Listening To Run-D. Beah's Life
Reconnecting with rap and reggae music during his rehabilitation at Benin Home is no small point Beah makes. Listening to Run-D.M.C., one of the early pioneers of new school hip hop (It’s Like That, - {That’s Just the Way It Is} ) was a bridge to artists, beats and rhymes Beah’s childhood rap and dance group enjoyed and performed, such as Eric B and Rakim (I Know You Got Soul). This bridge became a link between fond memories of pre-war childhood and being able to increasingly live more fully in the present.
After about five months at the center, Beah was returning more quickly to his former self. Beah’s creative juices started flowing. At an event for the center, he delivered a monologue from Julius Caesar followed by a performance of a play …show more content…
He resumed his life as a high school student, living joyfully in the present in his new life, but this was not to last. Family tragedy struck again, and then, on May 25, 1997, the war came to Freetown when President Kabbah was overthrown by the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC), a military junta, which invited the RUF to join in the new government. Violence, looting and killings of civilians on the streets of Freetown convinced Beah it would only be a matter of time before he would be forced to return to his previous life, or be killed. In a series of arrangements and risks that would make a separate spellbinding book, Beah made it to Guinea where there was peace and then back to New York City to a storyteller, Laura Simms, he had met during the U.N. conference. Beah was adopted by Simms and finished high school at the United Nations International School. He went on to Oberlin College in Ohio where he started writing A Long Way Gone and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science in 2004. A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier was published in …show more content…
He pushed for governments to fund and keep funding programs to rehabilitate former child soldiers and for other children who are swallowed up in war and armed conflict. “No child is born violent.” Beah stated. “No child in Africa, Latin America or Asia wants to be part of war,” and he used himself as an example of “living proof” of how rehabilitation
After about five months at the center, Beah was returning more quickly to his former self. Beah’s creative juices started flowing. At an event for the center, he delivered a monologue from Julius Caesar followed by a performance of a play …show more content…
He resumed his life as a high school student, living joyfully in the present in his new life, but this was not to last. Family tragedy struck again, and then, on May 25, 1997, the war came to Freetown when President Kabbah was overthrown by the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC), a military junta, which invited the RUF to join in the new government. Violence, looting and killings of civilians on the streets of Freetown convinced Beah it would only be a matter of time before he would be forced to return to his previous life, or be killed. In a series of arrangements and risks that would make a separate spellbinding book, Beah made it to Guinea where there was peace and then back to New York City to a storyteller, Laura Simms, he had met during the U.N. conference. Beah was adopted by Simms and finished high school at the United Nations International School. He went on to Oberlin College in Ohio where he started writing A Long Way Gone and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science in 2004. A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier was published in …show more content…
He pushed for governments to fund and keep funding programs to rehabilitate former child soldiers and for other children who are swallowed up in war and armed conflict. “No child is born violent.” Beah stated. “No child in Africa, Latin America or Asia wants to be part of war,” and he used himself as an example of “living proof” of how rehabilitation