They Poured Fire on Us from the Sky

Ab off the Book Benjamin, Alepho, and Benson were raised among the Dinka clan of Sudan. Theirs was an insulated, close-knit world of grass-roofed cottages, cattle herders, and tribal councils. The lions and pythons that prow direct beyond the closure fences were the sterling(prenominal) threat they k vernal. All that changed the night the giving medication-armed Murahiliin began attacking their hamlets. Amid the chaos, screams, conflagration, and gunfire, five-year-old Benson and seven-year-old Benjamin fled into the dark night. 2 years later, Alepho, age seven, was forced to do the same.Between 1987 and 1989, thousands of other young Sudanese boys did carewise, joining this stream of child refugees that became kn birth as the upset Boys. Their pilgrimage would take them over one thousand miles across a warf atomic number 18-ravaged country, with landmine-sown paths, crocodile-infested waters, and grotesque extremes of hunger, thirst, and disease. The refugee rings they ev entually filtered through with(predicate) offered little respite from the brutality they were fleeing. In They Poured Fire on Us From the Sky, Benson, Alepho, and Benjamin, by turn, recount their experiences a dogged this inc one timeivable go.This is a captivating biography of Sudan and a powerful portrait of war as seen through the eyes of children. And it is, in the end, an inspiring and unfor give pop outtable tosh of three young boys who, cast against all elements, had the will, the tenacity, and the very good batch to survive. learn AND READING GUIDE In the Classroom This disarmingly intimate memoir delves beyond headlines to bring readers deep into the heart of the Sudanese conflict and into the line of achievement of three children determined to escape it. It deciphers Sudans struggle from the inside. Who is fighting it? wherefore?Who atomic number 18 the victims? How did these boys survive without food, without family, for so long? At the same time, the journe y of Benson, Alephonsion, and Benjamin over these many years and these thousand miles reveals how small minds savvy and process the violence of war. Their story also begs the question Can and should the internationalist community intervene? What can be dresse? Pre-Reading Activity maintain students bring in juvenile intelligence operation articles and clippings regarding developments in Sudan. Try to moment together the conflict from these accounts and clippings. dissertate the history of Sudans war.How do the students tone of voice roughly the conflict? What do they speculate it is like to grow up during wartime? You may also invite them to bring in articles regarding intervention or immigration. Do they think intervention important? How do they feel virtually refugees, like the Lost Boys, seeking asylum in this country? employ THIS GUIDE To the Teacher Reading and Understanding the Story examines the readers comprehension and retention of the book itself, and of the war as Benson, Alepho, and Benjamin disturb it. Students should refer to the narrative to answer these questions.Themes and Context encourages students to determination the book as a lens into enormousr ideas, events, and issues. These questions encourage students to think freely and separately on the war in Sudan and the broader moral and political hands stemming from it. Teaching Ideas offers course-specific projects, essays, and watchword questions for classes English/Language Arts, Geography, bill, Science, and Social Studies. READING AND UNDERSTANDING THE STORY Definitions pray students to define the following terms with reference to the book Dinka SPLA refugee jihad racial extermination murahiliin UNHCR. ComprehensionLook at a map of Africa. Locate Ethiopia, Kenya, Sudan, Kenya. Identify the Nile River. Find Sudans capital city, Khartoum. Try to finalise Bhar al Ghazal (the region where the Dinka live). Before this conformation of the Sudanese war, a treaty had brok ered peace between northern and southerly Sudan. What was the name of this treaty? (See Judy Bernsteins introduction. ) Describe the landscape in which the authors grew up. What was their village career like? Benson re cancels first learning of the war around village fires. What does he learn from the tribe elders? For much of his journey, Benson wears red shorts.Where did he get these? They are almost ruined one night. What happens to them? Why does he valuate these shorts so much? Along their journey, Benson, Benjamin, and Alepho meet many sort family and friends. Who is Monyde? Who is Yier? Why are they important in this story? Despite their defecate desperation and young age, time and again the boys find villages turning them away, denying them food, and order them back into enemy hands. Why do the villages do this? Yier recalls the government storming Wau Wau University. We were led to the dorms and questioned Do you know the leader of the rebels, ______? What was the name of this leader? As the refugee camping ground takes shape at Panyido, the UN begins sending food relief. What do they send? How does this fare differ from the usual Dinka diet? What are few of its mis-intended consequences? (see p. 92) Benson writes I lose many bad memories that I will never erase from my foreland but of these, the f sporty from Panyido stands out. Why were the Sudanese forced to leave Panyido (Ethiopia)? The refugees had barely if one means back into Sudan. What was it? What were the perils of this flight? Who was Mr. Hyena? Why did the refugees call him that?Name twain positive aspects of Kakuma life for the Lost Boys. Name two negative aspects of it. At Kakuma, refugees receive food in the form of cereal rations. Though the rations are small, many still end up interchange some portion of these at the tomfoolet. Why do they do this? What are the consequences when the camp learns of this underground grain market? The journey through the refugee camps an d finally, to the States introduces the Lost Boys to a new language (words like dessert and because), a new culture, and many new things. Recall two episodes where the authors encounter new objects or concepts.Describe their initial reaction in each instance. BROADER THEMES AND QUESTIONS FAMILY AND FRIENDSHIP. Robert E. Lee once said What a cruel thing is war to fill our police van with hatred instead of love for our neighbors. After reading this book, do you think this is always the cause? How does war electric shock families? How does it shape friendships? What qualities does it bring out in people throughout the story? RITES AND INITIATIONS. My mother wore the radiating scarification mark on her forehead as a sign of her bravery remembers Benson. Rites and initiations are important aspects of the Dinka culture.Explain two different heathenish initiations common to the Dinka. What is the role of such(prenominal) rites in a culture? Do you know of any such rites, initiations, and/or identifying marks in your own family or culture? outgrowth UP. Though torn from their homes and their families, the Lost Boys were still very much children. From their proto(prenominal) childhood in the village to their adolescence in the refugee camps, we watch them grow up in this story. Can you relate to any of their experiences growing up? What about the games they play? How do they view and interact with the opposite sex? How do their views of education relate to your own?How do their perceptions of adults and authority figures change through the story? THE OTHER. Bensons father attempts to describe the enemy to his children. He explains The government troops are Arabs and call themselves Muslims. The Arabs wear a long white dress with a large handkerchief tied on their earsThey speak a strange language that we cannot understand. But when he continues he says You must beware. Some of the Muslims are traitors from Dinka tribes they speak the way we do. Imagine Benson s confusion. Are friends and allies easily distinguished in war? meditate how we try to describe and define people other than our peers and ourselves. Do somatic traits define who we are and who we are not? Link this idea to recent other conflicts and wars Rwanda Vietnam the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. LIFE AS A REFUGEE. Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya is the light at the end of a long and dark journey for the Lost Boys. They risk everything and endure unspeakable pain, hunger and thirst, just to enter the camp. stock-still the camp presents them with its own menaces and challenges. After several years in the camp Benson go downs he hates it than more than anyplace. What makes him say is this? How do the Kenyans and the camp administrators treat the refugees? What is life like as a refugee? SPIN. Joseph Goebbels, the Propaganda Minister in Nazi Germany, once declared We have made the Reich by propaganda. Throughout They Poured Fire on Us from the Sky, we see government and rebel forces alike manipulating facts and media to their own ends. grapple the role of propaganda in the book. How and why do you think leaders use propaganda? What is its purpose? What is its impact? carry you ever heard of or encountered propaganda in your own media? What about in the government?GEOGRAPHY AND CULTURE. When the Sudanese government institutes Sharia law over all of Sudan, the Dinka tribes grow angry. Benson recalls the village elders kvetch We have too much to do with our cattle, our plantations and hunting. What is Sharia police? What are some of the reasons the southerners resist it? What role do you think animal(prenominal) and geographic constraints play in determining the ideals and traditions of a community? TEACHING IDEAS English/Language Arts Ask students if they know of any immigrants, in their family or community, who came to the US from another country?Have them interview these individuals about their journey and present that persons story to the class. A llow students to decide the medium for their presentation. For example, they can create a video-audio montage, enact it before the class, or rewrite that persons story as a first-person narrative. immigration and interventionism make major news headlines these days. Have students select one of these issues and interrogation both sides of the tump over. Then have them select a position, write a position statement on the issue, and then team up to debate the issue in class. Have students create a Kakuma Camp newspaper.Possible sections could imply Arts and Leisure, Sports, International News, Op-Eds, Marketplace (which could include articles on food rations or the state of trading in the Kenyan marketplace). Geography Make a map of Sudan. Have students chart out the major cities, rivers, mountains, and deserts. Have them tell the northern/southern divide and indicate the primary religion, resources, and activities of each region. Piecing together Africa. As the boys recall the l andscapes they cross in they journey, they reveal Africa to be a land of rich and varied terrain far more so than American students sometimes think.Create a large outline map of Africa. Cut out the countries and divide these among the students. After researching their country(s), students should report back with their cutout clearly indicating the major corporeal and geographic traits of that area. Now reassemble the map (preferably on a large surface). Have the students examine the reassembled map and try to understand the great geographic differences and divides of this continent. The southern tribes resist Sharia Law because, in part, as farmers and cattle-herders We dont have time to pray five times a day. Have students research Islamic countries and report back on the major geographic features of these countries. What are the major resources, commodities, and products of these nations? Does physical geography correlate to pagan geography? Ask them what role they think geogra phy played in shaping traits of their own communities. History Colonization, violence, and civil war represent only a part of Sudans history. Create a Sudanese cultural timeline around the classroom. Assign students to specific periods in Sudanese history and request them to research major events and cultural elements in that era.Have them create posters and/or dioramas occupy with images and any objects they might find that illuminate their portion of the Sudanese timeline. History is always being created, and sometimes revised, by its sources. In August of 2005, conjuration Garang died in a plane crash in Sudan. Have students locate accounts of this plane crash. Be sure they consult a variety of news media publications left, right, American, British, African, Sudanese. Have them read the different accounts out loud to the class. Do these diverge at all in facts or in tone? Discuss the importance of noting, and cross-referencing, sources in historical research.Science We were a ll heads and hipbones. Along the journey, the boys describe unimaginable hunger, such that they become like stoneheads teetering along. Investigate the impact of hunger on the human body. What are the caloric needs of the body? How does hunger impact body functions? How does it affect mental capacity? Have students consider their own diets and create caloric scales. Balance their daily intake of calories versus those the boys received (through their rations) at Kakuma. Have students identify the major illnesses and diseases that appear in this story (e. g. ehydration, snake in the grass bite, yellow fever, dysentery). Have them create a medical chart of these diseases. What are the causes? What are the symptoms? What is the treatment? Social Studies The UN is a large and complex organization. Have the students research and create an organizational chart of the UN system. How is it organized? How is it governed? How is funded? Where do groups like the UNHRC fit in this scheme? How a re such subsidiary bodies programs administered, funded, and maintained? Have students read the UN Convention on the Crime of Genocide. What organizations report on instances of genocide today?Find examples of such reports in recent times. go a template to the students and have them complete a rights report on one of these recent crises. Though governments, and economists, dislike them, underground economies can be necessities at least to the producers and consumers within them. Why do the Kakuma refugees sell some of their precious rations? Why does the UN consider this wrong? Have students consider the case of Kakuma trading and set up a mock trial/debate that argues the social and economic consequences of such markets within aid-dependent economies.