11th Grade Applied Summer Reading Assignment ELCO High School 2013
Due to your English teacher on August 25, 2015
“I Want to Tell Them They have Second Chance” by Oliver Poole
ISHMAEL Beah was 12 when his home country, Sierra Leone, descended into civil war. He was 13 when he killed his first man, high on drugs and dressed in the uniform of his national army as he pulled the trigger. At 15, the United Nations' children's rights organization Unicef saved him from the front line. At 17, he was living in New York. By 27, he was a bestselling author. Meeting him, you would guess none of this. Dressed in T-shirt and slacks and with a grin that remains boyish despite now having turned 32, Beah is bent forward in his chair in the hotel café where we meet to talk, clearly keen to get something off his chest. It is not literature, fame or even war, however. With the opportunity to talk to a European, Beah, now a Brooklyn resident, wants to discuss the genius with which football is played by Messi, Xavi and Iniesta of Barcelona. "They are incredible. Truly inspirational, you know. In New York people don't know football. Me, I try to never miss one of their matches. It's something of beauty." What makes his unabashed enthusiasm and passion for the game so remarkable is the knowledge of how rare beauty or play were during his own childhood. He spent his youth in Sierra Leone when the Revolutionary United Front, whose soldiers were feared for their habit of amputating the hands of their enemies, took over the country's eastern diamond mines and marched on the capital, Freetown. For Beah that meant the destruction of his hometown, the killing of his parents and brothers, and months spent wandering the countryside with a band of other boys foraging for food for survival. When they finally reached an army base and believed they had found safety, the soldiers forcible recruited them into their ranks. The unit's commander stuck guns into the frightened boys' hands, fed them a cocktail of drugs — most corrosively "brown", a mix of cocaine and gunpowder — and unleashed them on a two-year killing spree. By the time Beah was rescued by Unicef, he was in charge of his own small boys unit and was so filled with rage and hatred that his first act on arriving at the charity's rehabilitation center was to attack the boys already there and start destroying the furniture. "Everyone was angry," he explains. "All the kids I was with. I didn't think there was any point to me. I literally went from having a family to not having anybody. We thought the soldiers would keep us safe. Then, of course, they recruited us. From the first day of training, if you didn't do what you were told you could be badly beaten or even killed. Then we got addicted to various kinds of drugs. When you're high you can go on for hours, for days. You lose your mind because you are already fighting and traumatized by the things you are seeing. You cannot even feel your own skin. That's how much removed you are from yourself. That's the kind of madness." It is a madness he captured in his 2007 bestselling memoir, A Long Way Gone, which went on to sell more than 600,000 copies worldwide. It is a theme — not only war but its impact on people — that he will further explore when his first fiction book, a novel about a family seeking to rebuild its life in post-conflict Sierra Leone, is published shortly. Yet, despite his literary success, perhaps the most direct way Beah has sought to use his experiences to bring a resolution to what he underwent has been through his work for Unicef, the charity which rehabilitated him.
The hotel we are in is in Bangui, the capital of the Central African Republic which — much like Sierra Leone — has been ripped apart by warring bands of militiamen fighting for political influence and control of the local diamond and gold mines. He left Africa when he was fostered by an American woman who sent him to a good school in Manhattan and then to Oberlin College in Ohio. He still has a house in Sierra Leone, however, and hopes one day to return to his homeland to raise a family. BEAH was in the Central African Republic as a Unicef ambassador, accompanying the charity's child protection workers into the bush as they negotiate with armed groups for the release of the children held there. Beah's task was to reassure the children that they too could have a second chance. "I was sitting by this boy as we left the camp," he recalls of his most recent trip. "He was restless and I told him I had felt the same: 'A few minutes ago you had a lot of power, you had a weapon, you could control people, and all of a sudden you feel like you have nothing.' When you are a child soldier you do not even know where you are going. The road opens in front of you. All you can think is that you want to go back to what is familiar. To what you know. 'I know how you are feeling,' I told him. 'You are angry. I used to be you.' And then he relaxed." Unicef runs a network of rehabilitation centers across the Central African Republic similar to the site where Beah was first taken on his release. We visited one. The children sat around in the shade, avoiding the heat of the midday sun. A few days beforehand a fight had broken out when former members from rival groups clashed. Dressed in his Barcelona football strip, Beah grabbed a ball and led them out to play on a flat patch of dirt outside. Suddenly these former child soldiers could have been boys anywhere as they chased after the ball and leapt in delight to celebrate a goal. Hearing Beach’s story and knowing what children like him have undergone, it is hard to conceive how anyone could emerge with their humanity and sanity intact. Ishmael Beah, however, is proof that it can happen.
Close Reading 1. Ishmael Beah is a native of ____________________________________. 2. _____________________________ and _________________________ were missing from Ishmael Beah’s childhood. 3. True or False – Ishmael Beah voluntarily joined the RUF. 4. Describe Ishmael Beah’s attitude upon first being rescued from the RUF.
5. This organization is responsible for rescuing Ishmael Beah and other child soldiers. ______________________________________________ 6. Upon arrival in The United States, Ishmael Beah earned a degree from ______________________ college. 7. Ishmael Beah is now a UNICEP Ambassador. He describes his role, in particular with that of a young child soldier. Explain how he was able to convince the young boy to let go of his fear and anger.
8. What is the overall purpose of this article?
Vocabulary Choose 10 words from the article. For each word complete the following: 1. Write the paragraph number where the word appears. 2. Write the vocabulary word. 3. Write the definition for the vocabulary word as it used in the sentence (part of speech). 4. Write the sentence that uses the word. 5. Use the word in your own original sentence. EXAMPLE
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V. – to move or fall down descended Ishmael Beah was 12 when his home country, Sierra Leone, descended into civil war.
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The student’s grade descended to a C- because he did not complete his assignments.
You may not use the above example as one of your 10 vocabulary words.
Name: English Teacher:
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