Question

Think about the memory moments you noticed during the unusual normality. What skills and habits did Ishmael Beah learn as a child soldier that helped him both in New York and in the paintball game ? PLEASE ANSWER THIS IS DUE SOON

Answer 1

What I wish though that I had been able to tell them because it was only years later that they learned why I had won the game but I wish I had been able to tell them early on because I wanted them to understand how lucky they were to have a mother, a father, grandparents, siblings, people who to them were annoyingly caring about them and calling them to make sure they were ok. I wanted them to understand also that it was extremely lucky for them to only play pretend war and never have to do the real thing and that this naive innocence that they have about the world was something that I could no longer have I did not have that capacity.

Explanation:

so I went into the bushes because id memorized the layout of the place I knew where to go and so I would hide I would climb a tree here I would hide under shrubs and they would come rolling around jumping doing all kinds of things probably they'd seen in movies about how people were in war.

And I would just wait for them and after they were done exhausting themselves I would just come up behind them and shoot them. And so this went on and during lunch during dinner they would talk about this - how come you're so good you're sure you've never played paintball before I said no I've never played paintball before. And so they started to team up with each other and I would see them sometimes I would walk backwards and I would stand where my footsteps began and they would start following and I would be behind them and I did all kinds of things that I thought were very funny. These friends of my the next day in school they talked about the game the awesome weekend of paintball wed had but they never said id won all the games. And I said nothing at all... they never invited me back to play paintball with them.

I wanted to talk to then about the war while we were playing this game I wanted to explain to them certain things but I felt that if they knew about my background they would no longer allow me to become a child with them. My silence allowed me to participate in my childhood with them it allowed me to experience certain things with them that I didn't think were possible to do as a child because of where I was coming from.