Journal 6 Collin Thacker

English

10/14/19

Collin Thacker 

Esther has meant the most to be characterwise in the novel A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah. This is probably true because she reminds me a lot of my mother. For one the book describes Esther as caring and gentle I believe my mother also carries those characteristics. And two they are both nurses!

I feel that Beahs rehabilitation worked but i would still be terrified to be around him after all the people he violently shot, stabbed, attacked, and stole from I’d say your an idiot if you dont feel the same way. I would definitely not let him move into my neighborhood because you never know what the little things are that will make him snap and return to his old ways.

One thing i took from this book was the deep, thorough, and cognizant passages he spoke of…”it was as if nothing else existed in our reality” (A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah page 124). The point  I’m trying to get across is there is so much though that goes in to every little detail he writes.

Finally, one thing that i highlighted in the last chapter was the monkey story and coming up with an answer I though it was very clever…..when i was Seven i had an answer to this question that made sense to me. I never discussed it with anyone, though, for fear of how my mother would feel. I concluded to myself that if I were the hunter, I would shoot the monkey so that it would no longer have the chance to put other hunters in the same predicament…(A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah page 218). It shows he deeply contemplated this for a long time and concluded he would be the one that steps up and does what’s right for the greater good of everyone

Madi Conrad UNICEF Research

Madi Conrad
English 1109 at 1:30, M-W
Monday, October 14th, 2019

Research Exercise

This is one of the UNICEF logo's that represents

part of the things that they stand for.

UNICEF is a national organization that helps do many things, including trying to stop war and rehabilitating child soldiers. Some of the other things that UNICEF helps with is providing immunizations, water, nutrients, and protecting those in harm. I have personally worked to raise money for UNICEF in my high school through and organization called Key Club. UNICEF is known for being able to take donations and work with other organizations to work at their goals. UNICEF began after World War 11 by supplying goods and attending to the urgent needs of those who were affected. UNICEF currently works with over 190 countries. One of UNICEF's main goals is to protect and rehabilitate the children going through the most rough times. Something I find interesting about UNICEF is that they not only work with non-governmental organizations but, they also work with governmental organizations. Another main goal of UNICEF is to protect the environment and provide a safe and clean environment as most deaths of children that currently occur from environmental causes.

https://www.unicefusa.org/mission/emergencies/conflict

https;//www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/P110140-6736(18)32821-6/fulltext

research exercise- abby archer

PTSD stands for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. PTSD is a condition that may last months or years, with triggers that can bring back memories of the trauma accompanied by intense emotional and physical reactions. In countries like Sierra Leone, child soldiering is very popular which causes the children to have PTSD and depression. According to Elisabeth Schauer, the repeated exposure to war and the experiences of it will hamper their healthy development and their ability to function fully. A study shows a report rate up to 90% survivors have been affected by PTSD.  Another study by Gloeckner found that the more violence children had been forced to commit against others, the more PTSD symptoms could be expected. Researchers found that children who reported ‘hurting another human being’ scored highest in terms of development of PTSD symptoms in war-exposed children in Kuwait. They also found a prevalence of 97% post- traumatic stress reactions of clinical importance in former child soldiers, among who 39% had to kill a person themselves and 77% of the children had witnessed killings while in captivity. They treat the children with PTSD in rehabilitation centers along with certain medicines to help with anxiety and depression. Workers help to rehabilitate the children back to being a regular child and to be able to function in the real world instead of in a world filled with war, surrounded by violence and drugs. According to JAMA and archive journals, researchers found that PTSD symptom severity was significantly more improved in the narrative exposure therapy group than in the academic catch-up and waiting-list groups. The children may not be able to go back to being regular children such as playing and going to school but the therapy groups will help them cope with their PTSD. It will take a long time to get well and it will take time to be able to accept the trauma they went through. For children, it’s hard for them to understand especially when their growth development was interrupted by war and the experiences of it.

 This is the War Affected Children Rehabilitation Organization Center where counseling sessions occurred for former child soldiers

websites:

https://www.usip.org/sites/default/files/missing-peace/The%20psychological%20impact%20of%20child%20soldiering%20-%20Schauer.pdf

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/08/110802162325.htm

Research Exercise- Emaleigh Haimerl

Emaleigh Haimerl

ENG 1109 M-W at 1:30

October 13, 2019

Charles Taylor War Crimes

     The topic I chose to write about was Charles Taylor and his war crimes. In my research, I have found out that Charles Taylor is a seventy-one-year-old man that stole money from the Liberian government and used it to buy illegal weapons, houses, and cars. In 1980 Taylor was a supporter of a coup that Samuel Doe led and when he supported that it ended up in President Tolber Jr’s murder. When Tolber Jr was murdered. After that Taylor was given the job of Director-General of the General Services Agency (GSA) which left him in charge of Liberia’s money(Wikipedia, 2019). Before Taylor was arrested he was Liberia’s president. Taylor provided the RUF with their weapons to kill people in Sierra Leone. Taylor and the RUF leader invaded Liberia to try and force out Liberia’s government. Taylor was found guilty of 11 counts of crimes against humanity. Taylor will serve 50 years in a British prison. 

This was when Charles Taylor was in office before he got caught for stealing government money.

Work Cited

Bowcott, Owen. “War Criminal Charles Taylor to Serve 50-Year Sentence in British Prison.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 10 Oct. 2013, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/10/former-liberian-president-charles-taylor-british-prison.

Anderson, Jon Lee. “Charles Taylor and the Killing Tree.” The New Yorker, The New Yorker, 20 June 2017, https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/charles-taylor-and-the-killing-tree.

“Charles Taylor (Liberian politician).” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 13, Oct. 2019, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Taylor_(Liberian_politician).

Research exercise Collin Thacker

English 

Collin thacker

10-9-19

Freetown Sierra Leone 

Freetown is the capital of Sierra Leone as well as the

largest in Sierra Leone West Africa and is known for

its beaches and its slavery and both of which were

mentioned in the novel A Long Way Home by

Ishmael Beah. Their centuries old cotton tree symbol

is for emancipataion due to high labor and low to no

wage at all, prospects that lead most of the slavery

in this country. There is a waterfront also known as

Kings Yard Gate where slaves walked to freedom. A flight

from Columbus ohio to Freetown Sierra Leone can cost up to

$2,054 for 19 hours and 30 minute flight.It is today generally

considered a safe country. Their biggest fear is roads and tides.

Sierra Leone is rated 180th of 187 countries in the Human Development

Index in 2011. Their flag consists of three colored stripes

green white and blue in that order from top to bottom. I

would love to someday visit present day Sierra Leone

as the pictures of beaches look beautiful!

Coast of Sierra Leone during our winter seasons

www.sl.undp.org 

www.lonelyplanet.com 

Research Exercise- Chas Martin

Chas Martin

English at 1:30

Mr. Lohre

October 13^th, 2019

           

Run DMC, Wu tang, Ahmad Lewis, Ice cube…honestly I could go on forever. These are just a few names that brought us great hits back in the 80’s. Personally I like 80’s and 90’s hip-hop. It opened up a lot of doors for current hip-hop and spread their culture around the world. This topic was interesting for me because he mentioned so many names I knew to be too familiar. My dad used to play Run DMC when I was young and I still can remember listening to The King Of Rock or Christmas in Hollis around Christmas time. So when Beah mentions it in the story I could make that connection as a kid listening to the same music.
Now my tunes were coming out of speakers while Beah was listening to be a Walkman cassette player. They were extremely popular in the 80’s and 90’s; you could find one in any store or on any young boy or girl’s ears. Everything 80’sPodcast stated, “Over 385 million of them would be sold and it became a staple and identifiable part of the ‘80s that laid the groundwork for all future electronics that allowed you to listen to music on the go.” So without the creation of the Walkman Cassette player we may have never ended up with the ear buds we have today.

It looked exactly like this. Many upcoming rappers would buy a bunch of cassettes and record their music on the cassettes and give them out to get their music on the streets. When the RZA was an upcoming artist and creating Wu Tang they bought a bunch of yellow cassette tapes and stated that there cassettes would attack you like bees on the streets.

        The Walkman only helped spread music but people started to make it a culture. It created a new vibe in clubs and created movements that won’t be forgot. NWA started a new movement against police harassment and did it through the words in their music. This music spread across the world and created new movements that stretched further than the United States. Becky Blanchard, a researcher on social movements in the 80’s commented, “Rap shares its roots with other forms of traditionally African-American music, such as jazz, blues, and soul. Rap may also be closely linked to reggae music, a genre that also developed from the combination of traditional African drumming and the music of the European ruling class by youth of limited economic means within a system of African economic subjugation.” This was brought to life by the hip-hop music from the 80’s.

         Beah also mentions that he listen to Bob Marley in his memoir. When he was going through rehabilitation he was brought back to life through the inspiration and togetherness of his music. I also listen to reggae when I’m slumped or feeling down, the music brings you back to yourself and helps you live in the present instead of worrying about the past. Along with hip-hop, Bob Marley also led a mission of peace and created popular movements against war.

Sources:

https://web.stanford.edu/class/e297c/poverty_prejudice/mediarace/socialsignificance.htm

https://www.everything80spodcast.com

           

Research exercise- Jacob Francis

Common weapons in Sierra Leone

The G3: The G3 is a select fire Battle rifle. It shot 7.62x51mm rounds and was developed by Heckler & Kock manufacturing, a german arms company. The G3 was developed in the early to mid 1950s when germany found that the G3's predecessor, the G1, wasn't capable of keeping up with the rest of the worlds weaponry. Maxim Popenker from firearms.net wrote; "The key reason of high popularity of the G3 is that it is much simpler and cheaper to manufacture" (Popenker). The G3 is still manufactured today and is used in many smaller country's to wage war. This is why we saw the use of this weapon in Sierra Leone, its a cheap and simple gun for small revolutions.

https://modernfirearms.net/en/assault-rifles/germany-assault-rifles/hk-g3-eng/

The AK47: The AK47 is one of, if not the most used assault rifle in the world. The AK47's official name is the Kalashnikov Model 1947, the AK47 got this name after its designer and its first year of manufacturing. Mikhail Kalashnikov designed and started the production process of the AK47 in 1947 for the Soviet military. The AK47 also fires a 7.62mm round. The common magazine holds 30 rounds. Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica wrote;  "...they have long been the favoured weapon for many guerrilla and nationalist movements throughout the world" (Encyclopedia Britannica). This shows how AK47's are a favorite for guerrilla movements like the one shown in Sierra Leone.

https://www.britannica.com/technology/AK-47

The RPG: Better known as The Rocket Propelled Grenade. The RPG is a soviet weapon introduced into service in 1962, and later into north Vietnam in 1966. It has been hailed as a “hand-held anti-tank grenade launcher” (Carl O. Schuster). The RPG fires a 4.4lb projectile a maximum of 962m, but good luck with that because you only have a 10% chance of hitting something 5 feet in front of you because of the weapons design. The RPG is cheap and easy to produce which may be a leading cause of it horrendous accuracy. Its cheap design may also be why it is commonly seen in the hands of gurrilla forces like the ones in 3rd world countries including Sierra Leone.

https://www.historynet.com/arsenal-the-rpg-7.htm

http://dev.opforsolutions.com/rpg-7-replica.html