6-7

Luke Beckman

6-7 blog.

This weekend we read chapters 6-7. These chapters were not as violent as the others (at least until the end). We started in chapter six with them reaching a small village. The war had not reached it yet, and it was still, relatively speaking, thriving. When the boys came close two it, a few men came out of the bush with hunting rifles and machetes. They bound them up and took them to the village center, where they were then taken to the village elder. When they got there, he asked if they were rebels or spies. This was really weird for me, because he implied that those were the only two things you could be. The boys said that they were neither, and at first the leader did not believe them. Then he found the rap tapes, and asked where they had gotten those. They said in Matru Jong, where they were going to perform as rappers. That was when one of the boys from the village recognized them. The 6 boys had never seen him before, and he had just saved their life. They left the village soon after, thanking the people of the village for there offering of shelter. The boys knew they couldn’t accept, because the rebels would reach there soon enough. The boys went down a trail for a long time, and came across an abandoned village. They stayed there for that night, and during that time Ishmael remembered the time his brother had showed him the magic trick of making stones walk on water. Although it was just skipping stones he was very moved by this memory because his brother said that one day he would teach him the magic trick of skipping stones on water. The next morning a group of people passed through and one of the women gave them directions to another village about 30 miles away. The boys started going there. It is amazing to me that they can just go trekking 30 miles and even really care about it. When they got to the village, they met Gabrillas uncle. He was a hard working man. He took the boys in and then he put them to work. They planted cassava plants, and later started farming. They were fine for another 3 months, then the rebels came.
Chapter seven starts with the rebel attack. They came sometime at night, and by surprise. Kaloko was at the mosque, and when the people at the mosque realized that the rebels were coming, they had all left, while the leader of the mosque had stayed behind. Later they found out that the leader had been captured, and when he refused to tell where all of the villagers went, he was bound to a pole and burned at the stake. When Ishmael heard the attack he ran into the bush because he didn’t have time to look for his brother, junior. When he finally stopped to rest, he started thinking about him, and what had happened to them. They found a family hiding in the bush and stayed with them for two weeks. To Ishmael, it was the longest two weeks ever. Once every three days they went back to the village to see if anybody had returned, but no one did. On the sixth day of doing this he saw some people down at the river. They were swimming in it. So he went down to the river and talked to them. They were very reserved about him. They asked him where was he from and where was he going. Ishmael responded “I am from Matru Jong, and I have no idea where I am going”. This was a good example of his never ending running and what the rebels have done to his life. He had nowhere to go and no idea where to go. The father of the family told him to keep going to the sea. And that was the end of the reading.