Journal 7: Reading Response Tim Davis

     To me the character that has meant the most to me so far in chapters 18 and 19 in A Long Way Gone would be Esther. Esther has completely rehumanized Beah. Beah started out thrwing his food trays at the hospital and completely blowing off Esther to sharing all of his war stories with her for no reason. She told him to just share and she will give advice here and there if it was okay with Beah. He even got so comfortable with her that he would sing some rap songs with her. I think it helped that he began to have a little crush on her as well. I feel as though since Beah has gathered what ever boy was left in him and pieced it back together, rehabilitation will just help mold him back to a normal boy as he can get. With the right guidance it is very possible for this rehabilitation to work. I would not mind at all if Ishmael Beah moved into my neighborhood. People make mistakes whether it was on purpose or it wasn't a choice. Just because somebody made a bad mistake in their past doesn't mean that that specific action defines them as a person as a whole. People can change it is hard to change if nobody will accept them. Such as Mambu was unable to change when got turned down by his own family. I would like to share a flashback from my active reading that stuck out to me in chapter 19 page 190. "Standing next to a tree with red frozen sap on its bark would bring flashbacks of the many times we executed prisoners by tying them to trees and shooting them. Their blood stained the trees and never washed off, even during the rainy season". i picked this flashback because i thought that this writing really brought the sense of sense of seeing blood stained bark when in reality it is something as simple and harmless as sap. A favorite passage I highlighted is from chapter 18 page 172. It is when he meets his uncle Tommy and he says "After you are done here, you can come and live with me. You are my son." the passage goes on, but what i liked was how Tommy called Beah his son and Beah states "No one has called me son in a very log time. i didn't know what to say". I love this passage because it brings Beah back to a calming and loving part of his life being called someone's son.