Everybody liked Shaman as he was growing up, and he liked everybody and everything. He lived in a Muslim village with a Russian name - Sernovodsk - in Chechnya. It was a pretty little town in a green valley, with small farms around and hills beyond. The people were proud of their agricultural college and their schools. Everyone liked to come to their hot sulfur baths. Life was good in Sernovodsk.
Before the war Shaman worked in a bakery, but that was only part of what he did. He liked mechanics and electronics and construction and Beethoven - and rock music. He had the reputation of being able to mend practically anything, from cars to sewing machines. He was a popular, happy-go-lucky person, and no one dreamed that he would turn out to be a hero.
When he was 24 he decided he should earn more money to help his parents support his younger brothers. So he left his family and his job and all his friends and his hobbies and went to Moscow to get a job that would pay him more. But he didn't stay long. Trouble was starting at home. Everyone was afraid war would come, and it did.
When Shaman heard about it, he took the first plane back to his Sernavodsk. There happened to be foreign journalists on the plane and Shaman got to talking with them. They offered him $1,000 to be their guide and driver to the city of Grozny, where the fighting was going on. Shaman accepted their offer.
In Grozny Shaman found a world of total horror - bombs and dead bodies, ruined buildings, shattered glass and rubble, broken furniture, scattered belongings everywhere. On top of one pile he saw a wedding photograph and wondered where that smiling bride and groom might be now.
To his surprise, he found that there were still people alive in the midst of this horror, living in basements. Most were Russians, but there were Chechens and Azeris and others too - all huddled together, terrified and helpless, without food, water, heat, or light. Their national differences didn't seem to matter any more.
Shaman promised, Allah willing, to bring them food, water, and medicine and he kept his promise - not once but many times, buying supplies with the money he had earned from the journalists. Often one of his brothers, Adlan, went with him to help. Somehow, using back streets, running and dodging, Shaman and Adlan managed to avoid snipers, take in supplies, and even bring out sick and wounded people. Once Shaman's car was hit, and often he heard the whistle of bullets, but somehow they all missed him. Once he even had to change a tire near where shooting was going on.
"Allah is merciful," he told himself. "Perhaps Allah needs me."
Then his own village became blockaded and it became dangerous and difficult to drive in and out. Once he walked 43 kilometers (about 26 miles) over the mountains to take food and medicines to survivors in another village that had been bombed. When he discovered that the Russian soldiers were also cold and hungry, he even brought food for them. To Shaman, no person in need is an enemy.
Meanwhile, the people in Shaman's village refused to let the war be their whole life or their whole picture of reality. They set up a peace camp on the main road into their village. There they held regular prayers around a campfire in a makeshift mosque. All winter people lived in this camp.
But when spring came Sernovodsk was bombed and thousands of people fled out of Chechnya - Shaman's family among them. Luckily, Shaman and his family all survived the bombing. For many months they lived as refugees with friends in Ingushetia.
Even there Shaman worked for peace and human rights. He knew that neither the people in Chechnya nor his friends in Russia wanted war. He kept looking forward to the time when he would be able to return to his country and raise a family of his own in peace.
That time finally came. The fighting stopped, and Shaman and Adlan and the rest of their family and many of their friends returned to Sernovodsk. They found much of it destroyed - over 400 houses gone - but they started right in rebuilding. Best of all, Shaman found a lovely young girl and married her. Her name is Milana. The now have a baby girl who was born on Christmas day. Her name is Diana.
Shaman is building more than just a home for his new family. He and Adlan with the help of Chris, a young British Quaker, all from very different cultures, worked hard to set up a mill where grain can be ground. The mill can make about fifty sacks of flour a day to give to people in need in south west Chechneya.
Meanwhile, Adlan and Chris, opened a center in Grozny to help children who were hurt both emotionally and physically by the war. The center is called "Little Star". Psychologists, nurses, and teachers from Russia, Chechnya and Britain also helped. Now, these children can laugh and play again, as children should be able to do.
Shaman and Adlan and their friends show us again that somehow, even in terrible times, the human spirit can be stronger than the violence and hate that seek to dominate it.
- Why was Shaman the one go out of his family to Moscow to earn money? Put yourself in his place. What do you think it was like for him?
- Why did Shaman go back home to Chechnya? Whom did he meet on the plane to Chechnya, and why did he go with them to Grozny?
- How did Shaman spend the $1,000 the journalists paid him? How did he and his brother Adlan help the people of Grozny? How would you have spent the money?
- In the midst of his dangerous activities, Shaman said to himself, "Allah is merciful: Perhaps Allah needs me." What do you suppose he was thinking and feeling?
- The author tells us at the beginning of the story that no one dreamed that Shaman would turn out to be a hero. What does it mean to be a hero? Do you think Shaman was a hero? Why?
- The author tells us, “To Shaman, no person in need is an enemy.” How did Shaman's actions express this belief? Do you share these beliefs?
- Have you or your family ever received or given humanitarian aid?
- What does peace mean to you?
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