Do What Needs To Be Done.

This Blog has been set up for my high school English class and has improved my sense of writing and my ability to pick out my mistakes. I, as a 16 year old high school junior, don't particularly take an interest in writing all these posts, BUT I have had an interesting time looking for the information about Sierra Leone. As I have said this blog has improved my writing by helping me with my vocabulary and my ability to use my words in a meaningful way.

Hazard In Haiti

On Jan. 12 Haiti, which is one of the poorest and least developed countries in the world, experienced the worst earthquake in 200 years. The natural disaster left the majority of the capital under ruin and 50,000 citizens believed to be dead. The massive devastation has left many obstacles for any out side country trying to send help. About 3 million people/one third of the pop. in Haiti have been effected. The orphans of the earthquake have been, and are being set up with eligible parents in the U.S..

Life for the Ex-soldier

Ishmael Beah now lives in New York City where he finished college with a B.A.. Ishmael is a pert of the Human Rights organization, and has spoken in front of the United Nations about is past and the situation in Sierra Leone. Ishmael has spread his experience memoirs to many other organizations for children in war torn countries.

Homage to the Boy Soldiers

Be Who You Were Born To Be

"You are a human being. You have rights inherent in that reality. You have dignity and worth that exists prior to law". ~Lyn Beth Neylon

This quote states that all HUMANS are born with a set of rights and no matter what should never be denied them, and given the dignity of always having them.

"Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally". ~Abraham Lincoln

I live in an area where I hear people talking about how we should all own a few "blacks" and as a free thinking human I believe that every other "person" who speaks that way should be put to the whip and see how it feels. Now i wouldn't truly whip someone but it ENRAGES me when people continue to believe in controlling other people.

"A Single Slice Reveals Them" a poem by Niomi Shihab Nye

An apple on the table hides its seeds
so neatly
under seamless skin.

But we talk and talk and talk
to let somebody
in.

This poem is related to the book A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier because it tell us how a person can hide who they truly are inside but if you spend even five minuets with that person you will be able to see who they are and not what they seem to be. In the book Ishmael Beah has been sent to a reform camp after being taken from the Sierra Leone Army and starts to be haunted by the memories of all the killing and dead bodies he has seen. As a soldier he hides the weaker, more open kid inside him. The staff in the facility refuse to let him go through his life without opening up so they continue to tell him it not his fault for being the way he is and continue to trying to open him up. Ishmael himself wants to be the way he was before he was forced to snort lines and shoot rounds but he is so brainwashed he believes that it is impossible for him. It will take along time for him and a relentless intervention for him be finaly open up and be a kid again.

Living Double

In the book "a long way gone memoirs of a boy soldier" the main character Ishmael Beah is taken away from his unit and put into a reform camp where he and other boys from the army get into a fight with rebel boys and wind up losing one of there own and killing two of the rebel boys. At about two months into the boys stay at the camp the boys start to have withdrawals from the heavy drugs they were taking while they were in their units and as the boys start to end the withdrawals the memories of all the people they have slaughtered begin to haunt them and Ishmael is caught between the soldier side of him witch wants to fight everyone that he sees and go back to the front and kill. The boy side of him just wants to play soccer and hang around with his friends. Ishmael is having a hard time trying to find a way to show he is a hard soldier and yet he is wanting to let go and goof off.

LITTLE RAMBO.

L.ives full of hate while
I.nside the fire
T.urned against humanity
T.arrorized by the very soldiers they now burn
L.oves to hear the screams
E.ngulfed by pounds of drugs and the adoration of violence

R.isks own life in the pursuit of blood
A.rmed to the teeth with no desire to stop
M.eans to burn all who bare the R.U.F.
B.urrows into mounds or cocaine and weed just to survive the pain
O.ut raged by the fact the enemy yet live