This bulk of Beah's A Long Way Gone goes through most of the struggles Ishmael faces before his time as a boy soldier. After reading chapter 2 (which is a page and a half) I had to put down my book and stop and think. Many questions came to me after reading this short section of the book. How lucky am I? Really! how lucky am I? The last sentence Ishmael leaves us, which post scripts a brutal, vivid dream he has back in the states where he carries his own dead body to the grave, is "These days I live in three worlds: my dreams, and the experiences of my new my life, which trigger memories from the past.". After reading this I had to sit back and just wonder what this guy must have gone through and what is he leaving out of this short 226 page book. Well, the next bulk of the book gave me a short description of what he did go through, before becoming a boy soldier.
Chapter 3 was, in many ways, the event that changed it all. In this section of the book Ishmael and his brother along with 4 other friends escape Mattru Jong after the rebels attacked the village unexpectingly. They ran through the village, through a swamp until they had to cross the last section of land before the forest. Whilst crossing this last patch of land, the boys were shot at with automatic weapons. This was just the first time that Ismael should have died, yet he and his friends made it to the forest without a scratch. After this the boys walked in a single file line through the forest, on a foot wide trail, for several days. They slept in abandoned villages and ate what they could find. In one instance they were so hungry that they jumped a 5 year old kid just for his two cobs of corn. People, at this time felt bad for the young boys, and the mother of the 5 year old even came and gave the boys all a cob of their own despite the thievery they committed. The next incident came when the 6 boys were running through a field. They themselves were jumped by two hiding rebels. They were marched into a village and lined up with a dozen or more people who also had been captured. After the rebels toyed with their prisoners they finally selected the people they wanted which excluded Ishmael and 2 of the boys. His brother was selected and they were forced to stare each other in the eyes as they both new the destiny of Ishmael and the others not selected. They would be murdered as they were deemed useless by the hands of two 20 year old rebels. Had a fire fight not broke out in the neighboring village, which allowed the boys and the other dozen or so people to scatter in to the surrounding forest, Ishmael and the others would have in fact been murdered. The two rebels turned to shoot at Ishmael as he ran. I guess they weren't good shots, that or Ishmael was one lucky kid because this was the second time he had been shot at and he made it to the forest unscaved.
This theme, Ishmael running with automatic rifles firing at his back, reoccurs many times in the next couple chapters. Until his lucky 3 months of safety. Ishmael and the six others found themselves in an oasis of sort at Kamator. While the boys were on the trail into Kamator they were jumped by three men with their hunting rifles who swore to protect the village in this time of war. You may wonder why they were jumped, this was because of the "boy soldier" who had become the hell hounds of the RUF, the rebel force. The RUF would drug groups of young boys, groups of about 6-20, the sole purpose of these dispatched boys was to loot the villages. As you could imagine, people don't like to be killed by 12 year olds and then have all their stuff taken. These groups of boys were literally drugged nuts, in one instance two different groups came across each other in the middle of a town and proceeded to shoot and kill one another. The wining group of these boys sat and ate their lunch atop the bleeding bodies of the defeated group. So when these 6 boys just decided to waltz right in to this village, it didn't go well. The boys were stripped naked, cuffed, and placed in front of the chief who would of killed them had it not been for another young boy of the village and a Run DMC cassette tape. Ishmael carried his favorite dance music in his front pocket and when his pants were searched the chief found the tape and was puzzled by it. A young boy from the surrounding crowd stepped forward to state that he knew the boys. He apparently attended school in the adjacent Mattru Jong. The boys were then released, re-clothed, fed, and given farmhand duty for the next three months. This was just one more of Ishmael's lucky incidents.
Kamator couldn't escape the RUF's plan forever. The RUF came in one day, just like that, the boys had all been separated amidst the town when the first shots were fired. They ran to the forest as always. Only Kaloko and Ishmael made it to the forest together, Ishmael never saw any of them again, not even his brother. Kaloko hide in the forest for three weeks with an adopted family until one day Ishmael decided to go out on his own.
"I walked for two days straight without sleeping. I stopped only at streams to drink water. I felt as if somebody was after me. Often, my shadow would scare me and cause me to run for miles" This is how Beah starts the 8th chapter. This is the first thing he stated after noting he was leaving Kaloko. I paused after reading this, I questioned what the heck he was thinking. Anyways it was all for the better. Ishmael came across another group of six boys after walking for a couple weeks alone. Like it was meant to be, he knew 3 or 4 of the boys. He came to be part of their group. They walked for weeks doing the abandoned village thing. Until they found themselves walking on the beach with the Atlantic Ocean to their west. They walked for a while and saw a cluster of huts. They raced each other towards them to find it was abandoned, they thought. A good number of men with machetes, fishing spears, and nets sprung from behind the huts. They grouped them up again. They questioned them all and for unknown reasons believed their plea as not being rebels. Instead of killing them they just took their crapes (tennis shoes) and chased them out of their village. Now note that these boys were on sand, without shoes or socks, with the hot African sun beating over head. They walked all day until sunset and half of the next day until coming across a solitary fishing hut. The seven of them ran into it. They cried themselves to sleep as the bottom of their feet looked as Beah describes, like someone took a blade and cut the flesh from heel to toe. They awoke to find a young adult man standing in his fishing hut. I thought, NO, Ishmael has to escape somehow obviously! But to my surprise their is at least one good man in Sierra Leone. In fact this was an extremely benevolent man. He tended to them and took care of each one's feet for the next 2 weeks.
This is where I stopped reading. This book has put me in a state of reflexion. Reflexion of myself, and our country. How lucky I am and how lucky we all our to have a civilized, rather courtly nation. I couldn't imagine being separated from my lavish home and family running around the Indiana as an orphan having to watch my back at every turn because everybody thinks i'm going to kill them and steal their possessions. Heck, i hate being separated from my vehicle or phone for a week.
No comments:
Post a Comment