A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah

A Long Way Gone is a true story about a young boy named Ishmael Beah, the author if the book, which is forced to become a boy soldier in Sierra Leon. He was twelve years of age when his village, of Mattru Jong, was attacked, and he had nowhere to go, but to survive by any means. 

The reason why Ishmael, his brother junior and their friend, survived was because the group have traveled that very day out of the village to go perform their rap skills in the city of Mobimbi. When they had no idea that they would never return to the place the called home. And they did not tell anyone or of their quick road trip to Mobimbi, because they had planned to travel back the next day. Before he became a child soldier he traveled from village to village for their basic needs of food and shelter. Sometimes stealing from the helpless just to get food. 

Now he was experiencing some of the times that refugees he had seen before pass through his village. Trying to find a place to settle, and avoiding the civil war going on, whir moving on. When Ishmael becomes a boy soldier he gets introduced to drugs. Boy soldiers become addicted to drugs such as cocaine, marijuana, and “brown brown”. This gives them the strength they need to do what they do and continue to survive. A method used to cover all their troubles of the war that affected them. Its not a good future that Ishmael faces being used as ailing machine and being under the influence of drugs.

It is until the day that Ishmael’s lieutenant turns the boys into UNICEF that he stops being a by soldier. After much suffering through his experience as a boy soldier, Ishmael starts rehabilitation in a center. Now he struggles to overcome his experience, meets people that are there to help guide him to a better future and understand what had happened. Things start to turn around for him for the better; he is received by his extended family in a town called Freeman.

Ishmael meets other children like him who are survivors of the war. He is invited to New York with other children to tell their stories to the United Nations. He is able to see that by telling his story with the public will be an important piece to preventing this cruel thing, of children soldiers from happening to other children. And hopefully no more children will have to go through what he did. Although he is no longer child soldier when he comes back to Freeman, the war once again catches up to him and he decides to make his way to the north country of Guinea which is the beginning of his journey to America and start anew life away from war.

I think that it is horrible thing to have to experience your home being taken a way from you by war, and then experiencing being the person who brings more pain and disaster to others. I liked reading the book because it isn’t something that we see daily or hear about, but we need to be informed of what is happening in our world. I am glad that there are organizations that work to help those that have experienced such things in their life and there is hope for them. I am very thankful to live in a place like the United States because there is more hope and opportunity to start a positive future than in many places in the world. 

Sierra Leon Research

Located on the west coast of Africa, with a population of approximately 4.7million people. There is a diverse climate ranging from desert like temperatures to rain forests. 

English is the official language; there are three other top languages that are spoken Temme, Mende, and Krio. Although there are about 16 ethnic groups that form a part of Sierra Leon.

Majority of the population is of Muslim faith, about 60 percent. 10 percent is Christian and the other 30 percent is of indigenousness believers. I found it interesting that Sierra Leon is one of the few countries that are most religiously tolerant in the world. An example the Muslims and Christians work together and interact peacefully in the country. Sierra Leones view on religion would be something great model to follow in other regions to stop religious wars. I also found that even though they claim to be of one religion they still might hold beliefs of their ancestors mixing beliefs, which is why they are very flexible with religion. 

Education: Instruction is taught in English, Krio is also an important method of communication because Krio is admixture of the different languages of all the ethnic groups and it makes it easier to understand. 

An interesting fact that I found about education was that it legally required for all children from the ages of six and up to three years into junior secondary education. Even with this requirement two thirds of the adult population is illiterate, because of the lack of teachers and schools available. 

The structure of education in the country is from approximately age 6-12primary school. Age 12-15 junior secondary school (middle). Age 15-18 senior secondary school. and tertiary education afterwards for four years. I found that there were only two universities in Sierra Leone. 

Work/ Economy: Many people work in agriculture for their living.  The main source of work in Sierra Leon is mining with a focus on diamonds. They are major producers of gold. Although it would seem that the country gets great profit out of the mining industry, they don’t because of corruption. There is smuggling of the products. there have been many efforts to stop the  smuggling of diamonds but it hasn’t been very successful, because people can  simply cross borders and  sell them toothed countries, but vendors claim the diamonds to be of Liberian or Guinean origin. 

Usually men do the hard labor like clearing fields and posing swamps. But women more of ten are the ones planting, harvesting, weeding, gathering wood cooking cleaning, marketing and taking care of the children. 

Food: “If I haven’t even rice today, then I haven’t eaten!” is common thing that people say. Because I found that rice is eaten with almost every meal of the day. There are also more kinds of food eaten such as fruits but those are called snacks. I found it very interesting that they have specific taboos related to the family, it just depends what has been passed down from family or founder of a village. An example would be not using a certain type of oil, or food prepared in a certain way. 

Revolution Is Not A Dinner Party by Ying Chang Compestine

Revolution is not a Dinner Party takes place in Wuhan City in China, and begins in the summer of 1972. This book is a story about the Cultural Revolution in China, told through the story of a child's experience. The main character Ling is an only child from parents of Doctors. Her father was surgeon and her mother traditional doctor. Ling is a young child growing up with a bright future ahead of her, she loves spending time with her father, learning and playing. 

She enjoys the quality time she gets to spend with her father since he gives her his full attention. Ling’s father, Dr. Chang, was a loving and showed sacrifice for his only daughter throughout the story. Ling’s father teaches her English and also about America, since Dr. Chang has a old work colleague who he contacts through mail.

While Mrs. Chang was stricter and as Ling described her, she was beautiful and perfect in all that she did. Ling was a good friend with her neighbor Niu who was four years older than her. He was Dr. Wong’s son, Niu and Ling referred to each other as siblings. Mrs. Wong was very nice to Ling and would often treat her with gifts, and tell her that she wished Ling would be her daughter. The Wong family was more “modern” than the Chang’s they had more technology and lived in more American housing.

What happens’ next are the effects of the Cultural Revolution. 

First Comrade Li, moves into part of their living space. He is stationed there to conduct his purpose of enforcing the Cultural Revolution and praising Chairman Mao and his beliefs, and methods for creating a new China. 

There was a major change in their lives during this ending part of the Cultural Revolution. Things were getting out of control, it seemed like it was a drastic change from being able to be free, to taking all your rights away. Since Comrade Li moved in there were lots of changes ion the home. at first it wasn’t so drastic to Ling since she did not know what was actually going on. Because her parents did not explain to her the seriousness of what was coming. I believe that her parents did this in away to protect her. If she didn’t know much about the issue then she wouldn’t worry. But i think her parents should have explained to her what was really happening with the Cultural Revolution and the risks involved. Because when you know about an issue even at young age you understand it more and can help your family just by being informed. 

In the end everything starts to crumble for the Cultural Revolution, but only after Chairman Mao dies in 1976. Even though the chaos is not completely over, and there has been a tremendous amount of change in the lives of the citizens, there seems to be hope for the Chang family. After Chairman Mao’s death there is a fight for power between revolutionary groups.