Reading Response Log: A Long Way Gone #3

“I only smiled and was very quiet that night, as I was to be for a while more. But gradually I adjusted to being around people who were happy all the time.” (pg.182) -Ishmael Beah

……….The quote that I chose for my third response log was regarding the progress, shown through this quote, of Ishmael. I noticed that, within this phrase, I am able to understand the improvement the main character went through in his life, which impacted his feelings and how he views this one. The excerpt proves his true feelings of not being used to having a family, having food and resources, having help, and especially being happy because of war. However, he then proceeds to reveal his change of mind and how he was able to adjust to a normal life that he lacked from young.

……….Honestly, I am disturbed by the fact that a child has the genuine feeling of having to express this type of isolation affects gained due to violent acts that shouldn’t have existed or, at least, shouldn’t have involved him and his family in it. The war not only impacted Ishmael physically, but it impacted him mentally, making him be depressed and isolated from others due to being scared and not trusting anyone that passed him by. He experienced all negative and self-destructive feelings that the boy learned during the conflict, which then, after recovery, still haunts him and makes him struggle through life. Nevertheless, I feel that it’s important to point out his affirmation of complete recovery and an improvement on his well-being thanks to the people surrounding him, which made him not lose complete hope on life and people.

……….From the excerpt obtained from page 182, (“I only smiled and was very quiet that night, as I was to be for a while more. But gradually I adjusted to being around people who were happy all the time.”) I wonder how difficult his recovery and starting to view life in a different way might be. This is because, I think that, changing ones point of view on daily-life activities (from violence to playing outside, surviving alone to having dinner with family, etc), in a drastic way, is really difficult, mentally painful, and challenging to do, because while you are experiencing the change, you are able to see all the wrong ideas a group of people made you believe in, even if you didn’t want to; you are able to see how evil of a person you were and how this vision on life caused others’ lives. This struggle is clearly shown in the phrase because Ishmael expresses how he wasn’t used to being happy, talkative, or safe, that is why he takes his time to assimilate into his new community and flourish new positive feelings that make him a brand new person.

……….Ishmael has always been a shy person when expressing his feelings, however, when he moved in with his uncle, he improved a little on this sector of his life because he isn’t scared or numbed from reality anymore. That is why, I like the idea of how this quote shows his improvement on his overall “person” and how his therapy did work, with time, to change the “killing robot” the war made him be. For this reason, I see that he is starting to actually feel like a kid again as well as content about the everyday life. Consequently, this phrase made me learn how all the group of people that are surrounding someone every day will always have an impact on their opinion on different topics, like how the soldiers and Ishmael’s uncle did with him. This one might sometimes be positive or negative.

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