Early in the book, Ishmael says, "The war had destroyed the enjoyment of the very experience of meeting people"(48). Where else in the book does he express the fact, or suffer from its consequences? Discuss the book's ongoing struggle between trust and survival. Can these two phenomena coexist?
I a civil war like in Sierra Leone, trust and innocece are the first casualties. As Ishmael travells with his companions from village to village people often run or eye them with a sense of fear. Children, especially boys, are no longer innocent, they ahave become killers. This is especially sad in a culture that honours hospitality and extended families. Trust is destroyed, “This is one of the consequences of the civil war. People stop trusting each other, and every stranger becomes an enemy.” (pg 37). In certain villages Ishmael is able to win people over with his rap impressions and foster a little trust. This, however, is short lived. In the context of this book trust and survival do not coexist. There may be glimpses of it but they are like an oasis in a desert. When people are merely struggling from hour to hour, trust is a luxury that can get them killed. This is the nature of civil war, especially in an already impovrished nation like Sierra Leone.
