Northfield teenager Teeboy Kamara, second from right, with mum Esther, brother Victor and sister Doris 16, has been picked for the AIS soccer team. Picture: James Elsby Source: Sunday Mail (SA)
- Jai Bednall
- From: Sunday Mail (SA)
- January 09, 2011 12:01AM
NORTHFIELD teen Teeboy Kamara was born into war, now he’s a soccer star on his way to the AIS.
————————
TEEBOY Kamara was not even born when his father was seized by Liberian rebels and led away to his death.
He has no memory of his early days spent in war-torn west Africa and only faint recollections of the childhood he spent inside a refugee camp in neighbouring Guinea.
For Teeboy, a young soccer prodigy who has just been chosen to join the Australian Institute of Sport program in Canberra, life began when he moved to Australia in 2003 aged eight.
It is in this new country where he has been able to pursue his love of sport without fear and begin to repay his family for the sacrifices they made for his future.
Teeboy’s mother, Esther, said the best way to understand her family’s story was to watch Blood Diamond, the 2006 film starring actor Leonardo DiCaprio.
A life filled with murder, torture and the looting and burning of buildings is the one she lived in her Liberian homeland, which was ignited by civil war in 1989.
This is where she lost her second eldest son, Winston, who went out to play soccer one day and was caught in the crossfire of warring factions.
And it is where her husband, Edward, a police officer, was taken from her while she was pregnant with Teeboy.
“The rebels came and tied his arms behind his back and led him away for `investigating’,” Ms Kamara said.
“But he had done nothing wrong. As they took him away he looked back at me and just shook his head.”
Ms Kamara was beaten with the butt of a gun while her husband was led away. He was never seen again.
Determined not to see her three remaining children – Victor, now 21, Doris, 16, and Teeboy, 15 – suffer the same fate, Ms Kamara fled for neighbouring Sierra Leone.
She escaped, leaving behind precious possessions such as her wedding photos, before using her young children to win the pity of a stranger who let them ride in his canoe across the river border.
“We were fighting for our lives,” Ms Kamara said.
But life in Sierra Leone – which was also gripped by civil war for most of the 1990s – was just as tumultuous, so the young family travelled to Guinea where they spent several years in a refugee camp before being allowed to settle in Adelaide where they have embraced the lifestyle.
Victor is an aspiring artist who made the top 60 of reality TV show So You Think You Can Dance; Doris is a student at Our Lady of Sacred Heart College and has a part-time job, while Teeboy, whose favourite player is Real Madrid’s Cristiano Ronaldo, is on track to realise his dream of becoming a professional soccer player.
Last month he starred for the South Australian Sports Institute at a national tournament featuring Australia’s best juniors, topping the goal-scoring table with seven goals in just five games.
His performances prompted an invitation to the AIS where he will move full time later this month.
To top it all, the gifted striker – who has “a very promising future” in the eyes of SASI coach and former Socceroo Tony Vidmar – is expected to be included in Australia’s squad for the Under-17 World Cup in Mexico in June.
Teeboy’s talent hasn’t gone unnoticed in his former homeland. Liberian Football Association officials have asked whether he would like to join its national youth side but Teeboy says he’s not interested.
“My dream is to try and get a contract at Adelaide United and then one day play for Manchester United,” he said.
“And I’d love to play for Australia against Liberia.”
Ms Kamara said watching her son on the soccer field warmed her heart.
“It is not easy being a single woman with these children. But the soccer he plays now, it makes my pain go down,” she said. “His father would be very proud, very proud.”
————–
FYI – LIBERIA
POPULATION: About 4 million
AREA: 111,369 sq km
CAPITAL: Monrovia
NEIGHBOURS: Sierra Leone, Guinea, Ivory Coast
RELIGION: Christian (85%), Muslim (12%), Other (3%)
LIFE EXPECTANCY: 58
PRESIDENT: Ellen Johnson Sirleaf
HISTORY: Liberia was the scene of a bloody civil war from 1989-96. More than 200,000 people were killed and a million others displaced into refugee camps.
TRAVEL: The Federal Government warns against travelling to Liberia because of the risk of serious crime.
