More than four years have passed since Amanda Lindhout was freed from captivity in Somalia, where for 15 months she was subjected to abuse, starvation and torture by her captors.
Since then, she’s embarked upon a new chapter in her life, in which she’s embraced forgiveness instead of animosity; compassion instead of hatred; and action instead of ignorance.
But doing so hasn’t been easy, she admitted to a sold out audience of about 600, who filled the Fox Run-Mother Teresa multi-campus to hear her story last Thursday night.
Forgiveness, she feels, is a process, and one that takes time to fully develop.
“Many days I get there, some days I don’t,” she explained. “But it’s a process I’m dedicated to.”
Lindhout began by expressing appreciation for the opportunity to speak publicly in Sylvan Lake — her hometown — for the first time.
For an hour, she shared details of her harrowing tale of survival, before answering audience questions and signing copies of her bestselling book, A House in the Sky.
Recounting her story early on, she told the audience of a childhood spent daydreaming of a world beyond Central Alberta — one that she claimed “beckoned from a young age”.
After travelling extensively to off-the-beaten-path locations, her desire to further explore the world, all the while making a difference, led to her pursuing work as a journalist.
“What I was doing mattered, and I liked that,” she said.
Having worked in some of the world’s most dangerous places, Lindhout chose Somalia — at the time referred to as the worst humanitarian crisis on the planet — as her next destination, and in 2008, along with Australian photographer Nigel Brennan, set off for the war-ravaged nation on what was supposed to be a one-week trip.
From the air, she found the landscape below her to be “astonishingly beautiful”.
Touching down, however, she quickly realized a much different perspective than that afforded by her airplane seat.
“I realized the truth that this was a war zone unlike any of the others I’d been to,” she said.
Not long after arriving, the vehicle she was travelling in was stopped by about a dozen armed men wielding AK-47s, and its occupants were held at gunpoint.
She and Brennan were driven through the desert to an abandoned house, where they learned from their captors that they were being held ransom for $1.5 million each.
Aware that neither the Canadian nor the Australian government would pay the ransom, and that neither family would be able to meet the demands, Lindhout saw her days of captivity turn to weeks, and weeks turn to months.
Together, she and Brennan were moved to different locations, and renamed Amina and Noah, by their captors.
During that time, a “sense of not knowing (and a) sense of powerlessness” consumed her, as she began learning of her captors’ lives spent growing up in “a culture of war”.
Most of them were teenage orphans scarred by bomb blasts, who learned English by listening to BBC radio, she explained.
Eager to practise their speaking skills, some of them conversed with Lindhout, telling her stories of their siblings who had died of hunger, or of witnessing their entire families being massacred in front of them.
At one point, one confided in her, out of sight of the others, saying he didn’t want to be a soldier, and instead wanted to become a student.
“They were bright,” said Lindhout. “They wanted to learn about the world outside Somalia.”
Eventually, a failed escape attempt led to Lindhout being violently dragged through a mosque in a “scene of absolute chaos”.
It was then she saw a Somali woman trying to help her, tearfully pleading with her captors to let her go, and holding on to Lindhout as her captors tried to take her to “whatever was going to happen next”.
Upon being taken outside, Lindhout heard the sound of a gunshot emanating from inside, and to this day, does not know the fate of the woman who tried to save her.
Her courage, however, has lived with Lindhout ever since.
“I would think of her, and I would think of her courage,” she said, referring to the time she described as the “aftermath” of her failed escape attempt.
That aftermath saw her chained in such a way that restricted any physical movement whatsoever, inside a dark house, where she began to reflect deeply on her predicament.
“I had lost everything: the sky, laughter, light,” she said. “I was in shock at what my life had become.”
Her focus became surviving each minute, and then each one after that, as what remaining faith in human decency she had quickly began to fade.
“I could not understand how human beings could reach these depths,” she said.
Consumed by anger, she eventually reached a point where she felt she could take no more, and began to fend off an “internal snap”, which arrived one day when she was being hurt by one of her captors.
“Time seemed to stop,” she said. “(I felt) this feeling of peace, calm and felt detached from physical pain.”
At that moment — being in, as she described, an out-of-body-like state — she began to consider her attacker’s own personal struggles and pain.
“I thought of his life stories, and I pictured him in those moments,” she said. “I saw him hungry, orphaned, and for that one split second, I understood his suffering, though different, was equal.”
Lindhout knew her captors weren’t innocent, but at that time, she began to better understand the adage, ‘hurt people, hurt people’.
Instead of continuing to feel anger and hate, she chose, with her own survival in mind, to embrace the “tiny seed of compassion” she found inside herself.
Although constant abuse made her want to stay angry, she focused her mind on forgiveness, and began to “search for, and appreciate, moments of humanity” shown by her captors.
On Nov. 25, 2009, Lindhout’s and Brennan’s families paid a ransom that, although smaller than was initially demanded, left them both “financially devastated”.
Finally released after 460 days of captivity, Lindhout initially found her freedom “hard to grasp”.
“It felt like I could lose it at any moment,” she said.
Her arrival back on Canadian soil, which she described as a “moment of pure joy”, was met by a media storm, and at first, she was reluctant to tell her story.
Eventually, she spoke with CTV News, whom she told she had no sympathy for her captors.
Two weeks later, however, in a “moment of awakening”, she realized that she “really was free”, and forced herself to make a decision to either continue feeling bitter and depressed, or “honour truths learned in captivity about forgiveness and compassion”.
She chose the latter, and four years later, stood in front of her hometown audience as a bestselling author, and a respected humanitarian as the founder the Global Enrichment Foundation — a non-profit organization that, according to its website, “promotes peace and development in Somalia through sustainable educational and community-based empowerment programs, while undertaking humanitarian and life-saving emergency interventions in times of crisis”.
While Lindhout admitted she would take back the suffering her ordeal caused her family “in a heartbeat”, she’s aware that her current work likely wouldn’t be possible without it.
Following her release and subsequent return to Canada, she had an “awareness of many things” she didn’t previously, and promised herself she would do something to try to create positive change in Somalia, and to honour the woman who tried to save her at the mosque.
With her foundation, she’s done just that, and continues to support that positive change through her work.
At her home in Canmore, she appreciates simply being able to observe the sky, which she had “taken away (from her) for so long”.
As for her captors — one of whom has since contacted her to acknowledge her humanitarian work — Lindhout is aware they’ll likely never face punishment for what they did to her.
Having them know that she chose forgiveness and compassion, however, she feels is the best form of justice.
“I have experienced the worst of humanity,” she said. “But also some of the best.”