A Long Way Gone (Post 1)

The conflict Ishmael is faced with in the beginning of the story is a civil war going on in his country. Ishmael, his brother Junior, and a few others went to a town called Mattru Jong. While they were staying there overnight they heard of a rebel army attacking their town. The rebels went from town to town causing chaos, murdering innocents, destroying the towns, and kidnapping young boys to become rebel soldiers. Ishmael and his group went back to their town to try to find their families, and eventually had to try to find a village far away that the rebels weren’t at. The conflict at hand now for Ishmael is he is alone wandering the paths from town to town. In the chaos his group had been able to find a village and be accepted into the village to help as lookouts and eventually work on the farms. However, no one expected the rebels to attack the town so suddenly. Ishmael got separated from everyone during the attack, and after weeks of living in fear he decided he was done being afraid. He decided to start walking to find somewhere to settle and surviving on his own. The only problem now was no one trusted any kids Ishmael’s age after hearing rumors of the teenage soldiers in the rebel army. Everyone Ishmael ran into did not want him to be around. Ishmael was trying to find his way to a city, Bonthe, south of his home town, Sierra Leone, and was instructed to go towards where people may know the fastest route to Bonthe. At this point, in the story, it seems as if Ishmael has almost given up seeing as he has no plan or any idea on how to get to where he is headed.