By DAVE O’SULLIVAN Publisher The 14-year-old known as Big Boy didn’t eat lunch for the first five days of his freshman year at Absegami High School. He just sat in the cafeteria, nervous in his new environment. He didn’t have any money to buy anything to eat, and feared he would be arrested if he took something from the chow line without having the ability to pay for it. Finally, a teacher noticed he wasn’t eating lunch and brought him down to the office, where the teacher found out Big Boy was part of the free lunch program the school offers. There probably has never been a teenage boy so eager to consume a cafeteria chicken patty in the history of high schools everywhere. So much food, available every day. And classrooms. And books. And teachers who cared enough about their students to stay after school long after the bell rang. To Big Boy, Absegami High School was like heaven. His classmates probably didn’t agree, but, then again, none of his classmates ended up in a Liberian refugee camp at 4 years old after fleeing rebel gunfire. Yes, to Big Boy Gbayee — a 14-year-old immigrant from war-torn Liberia — eating a chicken patty sandwich in an American high school cafeteria was quite glorious. Hard to blame his enthusiasm for the breaded chicken disc. He had spent the majority of his life up to that point sifting through trash cans to find something remotely edible enough to fight off the hunger pangs in his belly. Big Boy, now 29 years old and known as Eli Gbayee (his birth name really is Big Boy), is a substitute teacher at the Pennsylvania Avenue School in Atlantic City and for the past five years has worked as an assistant boys soccer coach at Absegami under his former coach, Bill Rose. He has a high school and college degree, and is an example of the American dream being achieved through hard work and determination. Yet even today, Gbayee’s life is shaped by the childhood he spent in a refugee camp in western Africa. Casualties of war In war, many people die. During the First Liberian Civil War, which lasted from 1989-1997, more than 200,000 people died. Another civil war followed, from 1999-2003. In all, more than 250,000 were killed. To put that in some context, that would be like September 11 happening — 62 times. Or like the entire population of Atlantic City being killed, more than six times over. But those killed weren’t the only casualties of war. A million others were displaced, mostly into refugee camps. Among them was 4-year-old Big Boy, the little tyke with the scar above his left eye and birthmark on his hand. Big Boy was in a schoolhouse when the gunfire was heard, and the next thing the 4-year-old knew he was running for his life. He ended up in a squalid refugee camp, separated from his entire family, whom he would not see for the next eight years. 
Eli Big Boy Gbayee spent his childhood barefoot, hungry and alone in a Liberian refugee camp. He came to America before starting high school at Absegami, and has gone on to graduate high school and college. (Photos by Ben Hale/Benjamin Hale Photography) “The war started in 1989 when I was 4 years old. I remember being in school and the guns started firing. We started running, the whole school, the kids, everybody,” said Gbayee (pronounced ga-BAY). “People were scared and nervous. When we got to the refugee camp, there were so many people. Old people, young people. And there was no food. Everybody was looking out for themselves. You have to figure out how to provide for yourself.” More than eight years with no education, no shoes, little to eat. The adults in the refugee camps gobbled up as much of the relief food shipments that they could get their hands on, leaving the young children to scrounge for whatever was left. It was pure survival instincts kicking in at that point. The adult refugees didn’t want to deny the younger ones food, but, as Gbayee said, in the refugee camp it is every person for themselves. Either you eat, or you die. That was life in the early 1990s in West Africa. “Sometimes the United Nations would come and drop off food, but because we were young we couldn’t fight and compete with the older people so you couldn’t get anything,” Gbayee said. “One thing I remember is when the rebel troops would come into the camp they would try to recruit people. (The fighters) were the ones who had food. For some, that was the only way you could find something to eat.” The temptations for young boys in Liberia to join the rebel armies were strong. The rebels had food. They had guns. They had power. Many were lured into the fighting. Gbayee credits a friend he had with helping him avoid a fate that so many had succumbed to. “The rebel groups tried to recruit me, but I had a friend, Peter, they killed his mom and dad. He saved my life because he said before you join this stuff you’re going to have to go through me,” Gbayee said. “Some kids, they saw their parents killed in front of them. Some of these kids had nothing to live for. There would come times we would think about (joining the rebels) because those people had food. Sometimes I would go weeks without food. I would go pick out of the trash can and I would find bread with mold on it, but that’s what we had to eat to survive. We just knew we were hungry and we needed something to eat.” During the 1990s in Liberia and neighboring Sierra Leone, survival was all many could think about on a daily basis. You did what you had to do to live another day. That’s just the way it was, and there wasn’t anything you could do to change that fact. The sounds of gunfire became such a common occurrence that when people heard it they simply gathered their meager belongings and headed to a safer refugee camp. “We became accustomed to it. Once the guns started firing, we knew to grab our stuff. That’s why we never had too many things, so that once the rebels come we can grab our stuff and go to a new refugee camp. That was our mindset, just live for today,” Gbayee said. “They would start shooting guns, grenade rockets, killing people. And sometimes they would grab young people and give them drugs and force them to join the rebel group. I used to go beg on the streets, beg people for money just to get something to eat. “We went and cut some wood and stuff, and then we would sell it to try to make a living. We were just trying to survive, every day. If I lived to see tomorrow, that was good. It was just a survival thing. I never thought in a million years I would come to America and be reunited with my family.” The promised land Gbayee had a stroke of luck come his way when he was 12 years old. A woman in a refugee camp recognized him from a birthmark on his hand and a scar over his left eye inflicted when he was a baby and in a car accident. “The one thing, and I told him this, there had to be somebody in his life who knew to get him out of that situation. I think it was an aunt, I’m not exactly sure, but there was somebody with enough presence of mind to get him out of there,” Rose said. “Whoever that person was should be commended. As scary as it was for him to come over here not knowing anyone, I think it was a whole lot better than what it was, that’s for sure. It is quite a story.” 
Playing soccer in the refugee camp helped keep Gbayee’s mind of his dire situation, he said, and provided some hope that someday he could live a better life. “With this endeavor that he has with Hope for Liberia, the kids understand h
e came from that area and a really tough lifestyle in that country. The kids understand that, and they look up to him in the sense that he made it and has done well in his life,” Rose said. “He’s a tremendous success story at Absegami and with our soccer program. Now he’s giving back to the school, and it’s been a real positive thing for everyone. From where he came from to what he has made himself, I do think the high school kids see that and understand that, and he’s been a positive influence on everybody.” Senior goalkeeper Drew Roesch said hearing the stories coach Gbayee tells certainly makes an impression on Braves players. “That’s exactly what it does. He actually showed us a video from when he went back to Liberia before last year’s season and that was very influential,” Roesch said. “It makes us appreciate what we have, and that things can always be much worse than we think.” But Roesch said that nobody would know how hard Gbayee’s life was as a child unless he told them. He walks around with a huge smile on his face, and if anyone asks him how he is on any particular day, the answer always is, “blessed.” “It’s honestly hard to tell that his life was so hard in the past with how he is now,” Roesch said. “He is a great guy who made it through a very difficult situation. We all have something to learn from him.” Gbayee said he uses his life experience to try to teach his players about more than just soccer. “The most important thing to me in my coaching is that when the kids leave they realize, oh yeah, coach didn’t just teach us about soccer, he also taught us about life situations. How to be respectful to adults, how to talk to your parents, how to appreciate things and be humble. You can’t take things for granted,” Gbayee said. “Being humble and respectful is the most important thing for me and coach Rose. If you have a player who is a great player, but disrespectful, he hasn’t learned anything. It’s about the respect. Having respect for yourself because you’re representing yourself, your school, your parents, your coach and your teammates.” Rose said he knew early on that Gbayee had a drive and determination that was born of a childhood living motherless in the middle of a civil war. Gbayee didn’t just want to succeed, he had to. He knew the golden opportunity he was presented with would only come once in this lifetime. “He’s had a lot of interesting things happen to him throughout his life, that’s for sure. He came to this country as a player and he was an outstanding player back in his time. He just was a real hard worker in everything he did,” Rose said, remembering 14-year-old Big Boy. “Academically, he really wanted to succeed, as well as athletically. He’s been a real success story for me in the time that I have been (at Absegami). He’s been a great all-around kid and a true success story. He knew the importance of getting an education. He would stay after school, stay for extra help, and do everything he could to try to improve his education. At the same time he was able to come out to practice and be a real good player on the team.” Finding heaven Gbayee now lives as just about any other normal American man does. He works every day, coaches soccer, goes to church. It’s a life so far from what he ever imagined as a young boy that even to this day he can’t believe his life. It’s like a dream — a dream he hopes to never wake up from. “Being in this country, I tell people, it’s my heaven on Earth. I can be going through the worst situation, but I’m grateful that I am in this country and I’ll never forget that,” Gbayee said. “When I go substitute people ask me why I’m all dressed up in a suit. It’s because it’s a job and I take it seriously. Even though I’m not making enough money, I take it seriously so that a young kid who thinks he can’t make it, he can see where I came from and be inspired by that and say ‘I can do it, too.’ All it takes is hard work.” Gbayee said he still remembers stepping off that plane at JFK. He knew at that moment that his life would never be the same, and that he was granted the greatest gift in life — a chance. “I have a picture (of my first day in America) and all you can see is a big smile. I had the biggest smile on my face. I felt like when I came to America my suffering was over. I felt all the problems and stress I had been going through was over. I felt like I was entering into heaven,” Gbayee said. “That’s how it felt coming here. And I still feel that way, because of the opportunity that people have here. It was little things, like having lights and a shower and not having to take a bath outside. Little things like that, going to school, whether you are rich or poor you still have the opportunity to go to high school. “If I didn’t have a chance to come to America, how would I have turned out?” Thankfully, that’s a question Big Boy will never have to answer. Contact Dave O’Sullivan: sully@acglorydays.com; on Twitter @GDsullysays
As a child refugee in Liberia, Big Boy Gbayee thought only of surviving; Now, in America, the Absegami assistant soccer coach is thriving
