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Showing posts from September, 2017

The War Begins

In the chapter that I read today, the narrator goes back in time to talk about when she was three and a half years old. She introduces her family, which consists of her father, mother, two older brothers, and a baby sister. One day, her father comes home from work, terrified, and he tells them that the war has started and they need to leave. Her father said that he overheard some people that lived in town say that they were going to hide in the caves for the night and so that is where they planned to go. However, once her family had gathered up everything they needed, the narrator realizes that she is only three years old and she has trouble tying one of her shoes. She looks up to ask for help, but her family is already gone and they are nowhere in sight. She begins to get very scared, but she eventually found a group of people and heard them talking about the caves, so she started to walk with them. After a long trek of walking, the group of people that she had been with made it to

Released

I finished part one of the book and the narrator was finally released from the detention center. She had been held there for numerous hours and none of the soldiers told why she was being detained. She runs home crying and fearing for her life. She is afraid that her family might be dead and that another war might be breaking out. Once she finally gets home, she walks in the door and her mother looks very angry, but she sees how upset the narrator is and her anger immediately turns into worry. However, her mother reassures her that everything is okay and that she has to stay positive and just forget about what happened, because that probably won’t be the last time something like that happens to her. This makes me feel bad for the narrator because I have no idea what this feels like. I have never been taken somewhere by soldiers and held against my will for several hours straight. It just sounds so wrong to me and I feel remorseful that this is most likely an everyday struggle for

Post Office Box 34

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Even though I am still in part one of the book, I am already very interested in what is happening. In the small section that I read today, the narrator is still stopped at the Military Rule Center, but instead of talking about what is going on, she talks about why she was travelling from Ramallah to Birzeit in the first place. The narrator says that she was going to Birzeit because she owns a post office box there and that is what helps her get through everyday. She talks about how she has numerous pen pals from all over the world that she communicates with through mail. She checks her post office box everyday in order to see if one of her pen pals has written her, because she enjoys writing with them so much. This honestly surprises me a lot. I know that there are people all around the world who have pen pals and this is not surprising to me. However, what is so interesting about this certain situation is how many pen pals the narrator has and how she is able to stay in touch with