I have been checking Maria's blog as I'm sure most of you have been...... She hasn't posted for a while and no one has heard back from her. She missed her flight, and i fear the worst. News Now has been ordered to treat it as if she has died. Due to this I am going to stop posting on the Sierra Leone blog from now on. To read more about it you can get my paper when it is published soon.
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I will be leaving tomorrow for New York. Maria will be staying here for another week since we were unable to get flights together. The war is getting dangerously close to Freetown and I hope she understands how dangerous it could be.
I have now gotten all I need to be able to write a full length paper on Sierra Leone's civil war. Because of this, I will not be posting for two months to focus on writing it and doing self-revision before I go back so it can be published as soon as I get back.
There is a UN conference being held in New York and that boy Ishmael Beah has been chosen to go speak there about Sierra Leone. I hope that his voice can help as much as I hope it can and as much as I want to.
Maria has definitly has lost interest and doesn't seem to have the same interest as I do. I just wish she could be shown something on how bad this situation actually is.
I have been mostly spending my time around the rehabilitation center talking to the former child solders, and trying to get as much as possible to be able to write a full paper on Sierra Leone when I Return after the next year. I am particularly interested in Ishmael Beah. The workers there said he was very violent when he came, and is now made a long way to be able to speak in front of people about the issues. He seems to have the same interests as I do, and wants to spread the message that something needs to be done.
Maria and I have been visiting the city for the past few weeks talking to people about the war. It seems Maria isn't the only one who doesn't know how bad the war is or they just don't care enough since it hasn't gotten to them yet. However, what I've heard from other people seems to point toward the fact that to place in Sierra Leone is safe, soon enough these people will understand. And then from there hopefully the rest of the world will.
Maria seems less involved in this whole thing. I have been reading her blog and she doesn't think the war is as bad as it has been made out to be even after her interview. We will be staying for a few months and taking in all of this, so hopefully she will understand it all soon.
The interviews went well. The two boys were recovered enough to be able to talk on the subjects, but still seemed to have different viewpoints on each side and their actions. Maria did not seem to go into as much detail as me and just recorded the interview and retyped his words in no particular format. If you want to read either of our articles you can download them here
Both Maria and I have been granted interviews with former child soldiers. We are not guaranteed any length since the children may not want to speak on certain subjects. I will be interviewing a former soldier of the Sierra Leone army and a former soldier of the RUF, while Maria will just be interviewing a former Sierra Leone soldier. I don't think she is as invested in this as I am. The articles will be published back home, but it will take a while to get back. I will be showing off the interview notes we take in my next post for all of you.
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