A long way gone how many more times

But this time they didn't, and the darkness set in very fast. The mood wasn't in the sky; the air was stiff, as if nature itself was afraid of what was happening. What was more violent than making them believe they deserved less and less every day? It followed us under thick clouds and waited for us at the other end of dark forest paths. It would disappear with sunrise but return again, hovering on our path.

Some nights the sky wept stars that quickly floated and disappeared into the darkness before our wishes could meet them. Under these stars I used to hear stories, but now it seemed as if it was the sky that was telling us a story as its stars fell, violently colliding with each other.

The moon hid behind clouds to avoid seeing what was happening. Even thought I am still alive, I feel like each time I accept death, part of me dies. It is about carrying the ones that are most important and passing them along. Because if you do not, you will eventually accept that you are worthless. Because if I was to get killed upon my return, I knew that a memory of my existence was alive somewhere in the world.

I remembered when my family moved Mogbwemo. My father held a ceremony to bless our new home I pressed my fingers on my eyelids tohold back my tears and wished that I could have my family together again" Beah, Ishmael meets people on the 6th day but they these people refuse to speak to him, they ignore him. My body twitched with fear, and I became dizzy.

Icould see the leaves on the trees swaying, but I couldn't feel the wind" Beah, Ishmael lives in the forest near a spring for many days and lives by drinking the water and eating a unknown fruit. It became unbearable each day" Beah, After 1 month alone, Ishmael meets 6 boys, 3 of them are from Mattru Jong and they recognize Ishmael.

Now Ishmael is traveling together with these 6 boys, but this is a problem. Everyone is afraid of the gang of boys. The next village they reach is deserted, everyone has run away because they are afraid of "the seven boys". Ishmael continues to travel with the 6 boys, they are in constant danger and mistrusted wherever they go. When we went to the river to wash our faces, mothers would grab their children and run home" Beah, It was the Atlantic Ocean.

Even in the middle of the madness there remained that true and natural beauty, and it toook my mind away from my current situation as I marveled at this sight" Beah, The boys come upon a village, the men of the village do not trust the 7 Boys, they take the boys "crapes" ie sneakers and let them go. Walking barefoot on the sand was like walking on a hot tar road I continued walking but couldn't feel the soles of my feet.

Peeled flesh hung down and congelaed blocks of blood and particles of sand clung to each hanging bit of skin" Beah, The Boys find a shack on the beach. The man who lives in the hut is very kind and generous.

He cuts grass and lets the boys soothe their feet over steam, he feeds the boys, gives them ointment for their feet and lets them sleep in the hut. The man is a fisherman and lets the boys stay in the fishing hut for 2 weeks. He does not tell them his name. This way we will all be safe" Beah, Ishamel is worried this time because he is very far away from Mattru Jong and is sure there will not be anyone in this village who recognizes him and saves him. The chief of the village calls the 7 boys devils and orders them stripped and drowned in the ocean.

The chief decides he has made a mistake and the boys are not devils, just children and they are let go, but must leave the village immediately. The chief told us he was letting us go, but that we had to leave the area immediately" Beah, Ishmael tells the readers "one of the things about my journey, mentally, physically, and emotionally was that I wasn't sure when or where it was going to end I was never disappointed, since I always expected the worst to happen" Saidu states "Every time people come at us with the intention of killing us, I close my eyes and wait for death.

Even though I am still alive, I feel like each time I accept death, part of me dies. Very soon I will completely die and all that will be life is my empty body walking with you. It will be quieter than I am" Ismael spends time remembering happy times with his family, but these memories actually hurt him physcially.

The 7 boys spend some time at a village where the villagers are very welcoming, allow them to hunt with them and allow them to join in their feast. Musa tells the story of Bra Spider. A greedy spider that planned to eat all the food during the feasts in different villages by using a rope. The boys leave and spend the next night in a "peculiar village, in the middle of nowhere" really just 1 house with moldy pots.

Ishmael spends the night remembering stories his grandmother told about the feast that was held the day of his naming ceremony. When the boys awake they find that their food is gone, when they investigate they find that a dog has stolen theri food and eaten it. They are angry enough to consider "killing and eating the dog". Musa remembes when he lost his family on the attack on MattruJong.

His mother was lost as the fled the village, when his father goes to look for her, the village is attacked again and Musa had to run, "he has been running ever since" Beah, Alhaki was at the river when Mattru Jong was attacked, when he went home to find his family, they were gone. Kanei had escaped the village with his parents, but lost his sisters and brothers in the chaos. Kanei and his parents took a boat across the Jong River, but it capsized. Kanei was separated from his parents when he swam ashore.

Jumah and Moriba, homes were attacked when their parents were at work. They search the docks and the forest but "their parents were nowhere to be found" Beah, Saidu's family was attacked in their home. While Saidu happened to be in the attic getting rice, the rebels attack his family, raped his sisters, stole the family's property and forced the family to leave with them. The next night Saidu faints from fright but the boys think he might be dying from eating the crow bad meat?

He wakes up in the morning and they continue walking. The boys arrive in a crowded village and find out that many people from Mattru Jong are in the next village a 2 days walk. When they think about possibly finding their families in the next village they start to sing and dance, but fall silent again.

The boys help him carry bananas to the village, as Gasemu, tells Ishmael his parents and brother are in the village and will be happy to seem him. As the boys and Gasemu approach the village they hear screaming and gunshots. The village has been attacked by rebels and is burning. Ishamael realizes he has missed his chance to find his family and is very angry and fights with Gasemu.

While the 6 boys and Gasemu are fighting, the rebels return, so they hide in the dirt of a coffee farm. Ishmael speaks with the military leader Lt. Jabati, talks about Julius Caesar and Shakespeare and remembers reciting Shakespearean speeches back home for the adults to practice his English.

Jabati reminds him of a famous speech from Julius Caesar "Cowards die many times before their deaths" Beah, Prisoners were lined up and shot in the head" Beah, Jabati tells the civilians they must either help fight the rebels, leave the village, or if they stay and do not help, they will not be given food.

This is your time to revenge the deaths of your families" Beah, Jabati shows the civilians dead bodies and gives inspiring speeches to convince even the teenagers to become soldiers. They do not deserve to live. That is why we must kill every single one of them.

Think of it as destroying a great evil. It is the highest service you can perform for your country" Beah, Ishmael loses his rap tapes, they are burned with his pants. Last connection to his childhood, his family, his home and his life before the war.

Your hands trembel as if the gun is pointed at your head This gun--he held the AK high up will soon belong to you, so you better learn not to be afraid of it. That is all for today" Beah, Hand signals, crawling, eating fast, stabbing bananas with bayonets, using and carrying AK rifles.

This is how I would do it. He took out his bayonet and started shouting and stabbing the banana tree. I first stab him in the stomach, then the neck, then his heart, and I will cut it out and show it to him, and then pluck his eyes out. Remember, he probably killed your parents worse" Beah, Ismael and the other children are given a day off, they play soccer and go swimming. Their day of fun ends suddenly, they go back to the village and clean their guns and get ammunition.

Because with more ammo, we will be able to find water and food, with more water and food, we will not make it to the end of the day" Beah, Ishamael's friend Josiah is hit by a grenade and dies. Ishmael looks over and see that his friend Musa is dead, too. Suddenly, as if someone was shooting them inside my brain, all the massacres I had seen since the day I was touched by war began flashing in my head.

Evertime I stopped shooting to change magazines and saw my two young lifeless friends. I angrily pointed my gun into the swamp and killed more people. I shot everything that moved, until we were ofrdered to retreat because we nedded another strategy" Beah, I only drank wanter and felt nothing. As I walked back to my tent, I stumbled into a cement wall. My knee bled, but I didn't feel a thing" Beah, In this chapter Ishmael explains to the reader that his life has been reduced to taking drugs, watching war movies and killing.

The boys are taking drugs marijuana, methamphetamines white tablets , brown brown cocaine mixed with gunpowder. There was no time to be alone or to think" Beah, Ishmael wins a contest. Who can kill a rebel the fastest, by slitting his throat with a bayonnet.

Ishmael has been a soldier for 2 years, he has lost his childhood and become a cold-blooded killer. Ishmael is traveling to the town of Bauya to get more ammunition. He hopes to see his friend Jumah and the lieutenant there. In Bauya, the lieutenant holds a meeting, the boys smoke, take cocaine and "brown-brown". The meeting is social occasion, fun. Their lives a soldiers is over, they are going to go to a school and find another life. Ishmael is angry and anxious, he has never been without his guns in over 2 years, he feels like he is losing his family.

During the long journey to another camp, the prisoners were forced to run more than forty-two miles to Gleiwitz and guards shot people who were not running fast enough down.

They were finally allowed to rest, so Eliezer and his father had to watch each other to prevent either one of them from falling asleep in the snow too long and. This thought by the man is part of the reoccurring theme of the colorless and stark post-apocalyptic world the man and the boy must travel through.

When the man thinks this, he is in despair and numb to the world around him. Being born a considerable time before the apocalypse and have living through the start of the apocalypse, the man was a first-hand witness to the disappearance of different colors, birds and foods. In this apocalypse, said things and their names were forgotten by the survivors of the apocalypse.

Things have become so atrocious that George Washington had to ask the Congressional Committee for more money. I doubt they have any to give, for they are more focused on the bigger picture, rather than a few deteriorated soldiers Doc B.

No meat! Ishmael had no idea what was in store for him in the future, but because of constantly preparing, he had no trouble with food. He knew on instinct that this was his …show more content… However, during the war was insufferable.

This time left nothing but the skeletons of flourishing villages, and no food providers whatsoever. When one is starving and left nothing to eat but crow that oddly fell from the sky, then the boys must perform such uncivilized acts like these to survive. In this case, to be successful is to keep living throughout the war: you must give up something to fulfill that wish. This time there were seven of us.

He also mention within the quote that being with this many boys was going to be a problem, which yes, it makes the group very suspicious and even gets them captured.

It followed us under thick clouds and waited for us at the other end of dark forest paths. It would disappear with sunrise but return again, hovering on our path. Some nights the sky wept stars that quickly floated and disappeared into the darkness before our wishes could meet them. Under these stars I used to hear stories, but now it seemed as if it was the sky that was telling us a story as its stars fell, violently colliding with each other.

The moon hid behind clouds to avoid seeing what was happening. Even thought I am still alive, I feel like each time I accept death, part of me dies. Because if I was to get killed upon my return, I knew that a memory of my existence was alive somewhere in the world. Memories I sometimes wish I could wash away, even though I am aware that they are an important part of what my life is; who I am now.

I stayed up all night, anxiously waiting for daylight, so that I could fully return to my new life, to rediscover happiness I had known as a child, the joy that had stayed alive inside me even through times when being alive itself became a burden.