Aminata faced lots of obstacles throughout the novel "The Book of Negroes" as she was kidnapped at a very young age without any idea of the western slavery world. The obstacles that I think that she had to face were the toughest were that getting over the pain from the loss of her loved ones. She has lost everyone she knew multiple times. First were her parents, who were both killed while the white men invaded her village. Then later in the novel her child was stolen, majority of Charles Town including everyone living in the house of Mr. Lindo were dead except for Solomon himself, she found out Chekura's ship was lost... She had to work hard in terrible inhumane conditions to survive. Aminata's faced so many obstacles that it can't be counted.
For me, my obstacle in my life was getting used to doing homework after getting accepted to Ridley. I didn't do any homework ever since I got into the boarding program at my school in Hong Kong in Grade 6. So I got into Ridley and I didn't do any assignments. All the teachers hated me and I was failing all 8 courses. How I Resolve it was I spent some of parents' money to hire a tutor so that he could help me catch up to my work. so money was my resource. The skill I used was obviously, knowing how to speak, read, and write a foreign language, which was english. so I actually can relate myself to the book of negroes becuas aminata's skill of knowing how to speak a foreign language actually made her life easier just as it saved me from getting butchered by my parents. I was being enslaved by school assignments. It changed me a lot as I went from not doing any homework to finishing all of it as I have learned my lesson. And teachers didn't hate me anymore.
Eric, I really like this post. I myself found myself in a similar situation, and did barely have any homework in elementary and middle school. In Germany, the school is very different and most of the work is done in school. This is compensated by the difficulty of the work. When I came to Ridley I was overwhelmed by the amount of work, but I got used to it at some point. The result is, that my average this year, in Grade 12 is around 5% higher then in last year in Grade 11.
ReplyDeleteI really like your Post and the connection from Aminatas obstacles to your own is great. Next time, make sure that you use proper capitalization. But other then that, this is an outstanding blogpost Eric!