Blog #3

When Ishmael Beah is traveling through war- struck Sierra Leone with his 5 friends, every stranger they come upon is afraid of them, because they think they may be rebels. Beah writes, “This was one of the consequences of the civil war. People stopped trusting each other, and every stranger became an enemy.” I think that every child or teenager can relate to this feeling, because we are taught from a young age to fear strangers. Terms like "don't talk to strangers" and "stranger danger" are drilled into our head from the very beginning. It has gotten to the point where any middle aged man standing alone is automatically a pedophile or a rapist. When I was at the movies with my brother one time, a man in his thirties dropped his cell phone just before walking to his theater. When I went to pick it up and return it to him, my brother stopped me and instead returned it himself. This makes me sad, that we automatically have to be cautious around strangers. However, bad things happen. When people with the intent to harm abuse our trust, it makes everyone a stranger to be feared, not a neighbor to be trusted. This situation is the same throughout Ishmael's journey, but the stakes are much higher, and the chance of the stranger being intent on harming you is much more likely.