because now, and from you know, thinking back and looking back and using, taking a bit of a liberty myself, how I imagine is the you know what I've sort of, what mom explained to me and how I imagine is is it's an area where it's fenced off and there's an entry, obviously, but there's a bunch, there's a lot of, lots of kids hanging out and it's almost like a kids processing center. A kids processing center, now, obviously, without saying what it is, I think you guys can sort of guess what I'm sort of saying. It's a kids processing area where all kids from all walks of wherever they've got them from, will just sort of sit there to then be transported to wherever else they were going to transport them. So this woman now finally telling mom where I was it wasn't her from a kind house, it was actually going oh, and she was very confident then. Even if mom went to base, because I was still I was a little kid, I probably like four short, and I mean we all would have looked the same it would be hard for mom to to spot her child, um, among all the sea of kids and things like that. So it's more her calling mom's bluffing going. Oh, you never find him now anyways, but I'll show you. But there's nothing you can do. And how it works is yeah, you'd go there and obviously if you found that your kid was there and you were able to find your kid, they'll give it to you, because it's this whole, you know, you've called him out, you found it out, sort of thing. And these things are usually done in darkness or done in quietness or secret. So they will kidnap your kid and then you will look, look, look and no one will find them and the kid's gone. But some people are lucky enough to sort of find this area and then go, no, no, no, that's my kid, don't take my kid. And obviously you can threaten them, get the police involved and things, and they'll say, fine, you can take your kid or whatever, but it's a thing that goes on. Now, obviously this is Africa, so it's not the same legal system as here, so please understand that.

Speaker 1:

Anyway, mum and this lady go there and they're standing at the, you know, like the fence, looking in at all these kids from different ages, different heights, you know. So he's standing there looking, looking, you know, maybe it's been five or ten minutes. He's looking, trying to spot me, and they go well, see, your son's not here. Well, let's go, your son's not here, she's looking, looking. And then she looks, she spots a little peanut-shaped head, little four-year-old David, far away, somewhere by himself, and she's like that's my son, that is my son. And the woman's going oh, it can't be, they all look the same. How do you know it's your son? You know he's like no, I know my son, that's my son. She screams out, screams out my name, david, david, david. Now and now again.

Speaker 1:

All this I don't fully remember. Maybe it's a form of my body or my brain protecting me from this. That's probably maybe why I don't remember it, but apparently I looked up, I heard mom calling and I ran towards the fence. Obviously I was on the other side and I said mum, mum, they took me. They took me. She's like yeah, I know, so they obviously take me, they grab me and take me out to her. And I keep saying to mum, mum, they took me, they took me away, they took me far away, they took me away. And mum's like, yeah, I know, okay, no, it'll never happen again, never happen again. Mum's sobbing, crying, her eyes out and, you know, unconsolable, and you know mum embraces me tightly and I'm reunited with my mum now.

Speaker 1:

That story sort of shaped my mum and I's relationship for the future. So from that day on, I was never more than two steps away from mum. Whatever mum was doing, wherever mum was going, I was right there. Everything she did, we did it together. If mum's having a shower, I'm in the cubicle with her sitting there while she's doing. She's doing what she's doing. I'm never far away from her. If she has to do an errand, I'm there 24-7,. You know, my brother and I were always there 24-7. And, as a result, that created a hyper vigilance from my mum. That then meant that she was very much always on edge, never trusted anyone family or friends and, um, yeah, I was never left to my devices or just left alone.

Speaker 1:

Obviously, we, you know, then we, um, we lived in a in this capital city of Ghana, accra, in this sort of like compound, and I actually remember there was like a. What I remember is like there was a massive mango tree there that overflows with mango, like it's always, you know, you know, falling off the tree and all in the ground. And I remember the sweet smell of the of the compound. It was a sweet smell as a result of the mango. And we, you know, if you ever wanted a quick snack or quick, you know you just sort of like it's just in your. And we, you know, if you ever wanted a, a quick snack or quick, you know you just sort of like it's just in your backyard, like you know you just go and pick it up for the tree, or if there was one that's sort of freshly fallen down but it's still good, you just grab it and wash it and and and eat it.

Speaker 1:

Um, I remember playing with other kids, obviously with mom close by, with my brother. Um, I also actually remember another story where I was in the room with mum and mum was getting ready to go somewhere and I was on the bed jumping up and down, as kids do. Mum said to me David, stop jumping, stop jumping, you'll hurt yourself. No, mum, I won't help myself, I'm fine. You know, jump, jump, jump. Hey, listen, you'll hurt yourself. No, I'm okay, I'm going to jump, jump, jump. And then, what do you know? She said to me three times. I jumped one more time and I misjudged it obviously as a kid. And then I springed off the bed and fell on the ground and broke my left arm and she looked at me and anyone that knows an African mum knows that you don't get sympathy from that If she said to you. She looked at me and said Lucy, so what you've done? I told you to break your arm. All right, let's go to the hospital.

Speaker 1:

She takes me to a hospital and to this day, mum claims that she wouldn't have let the doctor do this. But I don't know. I don't know if I trust this woman, okay, but she claims that she would have stepped in if I'd made the wrong decision. But basically we get to the hospital and she says and the doctor, you know, does what they're going to do, and so, yeah, you've broken it. We have two options. Now I don't know if this was a joke or if it's serious, so I don't know if they were both in on it and she hasn't confirmed it for me. But the doctor looks at me and says oh yeah, it's really bad, david. Well, you have two options we can either put it in the cast or we can chop your arm off.

Speaker 1:

There's a bit of a pause. The doctor looks at my mum, then looks at me. I look at my mum, I look at the doctor, mum looks at the doctor and then looks at me. He's like well, david, it's your choice. What do you want to do? Chop your arm off or put it in the cast?

Speaker 1:

Now, as a kid I'm a kid who wouldn't want an arm chopped off. As a kid, surely that's something. Kids just don't even know the gravity of it. Anyway, I looked at it and I looked at them and I'm like no, I don't want to chop my arm off. Just, yeah, put in the cast. And I remember walking away and every time I look, thinking, but I'm like I looked at my mom's, like mom, what would you have done if I, if I had said chop my arm off? It's like, oh, I wouldn't have let that happen. I was like, oh, I don't know. Um, but yeah, that's like a fond memory that I have of her and to this day I still hold it against them like you don't give a kid that decision. That is a huge decision for a kid to make and I think that was poor parenting 101 there. Anyway, they put it in the cast and I've actually got a photo of me with my mom in the cast holding my cute little brother smiling, even though I'm in so much pain. Yeah, but I remember that memory quite fondly of my mum.

Speaker 1:

Now, you know, then we then because obviously now it's just mum, myself and my brother and the next step was moving on. She wanted to find a better life for us, so that meant seeking resettlement. So my mom heard of a place called I think it was Zanzuli. I think that's what it's called Zanzuli. Forgive me if I've said that wrong, but I think it was Zanzuli. Basically, she found out about it and basically it's just a camp where you go there and you just start a life there. But you also file for resettlement and you know, obviously in the hopes that one day you'll be approved and you'll get resettled into another country. So my mom found out about it. So we somehow got into the program and we moved to zanzuli camp and it's it's in akra still, but it's like one of the little villages in um in in akra, in the city it's off like a. It's a long road off, like a beaten track sort of thing. I would say it's from from from zanzuli camp to say the city of akra. It'll probably be an hour, maybe two. Um anyway we moved there and mom and mom and myself and my brother we start a new life. So basically some people when they move through the resettlement camp they um create a business. So they will orchestrate, organize or orchestrate with uh business in the city where they'll sort of organise getting produce or things from them. They'll buy it at a certain price, at a lower cost, and then they'll obviously get it sent to the camp and then they'll then have an area where they sell it at a lesser price to everyone that lives on this camp.

Speaker 1:

The camp was a space that, yeah, it was. I don't know the history of it too much, but basically it was just there was lots of different buildings where people yeah, you lived in, and then people would then basically add extensions to it. So you'd probably go to a bush, get some timber and you'd chop it down and you'd, you know, build an extension around it in an area for yourself or privacy and things like that. But from what I remember, it was basically we just imagined like a concrete building where it's just a sink, just a big, it's a box, and so it's stairs and it's a box, and then there's windows, but that's about it. There's no bedroom, there's no bedroom lounge room, it's just like this little square, and then there's electricity, one light, so obviously it was only used for like sleeping, and and then people create, uh, uh, they will then get the timber and build like a perimeter around it to sort of have a fenced off, and then it'll put a bit of like a roofing, um, over, like power, um, yeah, roofing, so then it can be in it and hang out in within their house, but then not in the actual concreted area. And then there were spaces that were cleared out and there was goals. There was a school there that I went to, for I have to remember, I have to look back on that, I'm not too sure, but yeah, it was.

Speaker 1:

It basically is just if you imagine a camp where people just basically they make it their place, they make it their own, it's not at all like what you see in World Vision or anything like that. It's actually quite different because there's electricity and there was a pump with running water, so you always had water and there was always fresh produce in the sense of you leave off the land. That's the difference between, say, australia, anywhere else in the world versus um places in africa. We basically everything is natural, it's from the sand, from the, so it's from the ground to the man, sort of thing. So people will have like hobby farms or they'll go into bush and build and create farms so they would have like potatoes, there would be sugarcane trees, there'd be coconut, mango, banana trees and things like that, just there. So if you really wanted something, it's just growing there in the backyard, you just go and pick it off and eat it if you need to. And people had that. And then obviously people also had. You know, people had sort of.

Speaker 1:

So not everyone that was on the camp was seeking resettlement, some people were just fine to sort of live there. Some people were part of the system where they basically created an environment so that we can thrive in some ways, so that you know they'll have an agreement with the government you know, whoever was running it where they can, yeah, have things there to sort of make our time there a little bit easier. So there was a cinema hall, as we call it, where cinema hall, where basically, yeah, it was just a projector cinema, there was lots of different things to you know to do and it was huge, this camp, and it was sectioned off into letters of doubt for different areas. So one area will be called area B, area A, another area will be called area B, area C, area D and so on. So basically that's how they'd sort of recognize you, they would identify you. Sorry, and how it would work is again, I can't remember the frequency, but it'd be, you know, you'd submit your application to get resettled, then that'd be processed and then the representative of different countries would look at it and then choose to have you or your family um come obviously resettled into a better country. So the countries were Australia, norway, america and I think Canada as well, um, and you don't get a, you get. You get to say where you'd you'd like to go, but basically, at the end of the day, it was up to whoever was choosing you to make that decision. So you know that's the point of being on a camp.

Speaker 1:

So obviously, mum and also three mum, myself and my brother moved to the refugee camp and we started a life there. I went to the school. That was there, the school where I got caned for pretty much all of my adolescent years, because I was a cheeky little, funny little, you know, black boy and again, as a result of what happened in that past, I was never far away from mum. I went to school there. We learnt staff played soccer. I met a friend there whose name was also david um, it was my best friend. We got into trouble. There was a church there and we got even even despite mom not having much, she always made sure that she we had a really good um church clothes that even you know a lot of people that was part of the church would always be jealous of mom.

Speaker 1:

But like, how are you a single mom and how are you? You know, always your kids always look good, you know, dressed well and stuff, and that's something in my mind was always instilled in me from a very young age. Presentation and how you, how you want to be sane, or approach is, you know, is how you dress. Um, and that's where she instilled that to me, um, of of presenting yourself well, um, just because you're without less fortunate doesn't mean that you have to be. You know, you have to be poor. But anyway, there's more to the story, but I don't. I've already kept you guys going for 20, 25 minutes and I don't want this to go too long, so I'll wrap it up with a few things, basically just to summarize everything.

Speaker 1:

Next podcast I will continue on from here and go into the next part of the resettlement process. But I suppose, from my very young age, what I saw of my mum, because I wanted to explain, as a man, what I got. From my very young age, what I saw of my mum, because I wanted to explain, as a man, what I got from it, because this is the point of this podcast Seeing my mum struggle, seeing my mum work so hard, day in, day out, seeing my mum work every day to make sure that we never went without. There were some nights where it looked like we were going to go without food, but mom always worked hard, always made sure we had something to eat. She always made sure we were clothed and we were warm. It was not easy and it was very hard. And seeing mom work so hard and create it and for me, the principle of hard working regardless of her gender or whatever she was, my best friend she was, or whatever she was my best friend she was my mum, she was my everything and I was her everything.

Speaker 1:

And because I was the oldest, I was relied upon for a lot of things. You know, I had to grow up a little bit quicker than most kids my age because I had a lot more responsibility as a black kid. I'm the oldest black kid. That's always how it goes. I have more responsibility than, say, the oldest kid of a white family. It's just how we are. I had to make sure that whatever I do reflects well on my siblings. So even though, as I'm saying this, I've got a pierced nose, mom would always say, whatever you do, you've got to remember that your siblings are watching you and whatever you do, they will do it as well. You know so mom always was against tattoos, against piercing and things like that, but it was always hey, you're an example for your siblings, you're an example for the family. She always has instilled that in me of you're an example. When people look at you, they're looking at you three times over. When they're then compared to someone else as a result of your skin, you're always held to a higher standard and you always will have to work a little bit harder than the next person. You always have to disapprove yourself three times more than the other person. That's what she instilled in me, and she never let me just be lazy and do nothing. That's still her responsibility.

Speaker 1:

I looked after my little brother. I would feed him, I would change his nappies, I would clean his butt. I would do a lot of things that I suppose the father would do, but obviously I didn't have my dad there at the time. So that was sort of like my responsibility of looking after my brother. I practically raised him while mum would go work hard from day to night, working hard just to make sure there was food on our table.

Speaker 1:

It was hard being on a refugee camp as a single woman, because people would judge you and people would assume things. Not everyone there was there for good intention. Not everyone there was nice for good intention. Everyone there was nice. Some people was cruel, they were mean and they would try and take advantage of a situation. My mum never gave up. She worked hard. She had her own demons to fight, and that's something I will discuss in a different episode. But regardless, she still worked hard, butt off. And that's where I gained a lot of my respect and a lot of my love, a lot of my understanding of what it is to be a man, of what it is to be a mum, what it is to be a single mum, what it is to be a woman running away from a situation trying to create a new life for her family.

Speaker 1:

I love my mum and she's a result, or she's a reason why I her family. I love my mom and she's the result or she's the reason why I am the man I am today Because of her. She never, ever, let me get away with anything. She always challenged me. She never hid anything from me. She always used to say I'd like to search off here. Obviously we'll talk about this, but when I was older old enough now in Australia, and I was old enough to be sexually active, she would always say to me and she's a Christian woman, she was originally a Muslim woman, but Christian woman. She would say, david, I'll never say to you, don't have sex, but just know that if you have sex it comes with added responsibility. You may get someone pregnant and you may catch something an SDI that was who my mum was. She never said just because. She always said no. This is why I'm telling you not to do this, so you knew why she was saying it. It wasn't just because. So all of that created this unbreakable bond with my mum going missing from my mum.

Speaker 1:

I think in some way it affects me, but I don't. It's sort of we forget, but the brain doesn't forget the energy. Our energy doesn't forget. You know, we may be pushed to the back of our head, but the body doesn't forget that stress. The body doesn't forget. You know, we may be pushed to the back of our head, but the body doesn't forget that stress. The body doesn't forget that If you go through something, I'm getting kidnapped and I was seeing your mum for four days as a little kid your body doesn't forget that.

Speaker 1:

So I think, as a result, there was this abandonment that I think has sort of seeped into my system. That is sort of shadowed and colored me later on in life and, as a result, mom had her own trauma from it. So, as a result, she grew tighter into me and I grew tighter to her and we became inseparable. And when I said that I was everything, I was everything. She'd confided me in a little. In a young kid she'd confide in me and I'd confided in me In a young kid, she'd confide in me and I'd confide in her. I'd go to her for everything. There was no secrets between my mum and I. We had a wonderful relationship, but it was as a result of what we went through what happened, and I think that's very important. The relationship between a mother and her son very, very important.

Speaker 1:

Anyway, I've kept this going too long, but I hope you enjoyed the episode today. I hope that you could. It's understandable. If you do have any questions, please let me know. Dm me on Facebook, instagram, whatever platform you can, and if you want to hear a lot more story, instagram, whatever platform you can. And if you want to hear a lot more story, yeah, just let me know. Yeah, thank you for tuning in Also.

Speaker 1:

As much as I enjoy doing this, it does take a lot of organization. It does take a lot of time. It does take a lot of, you know, finances and things like that. So, if you enjoy what I'm doing, if you want to hear more from me, please I do have a support link on my um account please, um, anything, a dollar, anything would be, you know, appreciate or resharing the story, this story, with your friends and family. It would would mean a lot to me. Um, I do this because I want to. I do this because I'm hoping that my story will touch someone else and guys would. Then, you know, guys guys predominantly would be able to talk about their life and open up and not be afraid to. This is just the beginning. There's a long way to go and I do love and appreciate you all.

Speaker 1:

To tune in, I'm not perfect. I usually say I'm not perfect. I'm not claiming to be perfect. All you haters out there, I'm not claiming to be perfect. I'm not trying to put a facade out there. Be perfect, I'm not trying to put a facade out there. I just am willing to put myself in this line of, you know, this line of fire, to discuss my lived experience. That's all I'm doing on here. My lived experience. That's all I know, but, as a result, I want to hear about your lived experience. So get involved in the comment, please. And also, yeah, please, support the page. Anything counts, thank you. And next episode we'll continue on to the rest of my life in Africa. Thanks guys.

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