From the Small Village to the Big City

      In the second of three parts of the story The Bite of Mango the main focus of the story changes from conflict to the setting. I think this because although the war is still taking place in the rest of Sierra Leone, Freetown is somewhat calm. Mariatu Kamara, along with her family had moved into a camp called Aberdeen where they and other amputees had started living after being treated at the Freetown hospital. The camp is located near the outskirts of Freetown, which allows Mariatu and her cousins to go "begging" which they learned during their time in the hospital. "Begging" as Mariatu refers to it as is when the teens go to the city and collect money from the people in Freetown who have money and feel sorry for the people who had their hands cut off by the Rebels. The money that each of the teens earn each day goes towards buying food and clothes for them and their families. After about a year and a half of living in the camp a camp official had come to talk to Mariatu who told her that there was a journalist waiting to see her. The next morning she was talking to an interviewer, answering questions about what happened to her in the past which was exactly what the young girl from a small village in Sierra Leone needed. About half a year after her initial encounter with a reporter Mariatu had been approached by a lady named Comfort who had some great news for Mariatu, a man named Bill from Canada wanted to help her. A week later Mariatu was back in Comfort's office awaiting a call from Bill, because Bill and Mariatu could not understand each other,  Comfort had to do the talking and when she hung up the phone she turned to Mariatu and told her that Bill would be sending her a box of clothes and money and it would arrive in about three weeks. After receiving that package and a few more, Mariatu had another person wanting to talk to her, but this time she had been wanted to move to England to get prosthetic hands, although she wasn't sure about leaving Bill and going to England but her family insisted she would go and take her chance. As Mariatu boarded the taxi-minibus, about to leave her family and her home, Sierra Leone she revoked what Marie said to her on page 141, "Don't look back, Mariatu. If you look back, you will live your life with regrets and what-could-have-beens. Always look forward."

          A self to world connection that I can make to the part of the book when Mariatu is moving to England is when Sierran refugees who are in the same situation as the Seirra Leone people were during their civil war immigrate to Canada and the United States. The part when Mariatu had her baby kind of reminded me of a more dark and twisted version of the TLC show teen mom because on the show their babies are accidents but they know what sex is where as Mariatu got raped and didn't know what sex was. The second chapter was much more peaceful than the first and I think it will get even better for Mariatu.