Left to Tell

     Just so you know, this blog was created with Aya Kraimer and you can find the same post on her blog. We are both reading Left to Tell by Immaculee Ilibagiza. While reading the book, we realized that it is important to have hope and faith that everything will turn out okay. You have to keep going even when its hard. We were able to realize this by seeing life through Immaculee's perspective and seeing what she thought as things happened around her. It was as if we could experience what she did, and again, we could see what she thought; making it easier for us to depict a central idea.

This is her sitting in the bathroom
that she hid in with 7 other girls
during the genocide. Isn't it SMALL?

     Okay...So you know what we realized from the book, but you didn't read the book. Let's get you caught up. In a small country called Rwanda, a genocide is going on. There are different groups of people living there. The different tribes that are there are the Hutus and the Tutsis. The main character is a Tutsi, and at this point in the book, The Hutus are killing the Tutsis.  The main character is currently hiding in the bathroom of a priest with 7 other girls. While there they can never make any noise or they will be found. As she experiences this, the reader is able to see how she is trying to stay strong and to keep faith and hope as she struggles through. I mean, she's going through a genocide. That's hard.



This is the author and her family before the genocide.

Immaculee's story reminded me of Anne Frank's so doing some research, I found out how similar they were. Both went into hiding during a genocide. During both of their times in hiding, they had to be very quiet as to not give away their whereabouts. In addition, both girls had some sort of way to cover the entrance. In Immaculee's story, a wardrobe was used to cover the door to the bathroom she was in along with other girls. In Anne Frank's case, a bookcase was used to cover the door to her hiding place with her family. Both girls had to be extremely careful, and keep going. They both had faith and hope that everything would be okay. They both did all they could to stay safe. Both girls had much in common.

Anne Frank