What Ending

The tone of the last third of "What is the What" is very different than one might expect. Because the story had been, up to that point, relatively grim and harsh, a reader might think there would be a good ending. But true stories don't really have good endings. So the last third of the book is, I would say, melancholy. Even though Achek has escaped to America, there are always hardships and pain. The ending is sad, in a sweet sort of way.

     The most interesting part about the last third of the book for me was the man that didn't exist. When Achek met him, he was everything Achek wished for--kind and welcoming, with food and shelter to comfort Achek while he was injured. Obviously, this wasn't a reality, but it was a fantasy that held everything Achek desired in that  moment.
I believe the man was supposed to represent God.
Additionally, the bicycle was there. When Achek, Moses, and William K were children, they had guarded the bicycle, as it was the most beautiful thing they had ever seen.
The bicycle symbolizes what Achek wishes to hold dear to him, what he never lets go of, what he "guards." In Achek's subconscious, the bicycle is a symbol of everything that was shiny and perfect in his life, and everything he needs to keep close in his memories.
The most interesting part of Achek and his personality, to me, was his optimism and his belief in good. At times it vanished, when he was afraid, young, or injured, but no matter what happened he always held onto a hope that things would get better. Even when he is ambushed in his home in America, he believes that he can reason first with the robbers, and then with the little boy. He always believes that people can have an underlying goodness and has a sense of hope, even when nobody else does.

What Blog #3

         

                  What is the What had a very bittersweet ending, which the tone in the last part of this book mimicked. The author used some very strong sentences that gave us hope for Valentino, yet sometimes made us feel sorry for him as well. During the last pages of this book Valentino was about to board the plane to take him to america, but at the last minute the 9/11 attack had happened and made all the boys lose hope in going to america. "As I had foreseen, as Maria had foreseen, I was being sent a message from god. I did not belong on this or any plane."(pg. 525). During this Valentino even questions if he wants to go to america because of how awful it looks from the attack on the twin towers. The whole book was leading you up to the freedom of Valentino, but then the author turns it around making it seem like he is just going to have to suffer even more in america. This is the kind of mental mind games the author has been playing on us giving us a little shred of hope for Valentino then crushing that hope only to spark a new one, like a roller coaster with small ups and huge downs. This is not bad, in fact it is really good, and I for one am very appreciative of someone who can write in that kind of tone. It makes the book feel very intense and interesting.


               The book what is the what was a roller coaster of emotions, both for the characters and reader. It truly shows the hardships of the Lost Boys, and what they have endured. It was a harsh tale from start to finish but was expertly written giving tons of feeling and power to the characters in this book. It was very inspirational proving that anybody can do anything if they put their mind to it. The reader can learn so much from this book, their are tons of lessons to be learned, one major on would be gratitude and how Valentino is so grateful/appreciative of what he has and what he receives. Over all the book was very good mixing an interesting and mind boggling tale with great writing, to make a very good book.

"What is the What", the end.

Valentino spends the book telling stories he remembers about his life. It seems that there are like two worlds, his present and his past. What is happening in his present affects the tone of how he tells his past for the first part of the book, but slowly he accepts the painful memories in his life and he ends with a reflective tone. The robbery at the beginning made him upset, so he begins telling stories of the times he experienced people treating him poorly. "I stand before Powder and my memory is searching for the time when I last felt this betrayed, when I last felt in the presence of evil so careless." (pg5) He is angry at the citizens of the United States and the way he is treated here so his tone becomes angry and annoyed ("I am tired of this country.."-pg7).  But soon, Michael comes and in an attempt to try and relate to Michael, he tells stories of his life as a young boy. This tone seems more compassionate. "At this moment, I am contemplating ways I might save you" (pg. 48). The tone changes so much because with every new person in his life, he has all of these memories that bring forth many different feelings. But right before Achor Achor arrives, there is a shift from the ever-changing tone. Valentino seems to have accepted that the Christian neighbors have not helped and he just tells them his life story, with a kind of peaceful tone. He seems to be slowly appreciating his past and the fortune he has now. He goes to the hospital and continues on with telling Julian his story. Although he is upset with Julian, he doesn't let it get in the way of his story. His memories let him reflect on the life he has now and the life he used to have. He appreciates the wonderful life he has now after remembering the amount of pain he has suffered through. "Each time I find myself giving up on this country, I have the persistent habit of realizing all that I have here and did not have in Africa." (pg. 351). He transforms from a storyteller who was altered by his past, to one that values the experiences he had. Towards the end of the book, he is checking his phone and his last voicemail is from a familiar friend. "The last message is from Moses. Moses of Marial Bai. Moses who was brought north as a slave, Moses who was branded and escaped and later trained to be a rebel. Moses who went to private school in Kenya and college in British Columbia and now lives in Seattle." (pg. 477). This causes him to reminisce about his experiences and how far he has come. Valentino has grown in strength because he has accepted the life he's had. Valentino falls back into a reflective, calm town, which guides the reader to the end of the book.

My favorite part of "What is the What" is when Valentino rides a bike for the first time. While the boys stagger through the desert, many have gone mad, many have died and all haven't eaten for days, a bunch of swirling lights appear in the distance. Dut is gone, so Kur tells the boys to run. Valentino runs in a random direction and ends up getting cut on  barbed wire. On the other side of the barbed wire, there is a man who offers him help. He brings Valentino into his shelter and gives him water and nuts and cleans his wound. Valentino notices the bicycle and the kind man teaches him how to ride it. "The round-bellied man sighed and called himself crazy. He rolled the bicycle out of his home and into the sun. The spokes shimmered, the frame shone. He showed me how to sit on the seat, and while I arranged myself upon it, he held the bike upright. It was the most astonishing bicycle ever seen in Sudan, and I was sitting on it luxurious black leather seat" (pg. 206). I love this part because it is almost like a dream or something that would only happen in a movie. The way Valentino describes it makes the experience sound so perfect at first I thought he was hallucinating. It was just this random kind man in the middle of nowhere. It gave me hope that Valentino was going to be okay and the kindness of this man in-between so many villagers refusing to help the lost boys was truly inspiring.

The tone of the last third of the book is stern and somber. This is shown through all of the criteria in the acronym DIDLS, which is diction, images, details, language and syntax. The whole style of the book is written to be very straight-forward and brutally honest. The writer doesn't dress the story up with fancy words or theatrics. It just is what it is. When Valentina gives his belongings to a man in distress in Kenya, he soon realizes that it wasn't worth it and that it was probably a scam. After he realizes his folly he says: "Each exhalation was a falling tree and my mind went mad with the noise of it all, but I deserved the turmoil. I deserved nothing better. I wanted to be alone with my stupidity which I cursed in three languages with all my spleen (342). The author uses words that everyone can understand and relate to in order to make the reader sympathize with the narrator. They are simple words that are interpreted easily, the exact opposite of Shakespeare. Nice and straight-forward. The tone of the book is somber because it describes in detail the scenes of villages destroyed and people dying. The author again describes the events very evenly and without dramatic words and images. When describing the refugee camps on page 371, the narrator says, "In Kakuma, a community of tents grew to a vast patchwork of shanties and buildings constructed from poles and sisal bags and mud, and this is where we lived and worked and went to school from 1992 to 2001." When we think of the idea of living in houses made of mud and poles, we relate that with horrible squalor and bitterness. The author describes these images in detail but leaves it to the reader to interpret them, not telling them how to feel. For example, he simply describes these scenes without adding adjectives for effect. The overall tone is somber because of the subject, but it has nothing of Romeo and Juliet flowery tragedy. It is subdued in its language and style, even though just as tragic as Rome and Juliet. That is a comparison of two ways of describing tragic events and stories. The book also uses straightforward language, using words that the reader understands instead of overly complex vocabulary. It also sets the scene by using Sudanese titles such as father, which is respectful to call someone older than you.

Achak lives for a long time in refugee camps, and this left me wanting to know more about refugees not only in Africa but in the world as well. I kept asking, "Which countries have the most refugees? What major events right now are causing people to be displaced from their homes?" This is an issue I am interested in, so I decided to investigate more about it. According to the MillionSoulsAware website, there are approximately 5.3 Sudanese who left their homes and are refugees. They did this to escape the genocide. In Columbia, a similar military problem resulted in 2.9 displaced people. The Middle East gets most of these refugees, and the second largest areas are Africa and South Asia. People leave because of conflict in their country that is always violent. According to the AllAfrica Newspaper, conditions in these camps are horrible to live in and there is usually a desolate feel in them. There can be around 66,000 people at a camp at a time. Here is a picture of a refugee camp Yida in South Susan (from BBC):

 

Whattttt??? #3 Alissa WInkler

What is the What never had the ultimately happy part that I was expecting in the last third. And surprisingly, I am ok with that. What is the What is not suppose to be a happy book, it is a true and painful story that leaves you with a sense of hope. It is a miracle Valentino Achak Deng lived and was getting a second chance at life. He grabbed the opportunity to leave Kakuma by the horns and even though a complete stranger to the USA, he made it work best he could. His life in Atlanta may have seemed horrible at times, but compared to life in the "Walking Boys"group he had left, he was incredibly thankful. He learned valuable skills, got a job, got sponsored, and went to school. Everything thing is new to Achak Deng, the world is confusing but he is getting by. He even manages to cope with the loss of the love of his life Tabitha who is brutally murdered by her boyfriend. And still, at the end of the book, he chooses to keep his hope alive and move on with his life. "The heavens have been a hammer to me, and I will be moving, as soon as I am able, to a quieter place. A place where I can spend some time thinking. I nee to make some new plans without the eyes of these clouds over me"(533). Achak acknowledges his past but has learned not to let the horrible memories and cruelties of the world set him back or stop him. He is not extremely excited to leave but he knows it is for the best, he knows he has hope. The question of what the "what" actually is pops up throughout the whole book. The Dinka people chose the cows. I believe this was a smart choice, because if they chose the "what" then why would be getting something they already have. I think the "What" is hope. And Achak has had the "What" all along. He is still alive and still hopeful. 

My favorite part of the book was when Achak mets the man who does not exist. Achak has been walking for months and has received a huge gash on his leg; he thinks he will die within the next days from infection and lack of food. Then a mysterious man appears out of nowhere and takes him into his home. The man lives alone in hiding, he's escaping from the world but seems to have bountiful food supplies under his house. He gives Achak nuts, water, and an orange and is extremely pleasant. Achak even feels comfortable enough to ask him if he knows what the "what" is, and the man replies "keep looking." I have a strange feeling this mysterious man is suppose to represent Jesus. Anyways, in his home is also the exact same bicycle that as children, he, moses, and William K had guarded with aw. I love how even though Achak has been exhausted and beaten up mentally and physically from walking for months, he is finally given the chance to ride the bike. He gets to feel free again and regain a small portion of his childhood that had been demolished by the war. 

What Blog #2

                 I think the one of the biggest culture clash's in this part of the book is when Valentino goes to the hospital. He has just been found by Achor Achor and has dealt with the cops, and is now receiving medical care for his wounds. He is at the worried about not being able to pay the hospital without health insurance. "Valentino, we've got to take care of everyone that comes in here. By law, we do. We can't turn you away. So you don't need to show your credit cards..."(pg. 243). He is so startled when he doesn't have insurance, thinking that he is too suspicious. He is trying to cover up any suspicion by showing his credit card. This is showing culture clashing, because it depicts his lack of knowledge in this country by a hospital visit. A normal american would have no problem with going to the hospital, but since his culture has nothing quite like a hospital he is frightened and confused.

Finding the What

The last third of the book, after Tabitha is murdered, exemplifies hope in both Achak's  past and present life.  By the end of the book, the author's tone also infers that Achak has adapted to change; He has accepted his misfortunes and is ready to move on, but he will not forget his past or the lessons it has taught him.  Throughout the these pages of What is the What, hope is demonstrated in all characters.  Pg 492, "Tabitha would talk only about the United States, about Seattle, about what she would find there.....Oh, she would laugh, the kaleidoscopic possibilities!" Pg 487; Maria, "I told her what I knew: that girls were invited to apply.....When I told her this, a light came to her eyes, for a moment, before flickering out." Pg 535; Achak, "Whatever I do, however I find a way to live, I will tell these stories."  There is hope when Ms. Gladys lets the refugees act in a large city, when the possibility of leaving Kakuma is presented, when Achak hears of his parents' survival and even when Achak speaks to the boy who stole his cell phone.  Achak loses people who mean the world to him time and time again, and he receives each blow with a strong will and faith in his god.



There were many joyful and painful moments in What is the What, and I find myself noticing a bit more of all the luxuries in my world.  Many parts of the book were touching, such as the passages where people showed Achak love and comforted him as a wandering child, but perhaps the most touching was the part where he was able to comfort someone else.  Towards the end of the book, a group of men from Sudan are bracing themselves for departure the next day.  The youngest boy appears to be frightened, and Achak lets him know that they are a team and will no longer be ignored. "But we're no longer rain, I said,- we're no longer seeds.  We're men. Now we can stand and decide.  This is our first chance to choose our own unknown.  I'm so proud of everything we've done, my brothers, and if we're fortunate enough to fly and land again in a new place, we must continue. As impossible as it sounds, we must keep walking. And yes, there has been suffering, but now there will be grace.  There has been pain but now there will be serenity.  No one has been tried as we have been tried, and now this is our reward, whether it be heaven or something less than that".  If I ever go through hardships even 5% of the difficulty of Achak's in my life, I hope that I will have someone who can comfort with words like these, and a group of people as resilient as them to carry me along.

Finding the What

The last third of the book, after Tabitha is murdered, exemplifies hope in both Achak's  past and present life.  By the end of the book, the author's tone also infers that Achak has adapted to change; He has accepted his misfortunes and is ready to move on, but he will not forget his past or the lessons it has taught him.  Throughout the these pages of What is the What, hope is demonstrated in all characters.  Pg 492, "Tabitha would talk only about the United States, about Seattle, about what she would find there.....Oh, she would laugh, the kaleidoscopic possibilities!" Pg 487; Maria, "I told her what I knew: that girls were invited to apply.....When I told her this, a light came to her eyes, for a moment, before flickering out." Pg 535; Achak, "Whatever I do, however I find a way to live, I will tell these stories."  There is hope when Ms. Gladys lets the refugees act in a large city, when the possibility of leaving Kakuma is presented, when Achak hears of his parents' survival and even when Achak speaks to the boy who stole his cell phone.  Achak loses people who mean the world to him time and time again, and he receives each blow with a strong will and faith in his god.


There were many joyful and painful moments in What is the What, and I find myself noticing a bit more of all the luxuries in my world.  Many parts of the book were touching, such as the passages where people showed Achak love and comforted him as a wandering child, but perhaps the most touching was the part where he was able to comfort someone else.  Towards the end of the book, a group of men from Sudan are bracing themselves for departure the next day.  The youngest boy appears to be frightened, and Achak lets him know that they are a team and will no longer be ignored. "But we're no longer rain, I said,- we're no longer seeds.  We're men. Now we can stand and decide.  This is our first chance to choose our own unknown.  I'm so proud of everything we've done, my brothers, and if we're fortunate enough to fly and land again in a new place, we must continue. As impossible as it sounds, we must keep walking. And yes, there has been suffering, but now there will be grace.  There has been pain but now there will be serenity.  No one has been tried as we have been tried, and now this is our reward, whether it be heaven or something less than that".  If I ever go through hardships even 5% as difficult as those of Achak in my life, I hope that I will have someone who can comfort with words like these, and a group of people as resilient as them to carry me along.

Third Post

The tone in the very beginning of the last third starts off hopefully. Through all the tragedies and suffering encountered through the past few years, Valentino still has hope and drive left to create a livable life. After years of living in several refugee camps and being threatened by several different ethnic tribes, Valentino goes off on a mission to successfully get "recycled." "I walked through the night perhaps too cheerfully, thinking my trip charmed and knowing I would be successful. With any luck I would be back at Kakuma with six thousand shillings and another ration card, in three days time." (396) Obviously later in the book, the tone changes but the candle of hope was still lit inside of Valentino. Soon after Valentino embarks on his journey, he is scammed by a man that stole all his belongings. “...I deserved the turmoil. I deserved nothing better. I wanted to be alone with my stupidity, which I cursed in three languages and with all my spleen.”(408) The author Dave Eggers uses very plain language and says it exactly how it is without any spice. Even with the blunt text it is easy to see that Valentino stands out from many of the unaccompanied minors, with his passions and helpful personality. Valentino’s reason to leave Kakuma to get “recycled” was in the better interest of his new family.

When the Lost Boys from Sudan went to see a NBA basketball game they talked to the pro basketball player Manute Bol who left Sudan before the civil war broke out. Basketball was a very popular sport in Kakuma and a main way to pass time. Manute bol was 7 ft 7 in, coming from one of the tallest populations in the world, the Dinka. His parents were 6 ft 10 in and 6 ft 8 in, Manute didn’t even start playing basketball till he was 15 years old. Bol played on many different teams in the United States and passed away on June 19th, 2010 at the early age of 47.

DIRECTIONS for third posting and comment

Third Posting due Thursday, March 20
Third comment due Tuesday, March 25

For this post, write a CCQC that identifies the TONE of the last third of the book.  The claim should include an adjective or two that you think describe the tone, then you need lots of examples/quotes from the book that prove your claim.  Sophs, if you need a refresher on TONE, I have put it up on the Edmodo site.

Then write a paragraph that does one of these things, your choice:
*describes a favorite part of the book
*is a review of the book
*uses some part of the book to comment on an issue that interests you


For the comment, find someone who has a different idea than you do about the tone, or about some other part of the book in their second paragraph.  Add to their evidence, or challenge their idea by countering it with evidence of your own.

Post two-Cultural Clashes: the alluring tampon box.

Valentino and the other sundanese men that travel to America experience many cultural shocks because they are not used to a consumerist society. When they first arrive, they are in awe at the amount of the products sold in America and the beauty of each product. "There were a different pair of Lost Boys, who had recently been taken shopping for the first time, at an enormous grocery store. They had fifty dollars to spend, and had no idea where to start. Along the way, they had picked out a very special box and put it in their cart. Their sponsor, a woman in her fifties, smiled and tried to explain what was in the box, which was in fact tampons....She thought she had accomplished her task, only to find that the men wanted the package anyway. 'It is beautiful' they said, and they bought it, took it home, and displayed it on their coffee table." (pg.175)

Even though this is early on in the story, it reached out to me because it made me think about the things we take for granted. To find something as boring to us as going to the grocery store so amazing, it defines the difference of our two cultures. We are used to the life where we can go to a beautifully lit store with thousands of items that never run out of stock and think nothing of it. While they, they find it extraordinary and enticing. This perfectly describes the modern consumerist culture vs. the culture that the Lost Boys grew up in. In the consumerist culture, we are used to endless factory farmed products and the giant availability of things. But when they are in awe of such a thing we find so boring, it makes me think that in their culture, people spend more time on their products. This probably makes them more valuable. An example of this in What is the What, is when Valentino is describing his early days in Marial Bai. He tells us about a dream day that he thought of before sleeping when he was on his journey to Ethiopia. The day begins with him leaning against his sister as she is grinding grain. He then goes to the compound of a girl he is in love with, Amath. Amath is winnowing shorghum. After Amath asks him for a bucket of water, Valentino runs to a washerwoman and asks to quickly borrow her bucket. These three women put an enormous amount of time and hours into something Americans in a consumerist country don't even think about. The two Lost Boys were probably amazed that not only was a product so beautiful, but there were many copies of it. It probably takes ages to make a beautiful thing in the Sudan, while in America, millions of them are created in five minutes. This is also because the United States is a wealthier country than Sudan, so Sudanese are probably not used to so many products that are all a variety of colors and styles. An example of this is when there is a bicycle that a shopkeeper traded for in Marial Bai.Valentino, and his friends William K and moses are in awe of the commercial beauty. This shows that Sudan is not a consumerist country, and poorer because a fairly average object to us is priceless to them. They also did not know what to do with the plastic, so they are not used to consumerist packaging. Below is a picture of a shopping center in Khartoum that I found from a tourist website. Then is a picture of the interior of a Safeway.

The difference in cultures portrayed by just these two pictures is amazing. Most of the products in the Khartoum shopping center picture is handmade and very beautiful, but also very unlike the products in the second photo. If you are used to one and then see the other, you would probably find something that others would find silly to be in awe of, like a tampon box, extremely beautiful

Though the Christians are portrayed as those who want to help the Sudanese, their approach is often involuntarily counterproductive. While Achak is tied up, he tries to kick his legs against the floor so that the noise can alert his Christian neighbors that he is being robbed and needs help. He thinks that since Christian institutions are usually the ones that aide the relocated Sudanese people, they will be most likely to help him. Achak acknowledges that the Christians have good intentions, but since their lives are so different from those they are trying to help they can come off the same way. "...he had read something about the persistence of slavery in Sudan; his church was sending money to an evangelical group that was planning to travel to Sudan to buy back slaves 139)." Not only is this ironic in the sense that he is buying back slaves and therefore not really changing the industry at all, but evangelical Islamists and Arabs are the one that are destroying Sudan. Religion is a huge part of the conflict, so adding another religious group to it seems counter intuitive. They are just giving money to the slavers that capture the people, and therefore fueling the business. This is an important ironic point in the book because it exhibits how lack of experience and tunnel vision makes us look at things, even if we don't mean to. We don't really understand until we've been in their shoes.

What is the what? Post 2

I believe mutual respect is a key part of society and the way we interact with others. Sudanese cultural beliefs on respect are similar to American beliefs except in Sudan they are more enforced. Throughout this novel, I've noticed the level of respect the lost boys give the elderly. I find it admirable and the way the terms they use seem to be an expected thing, even to strangers. A perfect example of this elder respect is when Achak's father is doing business with a friend and trader named Sadiq Aziz. Even though Achak has known Sadiq, Sadiq brings him presents and they are relatively close, Achak continues to call him Uncle. "Hello, Uncle, I said. It was customary to call an older man uncle, as a term of familiarity and respect. If the man is older than one's father, he is called father"(58). This goes to show that the level of respect is a bit higher than here in America. I and many other teenagers will call a teacher Mr. or Mrs. (last name,) but I've observed only a few select teenagers calling a stranger "Sir" or "Ma'am," unless at a workplace. Additionally, almost everyone I know who lives in America would call a friends dad or family friend by their first name. I believe calling an adult by their first name shows the status of one's relationship and the level of comfort felt between. With that said, the words "Uncle or "Father" must have different meaning in Sudanese culture. Here, we will only call a man "Uncle" if he is actually one of our parents brothers, or call him "Father" if he is actually our father. By the Sudanese boys using these "family terms," it automatically puts the older person at an advantage and looked at as authority figure. Both cultures seem to know what their customs for respect are, especially the Sudanese. Maybe America could learn a few things from the Sudanese culture, because I feel Americans are lacking respect, or maybe some people just haven't been taught what is appropriate. I know I could use a refresher. 

the Lost Girls of Sudan

Getting through the second third of the book was harder than expected mostly due to thin pages and small text, but I decided to focus on something I noticed very early on in the 2nd 3rd. That was the Lost Girls. Valentino describes a woman from Kansas talking about the undervalue of the suffering of the Lost Girls on page 180-181. This is because there were so many more Lost Boys than girls, as the girls were mostly abducted along with their sisters and mothers. They must've met a fate far worse than those who traveled. But even so, there were about 3,000 girls who made it to the Refugee camp in Kenya out of about 20,000 children (Slate News). The camp was Kakuma, the camp Valentino meets Tabitha in and spends a lot of time in. One reason that there were so many more boys than girls who escaped was because the boys and men were usually out and about and when they saw a fire starting or murahaleen coming, they fled or ran into the forest. Meanwhile the women and girls were inside cooking or cleaning and were either killed or kidnapped. Another odd phenomenon is that out of the amount of Sudanese settled in the U.S. which is approximately 3,700, only 89 were female. That means that hundreds or thousands of girls are still in Kakuma. Maybe helping the young ones, or maybe not bearing to leave for fear of a new country. 

Even though the camp is a refugee camp and is now supervised (for the most part) by a US official, girls in Kakuma are still raped and married off to those who can afford it. The population of Kakuma has a large population (for a camp) but can only actually take care of a small portion of those there. There are a lot of diseases present and violence. Why have people forgotten about the other whole gender of the incident? One reason is that most boys who came to America were put in group housing (a more "rough" condition) and were giving psychological care and treatment, but girls were almost all put into foster homes (for "nurture") and were expected to be taken care of mentally by their foster parents, but no foster parents actually looked into that kind of care for their new child. The lack of psychological care in women made it much harder for them to be officially resettled in the US, and people choosing who to resettle chose those who were more mentally stable. This error was committed by the UNHCR, and it was brought up to them many times but they haven't done anything to change it. I believe that everyone deserves to be given the opportunity to start over, and that won't be able to happen when the Lost Girls are being ignored. 

Post on Culture Clash

Sasha Tcherepanov

Even coming from a country where pain and loss was and still is experienced everyday, Achor Achor and Valentino find that the robbing of their apartment is a catastrophe. The expectations that Valentino and Achor Achor had for the police greatly overshot what the police officer actually did. When Achor Achor returns home and finds Valentino beaten and restrained on the floor, they were slow to call the police as to make sure that they had their immigration papers in order, and discussed every possible question the officer may ask them. “When Achor Achor is finished, the officer sighs and closes her notebook…She has written no more than five words inside.” (238-239) The police officer only issues a “complaint” card even though Valentino describes the gun being pointed to his head and the beating he received. In the book there are a few characters that have their hands missing due to strict Sharia law. The fact that in the United States the police officer only filled out a “complaint” card and took no action, or that under Sharia law, theft results in losing a hand, which one reflects poorly? You decide.

What is the What: Post #1

                   This book is filled with emotionally intense moments. Even when the book first begins it opens up on him being robbed. So i had a pretty clear idea on how emotional hard this book was going. Valentino's life is a very interesting one, that takes twists and turns, from what i've learned. His past and present are both very troubling. This book shows us the side by side comparison of hardship in the United States vs Sudan. This make you think about how the hardships in the United States although bad are nothing in comparison towards the Sudanese hardships.

                   This got me thinking on what exactly happened during this sudanese civil war, and what was the amount of damage done to the people. According to The International Crisis Group there was around 10,000 causalities during the second sudanese civil war. Also something even more shocking is that over 200,000 people where brought into slavery after the second sudanese civil war according to IRIN. It is no shock that that war has caused sever trauma to the people of the country as we see in the book, sudan may still need help for quite some time to recover from the effects of this war.

DIRECTIONS for second posting and comments

Second postings due Thursday, March 13
Second comments due Tuesday, March 18

The Clash of Cultures
"...what is wrong with these people that they want to spend so much time helping us? "(163) our narrator asks.  There are many ironies as the Lost Boys encounter US culture.  Write a CCQC, making a claim that identifies one of these culture clashes.  Provide plenty of context that shows you know what's going on in the book, a quote, and commentary that further examines the importance of that culture clash.

Comment on someone else's claim, adding further evidence to support it or perhaps to refute it or enlarge upon it, and further commentary. 

Caroline Rohrer, Marial Bai

One thing  that I wondered  about was if marial Bai was ever rebuilt. I googled it and found that, according to VerticalResponse, that on July 9th, the republic of South Sudan officially became a nation. As soon as this happened, people in the area began rebuilding the war torn village and have since constructed the Marial Bai Secondary School, which has enrolled over 350 students.

What IS the 'What'

"What is the What" is extremely intriguing and makes one wonder about lifestyle and necessity and that we could give up pretty much 90% of our belongings and continue living perfectly fine if we were in an area that didn't expect glowing skin and comfy sheets. The Dinka people seem to be very practical, especially in their choosing of cattle over 'the What', a mystery gift from God.
"God said, you can either have these cattle, as my gift to you, or you can have the What.(p.62)" 
 I decided to do some research into what other reviewers thought the What actually is. At first, I personally believed that the What was actually nothing but simply the idea of giving up what was given to you out of curiosity for the unknown. If the Dinka had chosen the What, I'd expect some sort of biblical punishment and maybe a lesson to teach those to accept what they are given. 
I looked around, and according to Timothy McSweeney's blog (full of reviews for this book), Francis Prose of the NY Times believes that maybe although the wise Dinka chose the cattle to feed and prosper from, the What was their protection later from the mujahideen and Sudan government. For example if they had forfeited cattle for the What, the pain that followed later would've been eradicated. Valentino himself comes up with multiple examples of the What, according to the Hungry Owl Blog, later in the book Achak contemplates the What being horses (the symbol of the Arabs), an AK-47, airplanes, or education. I think that the What could symbolize the wisdom of the Dinka for turning down the temptation and could be a reminder of logic. But I also think that the What could have many different meanings. There are no hypotheses of the What directly from Dinka people that I could find, so maybe not knowing is the key to the story. Evidently, the actual meaning behind the What is not the point of the creation story. The point is that they were able to refuse such a curious uncharted thing. It could have been glorious, yet the Dink people chose what they knew would help them survive. 
Which brings it back to my original point. People in our country would give up a lot for glamour and it isn't hard for me to imagine people in our time and area turning down the cattle every time for just a glimpse of the mysterious What. I hope I will be able to hear more opinions of the What, it's an incredibly interesting topic. 

Post One

"'Hello, uncle,'" I said. It is customary to call an older man uncle, as a term of familiarity and respect. If the man is older than one's father, he is called father." (page 58.)

There is a lot about Achak's life story so far that is very different from ours. He describes what it was like to grow up in a rural, though large, village in Sudan and live in a culture that is foreign to ours. We see many aspects of this upbringing clash with the life that Achak is experiencing in America. For example, Achak does not expect the woman and the man in chapter one to have malevolent intentions and rob him. He describes his confusion when it comes to how to use the refrigerator and which foods to put where, and his early fascination with television. His customs clash with American ones too, not only his lifestyle. The quote above addresses Sudanese greetings, a topic that stuck out to me. As I read this passage I thought, "What are some other Sudanese cultural behaviors?" So I did some research to find out.

According to sudan.usembassy.gov, the Sudanese have a specific way of greeting people that they expect to be reciprocated. They inquire after the well being of a relative of the person before entering into the conversation. A greeting between men includes a handshake and a shoulder tap simultaneously, and a greeting between women includes a hug and a rubbing of cheeks. Sudan is a male oriented society, so many social behaviors that are the equivalent of western etiquette are relative to the differentiation and treatment of the separate genders. For example, at dinner the women sit on the opposite side of the table as the men, and if a couple is invited to a friend's house to dine the husband must ask if his wife is invited.

First Week of What is the What

For the first third of the book, I read up to page 186. What is the What begins with the main character Valentino or Achak getting robbed at his apartment in Atlanta, Georgia which he shares with his friend Achor Achor. After he tries to stand up to the robbers a couple of times, they knock him unconscious. He wakes up to the sound of his T.V. playing, which has been plugged into the living room/kitchen area. The robbers have left a young boy, Michael, to guard it while they bring the other stuff they stole from Valentino's apartment to their home. Valentino feels a strong connection to the boy because at a similar age, Valentino's life was turned upside down and remembers life at that age very clearly. A war broke out between the government and the rebel army and with more than a hundred other boys, Valentino walked through Sudan to find camps in Bilpam, Ethiopia. He tries to speak to Michael but ends up getting a telephone book dropped on his head. He decides to relate his life story to Michael in his mind. He begins with his early life in the town Marial Bai with his many brothers and sisters (the result of the five wives his father had). One day his father, the successful owner of a general store, is talking with traders about the slowly rising rebel force (the Sudan People's Liberation Army) whose tensions with the government seem to be hinting at war. His father, who was involved on the rebels side in the last rebellion, shows little worry of war. Yet one day, soldiers attack the town. Valentino and his mother make an escape. His mother realizes he would have a greater chance of survival without her and encourages him to go on by himself. Soon, he meets Dut, a school teacher in his town, and the two walk to a nearby viewpoint to see the state of Marial Bai. It is burned to the ground. Later, as Valentino is trekking to Ethiopia with Dut, Deng (who he befriends) and a few hundred other boys, they run into a  village that hasn't been affected by the war at all. Valentino discovers that his village, Marial Bai was burned to the ground because it was associated with the rebel forces. He later asks Dut to explain the situation to him. Dut tells them about the Anyanya rebels before the SPLA, the reason for all the Dinka cattle thievery done by Baggara government soilders  and the reason behind attacking Marial Bali in greater detail. This made me wonder, where did the conflict between the north and south of Sudan that caused the civil war come from? How were the Anyanya and the SPLA created and where are they today? 

 According to the Federation of American Scientists, that the hatred between the north and the south of Sudan says to come from clashes in religious beliefs and culture. The north is more of a traditional islamic belief, and the south has a wide variety of culture and religion, including Christianity. In 1955, the Equatoria Corps began uprising against the government in Torit. This led to anger amongst the corps and violence broke out, more than 500,000 people dead by the end of the 1960s. The Anyanya was formed as a rebel organization against the government. Countries such as Israel aided the Anyanya in 1969 by sending weapons.  Their disputes ended in 1972 with the Addis Ababa negotiations. The SPLA formed around 1983, with the end of the Addis Ababa agreements (according to the New Sudan Division news). John Garang (as mentioned in the book) began the SPLA after he encouraged a series of uprisings against the Khartoum government. In 1996, the United States gave $20 million in military equipment to soilders in Uganda, Ethiopia, and Eritrea. The SPLM (Sundanese People's Liberation Movement) and the SPLA ended with the Comprehensive Peace Agreement between the north and south of Sudan in 2005 (Federation of American Scientists). 

What is the What 1st Post

Reading What is What? has been a emotionally and conceptually difficult. At least so far. The book starts out with Sudanese Valentino Achak Deng opening the door of his apartment for a strange woman. She comes in and begins to rob him and his absent roommate while another man beats and threatens him with his gun. He is tied up and a young boy he calls T.V boy who ordered to watch Valentino and hold him captive until they return. Valentino immediately regrets moving to the city of Atlanta and he begins to have flashbacks of his violent childhood. He tells of his village Marial Bai, his father Deng Nyibek Arou and his father's first wife, hanging out with his childhood friends Moses and William K. He reminisces on a few funny memories of him trying to impress his older crush Amath and being bitten by a horse. During these flashbacks he learns "T.V. boy's" name is Michael and when he tries to reason with him, Michael smashes his head with a book. Valentino's flash backs start to get darker and sadder as tension between Arabs, rebel groups, and the army grow. This is where I began to get confused, with all of the different names for Arabs, political groups, and various African organizations, and villages. The author never clearly explains who is bad, who is good, and exactly what they all do. So I decided to research the SPLA or the Sudan People's Liberation Army. This organization was fighting for independence in Southern Sudan and according to fas.org the SPLA was fighting the Sudanese Government from 1972-1983. Since I am only one third of the way into the book, I don't know all the in's and outs of why the Arabs are fighting and killing Dinka people but on the research website, it seems to be the Second Sudanese Civil War. On the website, John Pike explains the SPLA saying that "The principal insurgent faction is the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM), a body created by the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA)." I will continue reading to learn more about this war from the man who was forced to escape it. The rest of the third I read consisted of Valentino running from the Arabs and away from his village. He joins a group of run away and who lost their families, they are led by an older boy Dut Majok. They walk all day and far into the night, looking for near by villages and food. Valentino reflects on the boys he meets and their sad stories. He is still tied up in his apartment when I stopped reading. It has been a sad and informational novel so far, and have a feeling the issues it discusses will be explained in more depth. 

Soccer in What is the What

                                                                                                                                Sasha Tcherepanov

                                                                                                                                                     3/6/14

       Soccer in Marial Bai sybolizes happiness and safety. While the soldiers were based in Marial Bai, soccer was an everyday tradition on the dirt soccer field near the barracks. In the begginning of this novel soccer is the only sport. When the soldiers left their base, the Arabs on horses immediately massacred the citizens and burned down almost every house. I dug further into soccer in South Sudan because it was portrayed as such a passionate event that drew the attention of all the kids of the city.

On 10 July 2012, South sudan competed in it's first international game against Uganda, the game ended in a draw. Currently now South Sudan is ranked 198 in FIFA standings. If the passion and spirit for the game continues in South Sudan as much as it resonated with me from What is the What, then South Sudan will go far and pass other countries in the rankings. South Sudan did not qualify for the 2014 Rio de Janeiro World Cup. From 1930 to 2012 South Sudan was part of Sudan and won the Africa cup once. 

The first 1/3 of What is the What was more difficult to read than I expected.  It begins with Achak being beaten and robbed of the little that he owns, and then waking to find himself under the guard of a young boy, who seems to be fond of heavy books.  During the time that he is tied up, he imagines telling the "TV boy" or Micheal about his own experiences as a young boy, and the horrors that took place in his hometown of Marial Bai and nearby towns.  Before he goes into detail about these, he fast forwards to travelling with a group of "Lost Boys" and being attacked by lions. Going backward in time, Achak lives a peaceful life, but when army soldiers desert Marial Bai, the murahaleen descend and wreak havoc. Achak's friends and family members are killed and he flees into the wilderness, where he comes across several small groups and eventually a huge group of people with livestock.  These Dinka people are then surrounded by murahaleen again, but Achak manages to escape.  He describes more of the present in which Micheal presumably looks at Achak's pictures of Tabitha; The girl that he loves.  Achak mentions classes that the two took together in Kakuma, and then how Tabitha went to the U.S. and their re connection.  Achak befriends Mary Williams, one of the women in charge of the Lost Boy's foundation, even if his friends believe that she was not able to get them a good enough education.    What a mouthfull!
     I was curious about what the "September Laws" were, so I did a wee bit of research...These laws were created by an Islamist leader who wanted to create an Islamic republic with sharia law.  They were enforced in 1983 and lasted up until 1985 .  The implementation of these laws led to civil war between Muslims, Christians  and  people practicing any other religion.
-Oxford Islamic Studies Online