Child Soldiers

For my child soldiers, I decided to look at A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah, because some people used it in class for their projects and I feel like we've heard a lot about it. There is an excerpt from chapter one on the book's website, so I went ahead and read that. It seemed a bit like what Laokole saw while she was hiding in the bushes at the side of the road in Johnny Mad Dog, only more depressing because you know the little boy seeing this will soon become one of the people responsible for this kind of horror.

One of the many many unfortunate things about child soldiers is what happens after the wars or if they are released from the army. Some do recover from this severe psychological trauma, but others remain in chronic depression and suffer from other psychological disorders. There are groups that run centers to educate these children, but I imagine that it must be an extremely difficult thing to do as well as experience for the people who work there.

According to Amnesty International of Australia, "a 1993 UNICEF survey of 1,505 children who lived through the war in Sarajevo, Bosnia, found that 29% felt unbearable sorrow and 20% had horrifying dreams. Child soldiers, who have seen terrible things and may have done them too, are often severely affected. When asked about the future, some in Sudan began by saying, 'If I am not dead... ' or 'If I am alive...' "

It seems to me that everything happening in Africa, wars and disease and food and water shortages, are taking the greatest toll on children. Either their parents die and they are left vulnerable and helpless, or they are directly affected, such as being taken into the army. I hope a lot of effort is being made to help children in Africa, otherwise ten or twenty years down the road, things might get a lot worse because when these children become adults, they will not have skills or education to step into the government or professional positions.

Johnny Mad Dog

I finished Johnny Mad Dog several weeks ago for class, but never blogged about it, so here it is...

This was a book that I really enjoyed reading. While the majority of the story is very disturbing and not pleasant at all, it was still written in a way that made it very easy to keep going. I think my favorite character was Laokole's mother. I think a lot of people when reading stories like this might want to see a maternal desire to keep her family together, but I really respected this woman for realizing that it would be impossible to keep her family together, and that her children would honestly be safer without her.

I chose to use Laokole for a significant part of my second paper, because I think she represents a lot of girls in similar circumstances in Africa. We aren't even sure which country this story is happening in, which is, I think, another way they author shows how girls like her can be in any country or any conflict. She did kind of bother me at times, but she did handle her circumstances in a much better way than many sixteen-year-olds I know would have.

I also looked up Johnny Mad Dog on IMDB, but it looks like it's only been released in France, Belgium, and Liberia, with some screenings at film festivals in other countries. Maybe Dr. Webb can pull some strings and get this for his next class...

“For us African writers, writing is also a matter of survival”

For my final project, I chose option #3, to develop a plan for my own further study of Africa. Since I am a social work major and a French minor (and everyone says, "what the heck are you going to do with those two?"), I decided to look at African francophone countries and discover how different cultures and the colonization and decolonization of African countries by the French affect Africans' lives today.

I found four francophone authors that interest me very much:

Ahmadou Kourouma- he wrote a novel called The Suns of Independence that has earned reviews in Europe as a masterpiece, but is largely unknown outside Europe and Africa.

Tanella Boni- she writes poems, novels, essays, and plays, and is very involved in philosophy prgrams and humanitarian efforts.

Marie-Charlotte Mbarga Kouma- she is a playwright, actor, and dancer.

Yolande Mukagasana- she survived the 1994 Rwanda genocide and published 3 books to raise awareness and in memory of the events.

I decided if I could, it would be very interesting and beneficial from a social work perspective to be able to talk to these authors or their contemporaries, families and children, and officials in francophone African countries. One idea I discovered while writing this paper is that in order for cultures to have defining characteristics, they need to have other cultures to distinguish themselves from. I think it is an interesting idea that the colonizing countries neither withheld their culture from the people whom they were colonizing, but neither did they willingly allow the colonized population to have full access to all the colonizer's culture. One thing I would be interested in exploring is how the combination of cultures, French and traditional African societies, resulted in the characteristics of today's African countries.

World AIDS Day

Today is December 1st, World AIDS Day. I started to look at the World Health Organization (WHO), but quickly got extremely overwhelmed by the amount of information on the main website, but when I remembered that today is AIDS Day, I focused on a few things about WHO's involvement with AIDS in Africa.

About World AIDS Day, WHO says

"World AIDS Day on 1 December draws together people from around the world to raise awareness about HIV/AIDS and demonstrate international solidarity in the face of the pandemic. The Day is one of the most visible opportunities for public and private partners to spread awareness about the status of the pandemic and encourage progress in HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment and care in high prevalence countries and around the world.

There are now 33.2 million people living with HIV, according to 2007 figures released by WHO. An estimated 2.5 million were newly infected with the virus and 2.1 million died of AIDS the same year. Eight countries in sub-Saharan Africa now account for almost one-third of all new infections and AIDS deaths globally."

Dr. Luis Sambo, the WHO Regional Director for Africa, spoke today about AIDS in Africa and the treatment of the epidemic:

"This global theme is of particular importance to sub-Saharan Africa, the Region hardest hit
by the HIV/AIDS epidemic, accounting for more than two-thirds (67%) of all new HIV
infections worldwide and for three-quarters (75%) of all AIDS cases in 2007. We also note with
deep concern that an estimated 1.9 million new HIV infections occurred in sub-Saharan Africa in
2007."

He noted that access to antiretroviral therapy is increasing in sub-Saharan Africa, and he also said that prevention and treatment need to be increased, HIV counseling as well as couple counseling should be emphasized, as well as safe sex practices.

There is obviously a huge need for help for treating and preventing AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa, but despite the statistics and figures against him, Dr. Sambo and WHO seems to reflect a positive message of hope about the state of AIDS in Africa.