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Ashanti R. Floyd
ENC 1102 W 5pm
Professor Davis
Feb. 11, 2009

His story begins in 1993, in Sierra Leone, on the western coast of Africa. Ishmael, his older brother Junior, and a friend set out from home to enter a talent show in a nearby village, Mattru Jong. They may not have TVs, but they've still managed to pick up a passion for American hip-hop-LL Cool J, Run-DMC, and Naughty by Nature: cassettes of their albums are the boys' prized possessions, and in their spare time they memorize songs and dance moves.
But when they arrive in Mattru Jong, the boys learn that rebel soldiers, part of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), have attacked their home village, and are now headed in their direction. Ishmael and his friends are in jeopardy because both the rebels and the Sierra Leone Armed Forces, the government army, are known to force boys to join them. And if the boys resist? They kill them on the spot.
So the boys flee into the forest, not knowing what has happened to their families back home and not sure where to go. Ishmael is twelve years old. As they run, the boys are confronted with terrible scenes of brutality. The dead and dying scatter about the countryside. The full force of war hits Ishmael when he sees a woman carrying her dead child upon her back. He writes, "I didn't want to go back to where that woman was from; it was clear in the eyes of the baby that all had been lost." In the time before his flight, he "had heard from adults that this was a revolutionary war, liberation of the people from corrupt government. But what kind of liberation movement shoots innocent civilians, children, that little girl? There wasn't anyone to answer these questions, and my head felt heavy with the images that it contained."
Filled with confusion and horror, Ishmael and his friends try to drown out the thoughts of catastrophe by memorizing more hip-hop lyrics and working on their act while they seek news of...