Reflections Ch. 15-16

Chapter 15-
Brainwashed into being the perfect child soldier, Ishmael is fiercely loyal to his fellow soldiers and the lieutenant who he sees as a twisted sort of father figure. When he and other boys are chosen to go with the Military Police, they're confused. Why should they, some of the best fighters, go off with people who they believe are sissy city guards? On there way of going to what they soon find to be a rehabilitation center, the boys go through checks where they must hand over any weapons they have. Ishmael and the other young men hide some of their bayonets and grenades in their pockets so they don't have to turn them over. The rehabilitation center is not what they would have believed, everyone all smiles and "it's not your fault's". There is soon a fight between the boys when they find out that a group are rebel boys. Neither side sees that they do not need to fight each other, and yet when the fight is over, at least one boy is dead and the others extremely wounded. The Military Police are not sure how to handle the boys because they have not seen such violence in kids so young before.

Chapter 16-
The brainwashing that the boys went through is shown to the reader even more when they find themselves at a loss on how to function in the "normal" world. They have lived in a world of just violence for so long, that they do not know what to do without it. They need to feel like they are being respected and they only know how to do that through making the civilians they meet in the city fear them. The entire time, Ishmael's migraines and nightmares increase the more he goes through withdraw from the drugs he used to take regularly. These nightmares usually end with him curled up in a ball out in the courtyard where someone from the facility wraps him in a blanket and brings him back inside; all the while telling him that things will be okay. As the days go by, Ishmael fights them less and less when this happens.

Chapter 13 Questions

Why was it better to carry more ammunition than food and water?

What did he bring with him to the tent?

Chapter 6 Question

Why aren't they going to have any good complete training? 

Questions

Chapter 5: 

When they got to the village, how many people was gathered there? 

Why did they leave Mattru Jong?

Chapter Quote

“We strive to be like the moon” -old man in village (pg.16 Chapter 1) It means we must be on our best behavior

Chapters 7-8; 15-16; 21 Questions

Why are the rebels killing innocent lives?

Why would Ishmael set out on his own?

Why did Ismael stop feeling comfortable around other people?

Image of Civil War

this is how I would picture what was going through the novel as were reading "A Long Way Gone" and how the villagers were being attacked by rebels and you just see dead bodies everywhere you look and gun shoots being fired.

Chapter 3-5 Summary

Chapter 3: 

Ishmael and his friends remained in a place to avoid the attack of the rebels in Mattru Jong. After hours of still trying to search for their families, they still could not find them anywhere.. Until, they got a message that the rebels are coming back and is going to be welcome to the village to fight for the people. But most of the people in the village went hiding because of what happened, after ten days without the rebels attacking them, the village and the people turns to normal. And five days after that, the rebels decided to attack again. Ishmael and his friends escaped from them. 

Chapter 4: 

Ishmael, his friends and his brother finds themselves walking for days in silence and hunger. They passed through places to places as they were walking away from their village. Seek through houses to find money so they're able to buy food. They were struggling to survive. 

Chapter 5: 

The hunger of the group drives them to chase down a child they find passing by eating ears of corn. But later, the boy's mother brings them more corn to eat. Their hunger forces them to return back to their village even though it's not the best idea to do. But they did anyways, and when later found, the rebels divided the group, separating Ishmael and his brother, and told them to kill each other. Then later hid under/behind the trees for them to be able to run away from then... they walked in silence and did not speak about the attack until the next day.

A long way gone is a true story of Ishmael Beah, who becomes a soldier during civil war in Sierra.

Ishmael's village gets attacked by rebels and that's how his life will change. His going to go through

numerous of tough challenges and unimaginable sacrifices. In his journey, he will face struggles to

understand his past and picture a his/new future.

Reflections Ch. 7-8

Chapter 7 -

In the most basic way, chapter 7 is when Ishmael loses everything. He is separated from his brother and friends when the rebels attack the village they had taken refuge in. They (the rebels) burn the Imam’s body ( a highly regarded spiritual leader), and left his body for the dogs. The rebels don’t care for authority and kill anyone, no matter how highly they are regarded. They terrorize anyone who stands in their way, even innocent townspeople.

Ch. 8 -

Lost, alone, and hungry, Ishmael finds himself completely alone in the forest. He has to keep moving to survive, and as the days are going by, he finds himself without food in this forest and his own thoughts are starting to plague his mind. He begins to fear everything around him, when he finally finds a relatively safe place to stay in the woods and his thoughts turn back to violence. He is becoming trapped in his own horrific thoughts. Ishmael is isolated. When he is chased out the forest by a pack of super aggressive wild boar, Ishmael finds a small group of boys he knew vaguely from his school years. As they travel together in a small group, the people and villages they come across are either empty or terrified and aggressive because no one knows who they can trust anymore. There are a few villages that after the initial fear and anger, become sympathetic towards the boys when they realize they are only running away from the war.

Chapter 5 Question

In this chapter, Ishmael was shocked about the war; what was he shocked about?

Chapters 3-4 Reflections

Chapters 3 and 4 are more suspenseful as the war is starting to occur. Ishmael and his crew of friends and brothers start to witness death at its full impact by the scattered paths of dead bodies from the rebels. They try to escape and start to grow hungry, tired, and full of fear. In a situation like this you can’t help but imagine the suffering they were going through. Chapters 3 and 4 take a dark turn; for the worst.

Chapters 3-4 Summary

The war starts to begin as the rebels attack each village of Ishmael’s country. The rebels consider themselves as the “Revolutionary United Front” as “one love”. Many of the villagers go into hiding after receiving the message of the rebels that was carved into their messenger. A couple days later the rebels attack out of the blue while everything seems to be quiet and normal. After they attack Ismael and his followers escape and try to find routes and paths to where they hear no gun shots or people being attacked.

Ishmael and his posse start to starve from walking for several days without food or water. The group turns back to Khalilou’s house to retrieve their money for food, although the house is in shambles the money that was hidden under the bed is still there. On the way out an item drops from the pocket of one of Ishmael’s group and signals the rebels.

Summary

Chapter 1

The story begins when Ishmael was only10 years old and back then he didn’t realize how terrible and imaginable war was. When Ishmael was 8 years old, him and his friends; Junior, Talloi and Mohamed has been singing ever since and decided to form a group to sing rap music and dance to it. They learned dancing and singing rap music when they visited the place where their fathers’ work which was Mobimbi. But there was one thing that Ishmael was surprised about.. he was surprise that black men who rap music, speaks English very fast and well said and with that, him and his friends starts to see, dress, sing, talk like them. In January of 1993, Ishmael, Junior and Talloi went on a trip to the town to participate in a talent show there. As they were there, they visited some towns along the way until they reach the town and meet with couple of their friends in Mattru Jong. And after the trip, the next day after they came back home, their village was attacked; everyone ran in different directions but Ishmael, Junior and Talloi, went to the village to seek for their families. Numerous of people was running towards them, you hear children screaming, women hiding.. until they realized that their journey to the village was going to be really hard, so they spent their days waiting to hear something from their families.

Chapter 2

This begins with Ishmael’s nightmares. He dreams about him carrying dead bodies in a wheelbarrow to the cemetery. The last thing he remembered about his dream was lifting a body of his own face. When he wakes up to his nightmare, he realizes that he’s in New York City, where he has been more than a month now. But living the life as a soldier now of Ishmael, he just wants things to go back to where it has been, to start a new ordinary life.

Chapter 1 and 2 reflections

Chapter 1 and 2 was probably the most important chapters in the story because it talked about the people that are in the story and talked about the war; how Ishmael witnessed the first time he saw war and how it changed his life after the rebel attacked his village.