The Power of Dreams Follows You Wherever You Go

      While in England, Mariatu begins to have bad dreams about the rebels. The dreams start with her "walking along the clay dirt road to Port Loko all over again," (pg. 145, Mariatu). A hawk, used as a symbol of warning, calls out to her telling her danger is on the horizon. "When I looked over into the tall elephant grasses, I could see the main rebel man. He raised his hand and ordered the boys to attack, and that's when I saw their faces again. Their eyes were wild, their cheeks were all puffed out, and they were covered in blood- my blood...they were on top of me swinging their machetes," (pg. 146, Mariatu).
    Yabom suggests she is having these dreams because Mariatu has never talked about what happened to her in Sierra Leone to someone who was actually listening. Mariatu felt that the journalists she talked to never actually listened. She feels that way because "the journalists all said the rebels had raped me and that I had conceived Abdul during the attack on Manarma," (pg. 105, Mariatu). Yabom suggests telling her what happens. Mariatu ends up tells her about the attack and the guilt she has about Abdul dying.
    While her dreams had nothing to do with Abdul, her pregnancy fell while she was recovering from losing her hands. This would have added to the stress she was already under and because of this she probably associated her pregnancy with the war.
    In my opinion, this is a clear indication of how dreams can show us what we are struggling with most. Mariatu needed to talk to someone, which happened to be Yabom, about the attack so she would stop having bad dreams. Mariatu was keeping everything inside about the attack, and keeping everything inside makes it hard to let go of the past and the attacks, which was what she needed to do.