Though Mariatu had more "downs" than "ups" in her life, she managed to persevere and become more positive and write a book about her experiences throughout her life. A passage that represents this comes from the end of the book on pages 211 and 212 where Mariatu decides to speak to the president about people affected in the war, it reads, "Yes," I said out loud, even though the room was empty. "I will meet with the president tomorrow. I will speak for all the people of Sierra Leone who are not being heard." Something in me had changed. I knew now that I could look forward and back-without any regrets- at the same time. This part of the story is important because it shows you that if you put your mind to something, no matter how much you have previously been through you can make a change in the world. During the course of the story there had been several times where Mariatu had just wanted to give up, including when the rebels captured her, when she found out that she was pregnant, and during different times of her stay at the amputee camp. Lucky for her, she had people around her who wanted her to succeed and eventually prosper in life such as Marie who had given her the advice to always look forward before moving to England, Yabom, who had let Mariatu go to Canada rather than England, where she wanted to be. Lastly, Kadi had been a big influence of Mariatu once she moved to Canada by making her feel welcome with her food, nieces, and her hospitalities because of the death of Bill's son who had initially had brought Mariatu to the country, Kadi had also got Mariatu involved with school, and also introduced her to Susan McClelland to write the book.
This part of the book reminds me about a story that we read as a class a couple of years ago about Emily Murphy and a couple other women who fought to bring more rights to women. The reason I thought of these texts to be connected is because each story had several large challenges that the women had to overcome, for instance, Mariatu had to get money for herself and her family, move to Canada, learn how to do things without hands, learn English, and go to school. The women in the other story had to do different things to get the government to listen to them and get them to make new laws about rights of women. I also made a text to self/world connection about Mariatu moving to Canada and starting school. I compared it to about 5 years ago when Sean moved from the Phillippines and starting school here.
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