A long way gone Test Answers – Flashcards

Ishmael's story begins when he is ten years old, two years before the civil war comes to his village. He describes the idea of war as entirely abstract to his young mind and insists that he and his fellow villagers didn't have the capacity to understand what the refugees coming through his village had experienced. It was too terrible and unimaginable. Ishmael, Junior, Talloi, and Mohamed have been singing and dancing to rap music since they formed a group when Ishmael was eight years old. They learned of rap during a visit to Mobimbi, where their fathers and other foreigners worked for an American company. They were transfixed by the music and returned as often as possible to watch rap on the big television. What shocked Ishmael so much about rap was that black men could speak English so well and so quickly to the beat. The rap music has defined how Ishmael and his group dress and use slang. In January of 1993, Ishmael, Junior, and Talloi set off from their village of Mogbwemo on a trip to the town of Mattru Jong to participate in a friend's talent show. They visit the town of Kabati, Ishmael and Junior's grandmother's village, along the way. There, Mamie Kpana, as the grandmother is known, questions them about their schooling. When they reach Mattru Jong they meet up with their friends, Gibrilla, Kaloko, and Khalilou. The boys stay at Khalilou's house and are surprised when he returns home from school early the next day to report that rebels have attacked Mogbwemo. Khalilou tells them that the rebels will be coming to Mattru Jong next. Villagers begin arriving from the mining area in Ishmael's home village, but no one knows anything about the safety of Ishmael and Junior's family. The villagers say that the attack was too sudden and that, in the chaos, everyone ran in different directions to save their own lives. Ishmael, Junior, and Talloi decide they must return to their village and find their families. As the boys begin retracing their steps, they encounter remnants of the attack: crowds of people running; women hiding in bushes screaming their children's names; children, naked and lost, following packs of stray dogs. Ishmael describes cars packed with dead people covered in blood and the terror on everyone's faces as he passes. They realize that a journey back to the village is impossible. They return to Mattru Jong and spend their days waiting at the wharf for word from their families. Ishmael has nightmares of the attack he didn't see but the horrors he imagines.

Comparison and contrast are used to show Ishmael's concept of war before his village was attacked versus his confusion and terror when he has to deal with the reality of the civil war. The refugees that came to his village were hungry and exhausted, but it was their plagued minds that seemed most damaged. Ishmael writes that even if he and his friends had been told the truth of what war would look like when it came to them, they would have refused to believe it. They simply didn't have the intellectual tools to imagine the horrors. This comparison and contrast is effective because it establishes the child Ishmael was before in order to later contrast with the soldier Ishmael would become. Ishmael's village had been an isolated and peaceful place, and he remembers his pre-war childhood fondly. His loss of innocence is profound and violent. He recalls his grandmother's kindness and advice before the war. He's comforted still by her words. Rap music represents Ishmael's way into the modern world. He and his friends are mesmerized by its power and wholeheartedly adopt the rap musicians' ways of speaking, dress, and behavior. Rap becomes a way for them to express themselves through writing their own lyrics. They carry notebooks of songs and cassette tapes of their favorite groups so that they can always work together on their music. Flashback is used throughout Chapter 1 to reveal Ishmael's life before the rebels attacked his village. One flashback reveals that Ishmael's father is absent from his life and unable to afford to send him and his older brother to school. His mother defends their father's efforts but says he seems to ruin things by attracting the wrong kind of stepmothers. Ishmael and Junior's younger brother, Ibrahim, misses their father, too, but he is fortunate to attend school. After he hears of the attack on Mogbwemo, Ishmael conjures terrible images of what might have happened to his mother, father, and younger brother.

This chapter begins in Ishmael's nightmare. He dreams of carrying bodies in a wheelbarrow through his village to the cemetery. He describes a scene of horror: mangled bodies, streams of blood, leaking brains and intestines. His last image is of lifting the cloth off the head of a dead body and seeing that it is his own face. Ishmael wakes from this nightmare to his present life in New York City, where he has been for more than a month. His mind then wanders back to Sierra Leone and his days as a soldier. Ishmael carries an AK-47 on his way to attack a village for their food and ammunition. They open fire on the remaining villagers, many of whom are boys his same age. He and his fellow soldiers congratulate each other with high fives, sit on the dead bodies, and eat the food that the villagers had been carrying. Ishmael is terrified of both his nightmares and his memories and longs only for daylight so he can return to his new life.

In this chapter, Ishmael reveals that violence is not only something that happened to him but also something that he took part in creating. In his opening nightmare, Ishmael is terrified by the death and horror surrounding him, but in the next paragraph, he fully implicates himself in the killing. He describes his actions with his fellow soldiers as callous and unfeeling. Ishmael's present life is haunted by his past behavior. The only solution is to live in the present and claim some of the joy from his childhood that somehow survived even his darkest days.

Ishmael, Junior, and Talloi remain in Mattru Jong with their friends, Kaloko, Gibrilla, and Khalilou. They still haven't heard from their families and do not know if anyone survived the rebels' attack on their village. A messenger arrives from the town of Sumbuya, the site of the most recent massacre. The rebels have carved the initials RUF (Revolutionary United Front) with a hot bayonet on the messenger's body. The messenger reports that the rebels will be arriving in Mattru Jong soon and they expect to be welcomed since they claim to fight for the people. Most of the village goes into hiding, but after ten days without the rebels arriving, life returns to normal. Five days later, the rebels attack; Ishmael and his friends escape.

The theme of terror continues in this chapter. When Ishmael and his friends flee the village, they must run for hours with the rebels chasing and shooting after them. The terror of being caught and conscripted against their will into the rebel's army fuels the adrenaline necessary for their escape. The chaos of war is also revealed through the confusion during the attack. Villagers trying to flee run the wrong way, directly into the guns of the rebels. Many villagers run into the stream and drown themselves. Ishmael and his friends are paralyzed with indecision and choose to run in the direction with the least gunfire. The chaos and uncertainty of their daily existence while waiting for the rebels' arrival adds to the terror of living in a civil war. Through Ishmael's experience, the reader sees how innocent villagers caught between the government's soldiers (who run away as soon as the rebels arrive) and the rebels have nothing else to do but flee. We also see the bonds between Ishmael, his brother, and their four friends. As they flee the village, Junior repeatedly calls back to Ishmael to make sure he is safe. Although each boy must run for himself, they stick together to increase the odds of survival.

Ishmael, his brother, and their friends walk for days in hunger and silence. They pass through abandoned villages and see houses ransacked and dead bodies everywhere. Their hunger becomes all-consuming, and they are forced to return to Khalilou's house for money and provisions. They find the house destroyed, but Ishmael's tiny bag of money is still stashed under the foot of the bed. To seek safety, the group must cross a clearing filled with dead bodies. During the crossing, something falls out of a pocket and makes enough noise to alert the rebel guards in a nearby tower. Ishmael, who has already reached the other side, watches his brother pretend to be dead among the bodies so that the guards don't shoot. Though the boys now have money to buy food, they find that the neighbors in the nearby villages won't sell to them. Either there aren't enough provisions or the villagers are stashing supplies for their own later struggle to survive. Ishmael and his band steal food in the night.

Throughout this chapter, Ishmael's group faces struggles they've never encountered: terror, starvation, and desperation. They try to make logical decisions, such as returning to Khalilou's house to get money to buy food, but they find that logic isn't as useful during war. War brings constant change, and there is no control over the outcome. Their desperation leads them to steal food from strangers, which is something they'd never have considered before the war. Ishmael reveals their theft in the last line of the chapter as if his guilt and shame remain.

Their hunger drives Ishmael's group to chase down a child they find eating ears of corn. It wasn't an orchestrated attack but rather an instinctual assault. Later, the boy's mother brings Ishmael and his friends more corn, but Ishmael writes that there was no room for remorse in such desperation. Their hunger also forces them to return to Mattru Jong even though they know it's a dangerous move. On the way, they are captured by the rebels and forced at gunpoint to join a larger group of refugees. The rebels taunt and torture an old man and force Ishmael's group to watch and to laugh. Ishmael is shocked because, before the war, no one of his age would dare disrespect an elder like that; war has negated the social norms. The rebels divide the group, separating Ishmael and Junior, and tell them their initiation will be to kill each other. Then, they march them to a riverbank and force them to their knees. Gunfire breaks out and the rebels hide, which gives Ishmael, Junior, and their friends time to escape again into the woods, where they hide under dead trees until it's safe. On their way to the next village, Junior smiles at Ishmael but it is the only release of emotion among the group. They walk in silence and do not speak about the attack until the next day.

The theme of silence appears in this chapter. The boys' hunger is so severe that they become irritable and sit apart from each other. They speak very little, and the silence leaves them overtaken by their own terrifying thoughts. This chapter begins with the boys in silence from hunger and ends after the boys have escaped the rebels and are again unable to speak. Their response to their near-death experience is numbness and shock. The social custom of respecting elders is violated due to the war. Another social custom that has been violated because of the war is respect for the elderly. Ishmael writes that most of the youth were well-behaved before the war and that there was pressure among them to be respectful of their parents and especially of the older members of their community. He is shocked when the rebels capture and torture an old man who hardly has the strength to stand. To further scare the old man, the rebels fire a bullet near his ear and laugh when he thinks he's actually been shot. His pain and despair seems to entertain the rebels, but it causes members of Ishmael's group to cry and to vomit. This shows the lack of humanity that has broken down among the rebels and the humanity that still exists for Ishmael, Junior, and their friends.

Because Ishmael and his friends travel as a band of young boys, they are often feared by local villagers, so the boys stick to the bushes and try to avoid the towns. Once, they are captured by a group of men who are volunteer guards for their village and are brought before the village council. Because they have no identifying information, the chief threatens to have them drowned. They find a cassette tape of rap music in Ishmael's pocket and play it for the council. The foreignness of the song makes them even more suspicious of the group. They are saved when a young boy from Mattru Jong remembers their rap group's performance and is able to name Ishmael, Junior, and their friends. Once the chief knows that they aren't rebels, he offers them shelter and food, but the group decides to move on because they know that attacks on all the villages are imminent. During their travels, the boys meet a woman who tells them that Gibrilla's aunt is in a village called Kamator, and they decide to seek shelter there. They arrive in time to be part of the planting season and are given the job of clearing the land. They farm with the villagers for three months before the rebels arrive and they are forced to abandon the land without ever seeing the fruits of their labor. During the attack, the group is separated, and Ishmael never sees Junior again.

This chapter reveals a breakdown in trust among the villagers that had been a strong bond before the war. Ishmael, Junior, and their friends agree to stay together, but they realize that their grouping as six young men frightens the villagers that they encounter. There were rumors of bands of boys sent by the rebels to kill and terrorize the villages. Before the war, their group would have been taken in by any village, fed, and cared for, but due to the fear of attacks, Ishmael, Junior, and their friends are shunned. Strangers have become immediate enemies, and even people who knew each other before the war are cautious with each other now. While relating the details of the farming in Kamator, Ishmael flashes back to a time before the war when Ishmael had visited his grandmother during harvest season. He was given the easy task of pouring wine on the soil to thank the ancestors for the harvest. Because Junior and Ishmael's parents were separated and they lacked a mother at home, they were treated as misfits and pitied by the local community. The feeling of being an outsider without a true place returns to Ishmael during their three months in Kamator. The flashback also serves to reinforce the bond that existed between Ishmael and his brother before they were torn apart by the war.

Kamator, the village Ishmael, Junior, and their friends are hiding in, is attacked late one night without warning. Most of the villagers are at evening prayer when the rebels invade. They capture the imam, tie his body to a post in the town center, and light him on fire. The rest of the villagers are killed or flee into the bush. Ishmael manages to escape, but he is separated from his brother and friends. After a night in hiding, Ishmael finds Kalako and they return to the village to find everything burned. Ishmael and Kalako hide with a family for two weeks, but the silence and fear become too much and Ishmael sets out on his own. He walks toward the sea and for five days straight he doesn't see any other people. All the villages have been abandoned and burned.

In this chapter, Ishmael is isolated from all that he has known. He loses contact with his brother, his friends, and everyone from his present and past. Following the attacks, he becomes frustrated living in hiding and fear and decides to simply leave his companions in the bush. Ishmael chooses a further isolation by leaving, but he somehow musters the strength to keep walking and survive. The treatment of the imam, a highly religious and revered spiritual leader, shows the rebel's disregard for the village structure and morality. They burn his body publicly as a threatening symbol to the villagers and leave his remains to be eaten by dogs. This shows that they respect no authority but their own and will go to any length to terrorize the people.

Ishmael keeps walking to survive. He passes through the remains of villages filled with dead bodies and rivers running red with blood. He sees the terror on the victims' faces and it makes him walk faster. He finds himself in a dense patch of forest with large, high trees and feels safe for the first moments in months. He eats unfamiliar fruit and waits to see if it's poisonous. This reminds him of his grandfather's knowledge of herbal medicines from the forest and Ishmael wishes he'd listened more and learned how to survive in nature. His loneliness is overwhelming, but he finds solace in the sounds of nature, which gratefully help to drown out his terrifying memories. He begins fearing sleep and where his thoughts might take him. After encountering an aggressive pack of wild pigs, Ishmael leaves the forest and returns to the path. He runs into a group of boys, and they are all stunned from the meeting. Fortunately, Ishmael recognizes a few of the boys from his school days and joins the group, but after a month in the forest without human contact, he's uncomfortable around people and uncertain how to behave. Ishmael also worries that being with a group of seven boys will invite trouble. He decides that his loneliness is too much, though, and accepts the risk. He travels with the boys for days and finds that rumors of the group terrify people in the villages as they approach. They are often attacked and struggle to defend themselves. Once the villagers realize that they are only a group of innocent children fleeing the war, they are more sympathetic.

Ishmael struggles between the demands of his body and the plague in his mind. He needs to think through his next move and find food, but when he turns his thoughts on, his mind goes to terrifying places. He begins to fear not just his surroundings but himself as well. Even when he's reached physical safety, his mind returns to violence. This shows the struggle of man versus himself and how Ishmael becomes his own worst enemy. He has to fight himself mentally for survival. Loneliness is a constant theme in this chapter, even though it's his isolation that keeps him safe. The loneliness becomes too much and leads Ishmael to take up with another group of boys even though he knows well the dangers. Through rumor alone, Ishmael and his group terrorize others. People flee or attack when they approach. They are treated as monsters, and Ishmael fears that that is exactly what they are becoming.

Summary Ishmael's group reaches the ocean and finds a village nearby where they expect to be welcomed because they assume war hasn't reached the coast. When they enter the village, they find it eerily abandoned, as if the rebels had already attacked. Instead, the boys are attacked, bound, and dragged to the chief. Rather than kill them, the villagers steal their shoes and chase them from the village. Ishmael and the boys are forced to walk barefoot in the sand in 120-degree temperatures. At the end of the day, Ishmael's feet are covered with peeling flesh and congealed blood laced with sand. The group collapses in a hut, and the man who lives there tends their injuries and feeds them. The boys must stay and heal their feet before they can move on. On the fourth night, they ask their host his name but he tells them it's better that they don't know. He continues to care for them with food and water and salt water soaks for their feet until his mother comes to report that the villagers are on their way to attack. Again, the boys are tied up and taken to the village chief. For the second time the cassettes of rap music save Ishmael and the boys. When the chief hears the music he makes Ishmael perform. The chief then realizes that they are only children and lets them leave the village in peace.

Ishmael's innocence is seen again when the boys reach the ocean for the first time. They hide in the forest before realizing that the terrible sound they fear is the crashing of waves on the shore. This shows how inexperienced the boys truly are in the world and how the unknown brings fear rather than wonder. When they learn that they don't have to be scared of the ocean, they behave again like children, playing in the sand and running in and out of the surf with delight. The scene is powerful because it reveals the childhood Ishmael may have had if war had not consumed his life. Regardless of the war, Ishmael is still a child who has been forced to grow up much too quickly. Silence becomes the norm again when the boys are trapped in the old man's hut by their injured feet. They never talk of their past nor of the horrors of war they've seen. Numbness prevails and protects them from each other and themselves. When they ask their host's name, he tells them that it's better to be quiet and anonymous in order to protect them all. When the boys do talk, it's only of safe subjects like school and soccer. Even their conversations seem dangerous as they reveal too much or open up topics that they don't have the capacity to discuss nor understand. Rap music has been a constant companion in Ishmael's life, and twice the cassettes he carries in his pocket have proven his childish innocence. In this chapter, Ishmael listens to the words for the first time rather than simply feeling the beat and mimicking the lyrics. Ishmael has always relied on rap music to tether him to the outside world, but he now associates it with his survival and, for the first time, doesn't enjoy the music.

Ishmael's journey to survive continues in a state of misery. He worries that each time he faces death, a part of him dies a little. He treasures the few moments of joy that bring relief from his constant sorrow. His thoughts return constantly to his family and his longing to see them and know their fate. Ishmael and the boys travel from village to village, often finding them abandoned. They sleep a night, forage for food, and move on. In one village, they are allowed to take part in a festival and given a bag of dried meat when they leave the next morning. The meat is stolen and eaten by a stray dog and the boys blame each other. They choose not to harm the dog, but they realize that the day may come when they will be desperate enough to do something completely uncustomary, like eat dog meat for survival. In this chapter, each of the other boys — Musa, Alhaji, Kanei, Jumah, Moriba, and Saidu — share their stories of the rebels attacking their village. The tales are horrific, including accounts of slaughter, torture, and rape, and Ishmael realizes why they so often rely on silence to protect themselves from their past. The boys continue moving, walking at night and hunting for food during the day. They sleep during the day in shifts so that someone is always on guard against attacks. They tell stories to each other and Ishmael recalls his name-giving ceremony. Along the way, a crow falls from the sky, which they consider a bad omen, but they are hungry enough to eat the bird. Later, Saidu falls ill and can't respond. When he wakes, they help him to a nearby village and are surprised to see how crowded and lively the village is. The marketplace is running, and people are dancing in the streets. Saidu continues to faint, and the boys decide to rest one day in the village so that he can recover. They are fed and given a veranda to sleep on. A woman finds them and tells each of them news of their family. Ishmael learns that Junior has recently been in the village; Ishmael can't sleep because of his excitement. During the night, Saidu dies, and the boys are responsible for honoring his death and burying his body before they begin travelling again, this time in search of their families.

Like their ancestors, the boys rely on oral tradition and storytelling to both entertain and to explain the world around them. To pass the time one night, Musa tells the story of Bra Spider who also struggled for food and survival. Listening to Musa's story reminds Ishmael of similar evenings listening to stories around his grandmother's campfire. Oral storytelling also plays a key role in the ceremonies of the village, and Ishmael is reminded of the tales told the night of his name-giving ceremony. The descriptions of the ceremony reveal a traditional culture with clearly defined male and female roles. The women prepare the food and dress to impress each other. The men lead the ceremonies and smoke together. The gender roles are tested in these times of war as women have to learn to defend themselves and boys like Ishmael have to cook to survive. Even in desperate times, the burial customs are enforced. When Saidu dies, his body must be wrapped in white linen and placed in a wooden coffin. An elder man helps the boys have a funeral service and leads them to a burial ground. Saidu's body must be buried before nightfall or they must take the body from the village. The burial ground has row after row of mounds of freshly dug graves, many of them anonymous. Ishmael's grief and uncertainty overwhelm him. All of the boys sob when they leave the village. Though he feels like he his abandoning his friend by leaving Saidu's body, he knows that they must continue travelling if they hope to live.

Ishmael and his friends approach the village where they've been told some of their families are living. They meet Gasemu, a banana farmer whom Ishmael knows, and agree to help him carry bananas into the village. As they approach, they hear gunshots, dogs barking, and people screaming. The village is under attack; the boys drop their bananas and hide in the bushes. They watch the horror until the gunshots subside. Then Ishmael runs into the village, which is engulfed in flames, and finds bodies burned beyond recognition everywhere. Gasemu follows him and shows him the hut where Ishmael's family had been. Ishmael rushes in but doesn't find any bodies inside. Ishmael attacks Gasemu in anger and the boys begin fighting among themselves. The approaching voices of rebels cause the boys and Gasemu to hide. They overhear the rebels boasting of the killings, but there is uncertainty as to whether some villagers may have escaped. Gunshots begin again and the boys run deeper into the forest with bullets at their back. When the boys finally stop, they realize that Gasemu has multiple gunshot wounds. They take him to the wahlee outside the village, where he dies.

The power of nature is a constant force on Ishmael's journey. He spends his evenings walking and feels that the moon is a constant companion. On moonless nights he is uncomfortable and frightened. Because the boys often walk in silence, their senses have become keener. The noise of nature is pervasive, and the forest both protects them from attacks and hides their attackers. They listen to the leaves for danger. They assess the wind for threats. They seek cover in the forest during thunder and lightning storms. The theme of the chaos of war is prevalent in this chapter. The boys are filled with excitement and hope at the possibility of seeing their families, only to have the village go up in flames before their eyes. The threat of violence is constant. The uncertainty of the rebels' next move creates a terrible tension and fear. Because the attack happens just as the boys are approaching the village, Ishmael blames Gasemu, a banana farmer, who delayed their arrival by asking for their help carrying bananas. Ishmael is furious and tries to strangle Gasemu. His friends hold Ishmael back, and Gasemu tells him he couldn't possibly have known this would happen. The boys begin fighting each other, even as houses burn around them. They argue whether their delay saved their lives or whether Gasemu is to blame for the possible deaths of their families. It's ironic that, in a time of sheer terror and violence, the boys turn violent toward each other in response. Hope and loss are closely juxtaposed in this chapter. The news of their families causes the boys to hope again, but just as that hope is about to be realized, the rebels' attack on the village causes more loss and uncertainty. The boys aren't even sure what they've lost; they don't know if their family members were even in the village. Gasemu tells Ishmael where his family had been, but because there aren't bodies inside the hut, Ishmael must wrestle with the loss of his family again mixed with the possibility that they may have escaped. It's unclear if not knowing is worse than knowing.

After walking for days, the boys are captured by a group of soldiers and taken to Yele, a village occupied by the military. There, they are put to work chopping vegetables, carrying water, and washing dishes. It is a welcomed relief, but Ishmael suffers severe headaches daily. The village seems an oasis of normalcy in the war, but it is flooded with orphans. Ishmael writes that there is nothing to fear during the days in the village: children play soccer and marbles and parents tend their children. But Ishmael suffers migraines and nightmares and withdraws from village life. Weeks later, the village of Yele is surrounded by rebels, and the military are losing the war. They tell the boys and men that they must either join their forces and fight or leave the village. Ishmael and his friends feel that they have no choice. Leaving the village means an immediate death at the hands of the rebels. The next day, they are moved into tents near the soldiers' barracks and given guns. There are more than thirty boys, from seven-year-olds to sixteen-year-olds. They are given new shoes and clothing. Ishmael's old clothes are burned with the cassette tapes of his rap music inside. Ishmael is both furious and terrified about joining the fight, but when he seeks solace from his friends, they all turn away in silence. The army of boys begins training. They learn to shoot AK47s and to kill rebels by using bayonets on banana trees. They are continually reminded that these rebels killed their families and that they are inhumane. The only hope for revenge, they are told, and for justice is to do the same to the rebels that was done to their own parents and loved ones.

This chapter is a turning point because Ishmael and his friends are conscripted as child soldiers for the first time. It is ironic that the very village where life seems normal and safe becomes the place where their futures as child soldiers are determined. The theme of the horror of war is prevalent throughout this chapter as Ishmael and the other boys face an impossible decision. If they flee the protection of the village, they risk being killed by the rebels. If they refuse to fight for the army, they risk starvation. This shows that in times of war, people are forced to choose among horrible options that are often detrimental to someone else. It's kill or be killed, and Ishmael joins the army as his only chance of survival. Their motivation to join the army is survival, but the theme of revenge is present as well. The boys are brainwashed into believing that, by soldiering, they can take revenge on the men who killed their families. Every trouble they face will be blamed on the rebels as a way of motivating the boys to continue to kill in the name of revenge.