A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Solider (Chapters 3-5)

Lily Tikijian
October 7, 2008
Literature Period 6
Mrs. Pfanschmidt

A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Solider
Chapters 3-5

When chapter three starts off, the boys are still in Mattru Jong. There were there a lot longer then they anticipated. None of them had heard news about there families and didn’t know what else to do except wait and hope that they were okay. There were messengers that reported news to the surrounding villages telling them when the rebels were going to attack and to be ready. They were talking about in the early chapters how the rebels would kill anyone, especially those who had escaped. I didn’t know how they knew that they were once soldiers but they tell us that the rebels carved their initials, RUF, on the bodies of the boys and some times they chop off all of their fingers except the thumb. The rebels finally come to the village of Mattru Jong, they didn’t come at the time they said they would though, they were late. No one was ready when they came. All Ishmael remembers is gunshots being shot into the sky and him running. He sees children that lost their parents and parents trying to find their children. He said he couldn’t stop and help anyone because then he would be risking his own life. He said, “My heart was beating faster than it ever had. Each gunshot seemed to cling to the beat of my heart.” Him and his brother and friends escaped the village and ran through a swamp with some rebels following them. After an hour or maybe more of running, the rebels gave up the chase and went back to Mattru Jong while the boys kept going. For several days the six boys waked on a tiny path that was walled by thick bushes. Ishmael says they didn’t speak a word, they didn’t know what to say. They were starving and tired. They reached some tiny abandoned villages but there was no food anywhere. They said that it hurt to drink water because they were so hungry; they felt the water cramp up in their stomachs. When they got to one village they were almost captured but the escaped by crawling through the tall grass over hundreds of freshly killed bodies. They made it to a village that was still populated and stole food. When they were out in the field they were captured by the rebel soldiers. They were going to have to watch the boys that weren’t chosen get killed but then for a split second there were more gun fires and the rebels who had captured them got distracted so the boys ran for their lives and stayed in a log for hours. Once it was clear they got to a villages and stayed put but they decided they were leaving the next day.