A Long Way Gone- Ishmael Beah (pg 69-100)

     In continuance to the previous post. The benevolent man who took care of the 7 boys accidentally lets out the rumor of him taking care of the boys. The neighboring village in an outrage confronts the boys at the fishing hut. They tied them up and and stripped them naked and placed them, once again, in front of a chief and council. Once again Ishmael saved his own and his friends skin because the chief saw the Run DMC tape. I never thought that a cassette tape could save someones life literally, this one did twice. The chief did order Ishmael to dance to the cassette tape, naked in the sand, to prove his ownership. What a pervert, I thought. The chief had the boys cut free, they were given back their clothes and set on their way. Also, maybe a sorry of sorts, the chief gave the boys a gallon of water and some smoked meat to take on their journey.

      The boys started walking again. For whatever reason, maybe their 2 weeks in the hut, the boys became closer and shared stories with one another. One story told was the Mende (a tribe in the Sierra Leone) version of why the spider was so skinny at the waist. The jokes all ended when one morning the boys awoke to find their meat stolen. Stolen by something. A dog in fact that the boys found feasting behind the hut. Alhaji chased off the dog but found no eatable meat. The boys continued somberly due to their imposing hunger. As they walked they saw a crow fall from the sky. The boys were split on whether or not to eat it, some thought it to be a curse others to be a blessing from God. In the end they all ate the bird. This though would come to be the end of one of the boys. As they walked through the night Saidu, only thirteen years old, dropped to the dirt as he fainted. He awoke hours later coughing. The next village they came too was very populous. They bedded in the veranda of a sleeping families home. When the awoke the owner of the house helped the boys out, they tried to wake Saidu but found he was stone dead. The held a funeral service and the remaining boys headed for the next village sobbing. The next village supposedly contained many families from Mattru Jong.

      Saidu's death came shockingly too me. I found myself puzzled. How could a 13 year old die just like that. This was the world Ishmael lived in. Something completely foreign to a pampered 16 year old American boy. I couldn't imagin living in this world.