The Hunter

I have to admit I was surprised when the government let the prisoners go and give them weapons! I didn't know exactly why that was.  I felt bad for Ishmael however, because he had struggled so hard to get away from the war but it keeps coming back to him.  The the worst happens.... his uncle is killed and he blames himself a little.  He doesn't understand why everyone he loves and cares about dies, yet he lives.  Luckily he doesn't go over the edge but rather turns that energy into escaping the city.  There were moments when I thought he would be caught but he managed to make it to the city and I'm guessing to New York.  Judging by how he has written this book that he has lead a successful life both by living it and by informing others about the horrors going on in Africa even today.  I hope that his progress has helped to save many lives and I am wishing him luck for his future and success. Ishmael Beah has become a hunter so that no one has to be a boy soldier.

New Experiences

Chapters 19-20 were filled to the brim with a funny and interesting interpretation of city life.  Ishmael really shined in these chapters because you get to see at how he is still a child.  He still has new and exciting things lying ahead for him. Especially when he doesn't even know how to operate a elevator which is as simple as breathing for us.  His journey however wasn't all fun and games.  While he spoke of his conferences I was glad to hear at how he was a happy to know that he wasn't alone in his journey to help children around the world.  He also met children who had to struggle to survive like he did which helped him to open up and speak his opinion.  I thought it was also funny at how he didn't know what snow was or how he had interpreted New York as a place worse than Sierra Leone.  I believe that this trip was welled deserved for Ishmael.  Even if his uncle has a hard time believing that he actually left to New York.

Family Matters

The chapters 17-18 where a very nice turn of events.  Ishmael is much further along in his rehabilitation and this is good news.  Thanks to Esther and her kind words and mountainous support to the children and the center, Ishmael is beginning to regain his innocence of being a child.  His transformation although great will never be complete because he will never be able to forget what has happened to him and for this I am sorry for him.  On the brighter side of things however he has regain his some of his childhood by meeting up with Mohammed and his uncle.  Mohammed helps him to remember the good times they had doing performances for their village before the war destroyed it.  His uncle although he has never met him before is a good way for Ishmael to regain that since of family seeing as how it is the closes he has to it. I hope that his trip to New York goes well. Knowing that he is still alive today and happy I'm pretty confident that it will go well and he will return to Africa safely.  

Rehab

I thought that it was quite a turn of events when the UNICEF people turned up out of nowhere.  They took me somewhat by surprise.  Especially when they weren't shot on site.  Instead they were able to just walk up to the commander and talk to him without any violence.  Not to mention they must have been very powerful speakers to be able to convince him to give up some of his best soldiers without so much as a penny.  Beah's reaction was a sign at how intense his brainwashing was. He was sad that he had to leave and I suppose that is reasonable since they had become his family in a since.  But I thought that perhaps he might be a little bit excited to be able to be free.  Later on when he is at the UNICEF base when they stabbed that man in the foot and later on he said it wasn't their fault I was surprised that that guy had such resilience.  Another sign of how the war and drugs had effected the children was when they were craving violence to the point to were they would just punch rock, glass, and anything near them they could hurt or damage.  I was startled and disturbed at how people could turn children into such monsters.

My Choice

Some kind of mythological/fantasy book. NO CHICK BOOKS!!! Something with blood and gore and war!

Training Day

At the start of Chp. 10 Ishmael lulls you into a false blanket of security.  It starts of with him meeting with an adult from his village and then they begin to go to the village where their parents are supposedly waiting for them. When they get close however all that is taken away from him.  I felt really sorry for Ishmael because I know what it feels like to have something so close then ripped away from you.  Later on he and some other boys begin to blame this on Gasemu and they try to kill him.   This came as a shock to me because I didn't expect such a dramatic change in their character.  Once they are "captured" they seem to be safe in this new village, but I was a little suspicious of it from the beginning.  Sure enough they are slowly going to be recruited into this group.  When the head honcho said that they could leave and he wouldn't care that also seemed to be out of place to me in such time that they are in. It got even more curious when the man and the boy are dragged back from being killed by the "rebels" I believe that the soldiers killed them because why would the rebels kill the man and boy but not kill the soldiers when they collected the bodies.  With the way things are going I think that Ishmael isn't really helping anyone, but he himself is becoming a boy soldier.

The Loss of a Friend

Chapter 10 was a very enlightening chapter.  It helped to shed some light onto the backgrounds of the children who had been traveling together.  Their stories told us of how their journey had started or when the rebels attacked their villages.  Saidu's story was a horrifying one.  He had to sit up in the attic and listen to the sounds of his sisters being raped and that disgusted me.  I could never imagine such a horrible thing to happen to me and I felt sad that such a young person had to listen to that.  Such a thing should never happen to anyone.  Then sadly towards the end of the chapter Saidu says that he dies each time he escapes death.  He spoke some powerful words and in the end he did die.  He died with tears streaks still staining his face which says to me that he died a sad and lonely person and he couldn't live with the grief and it killed him.  I didn't, however, understand the fact of the dogs crying.  It confused me I thought that they cried because they sensed the rebels at first, but the rebels never came.

A Lone Journey

At this point I can clearly see the deep down damage that has been done to Ishmael.  I can see at how he has become utterly disconnected to the world.  He spends a few weeks in the forest with absolutely no one.  You can see the struggle he faces fighting against insanity.  I was surprised he didn't go crazy without having some company.  Before this though he had been walking for 2 days straight only stopping for water.  You could tell that he was in a trance like state most likely shock because he continued on without so much as a complaint.  Eventually after staying in the jungle he meet up with some of his old, more distant, friends from school.  After the torturing sand when they stopped in the hut and looked at their feet and had to peel of flesh and dried blood I had to stop and regather my thoughts because that was almost to much for me.  I personally have been to the beach and I know what scolding hot sand feels like so that kind of hit home for me.  When they were discovered by the villagers I wasn't shocked or surprised so that part was pretty bland for me because of all the times it has happened to him.  So after that they just continue on until the next major event happens.

Diconnecting

This was a more subtle chapter for me. Except for the imam no one was really hurt in the major events.  Still this a big part of the story.  This is when Ishmael begins to lose everyone he knows to the war.  When the village was attacked I expected him to be recruited or tortured, but he managed to escape without so much as a few pains and bruises. Even those were caused by the work he did at the farm, and not from the rebels.  More importantly he was safe from being recruited for the time being.  The major point in this section I believe is the fact that he was separated from his friends and family and they are no where to be found in the next few weeks.  I believe that they may have been captured and are in the process of being recruited and I fear that the next time Ishmael and his friends meet it won't be a very happy reunion.  The time for Ishmael to be recruited is drawing near as well it seems because he is at the stage where he has lost almost all of his ties to his fellow peer and he will begin to descend into madness.

Progression of a War

By now Ishmael and the others are homeless refugees.  They have no were to go and they are slowly starving to death.  This chapter is almost unbearable to read with the ways they have to steal, sacrifice, and flee just to survive.  To survive they steal ears of corn from a five year old and that says to me that they are very desperate at this point.  So as an alternative they also leave to go back and get their hidden money from Mattru Jong.  When they get their they find the bodies of two mutilated men and this makes me sick to my stomach that the rebels would do such horrors for no apparent reason.  Then the rebels discover Ishmael and the others when they are leaving with their money.  They then begin to recruit them and then the old man comes.  When he arrives things get worse because they torture him and interrogate him.  They proceed by taunting him and then threatening him with death. They shoot so close to his ear that he believes that he is dead and he cries out in agony and that to me is one of the worst things in this chapter.

A Boy Soldiers Beginning

At the beginning of the story you could tell that these where just ordinary children like you and me.  They had hardly any experience with the war and so quickly things changed.  The amount of the blood and gore was described so easily by the author.  People where shot to the point that they where swiss cheese and so many innocent lives where lost.  All of it happened so fast that it was shocking at how quickly their lives can change. In an instant everything they knew and loved could be ripped away from them and they couldn't do a thing about it.  I felt that it was disgusting at how the rebels had a fun time torturing innocent civilians and killing babies without a second thought.  They were monsters and there was no question about it.  They had gotten to the point to were killing was as simple as walking down the street. The Rebels had no remorse and that made them alien to me and I'm sure many others.