Today, Valentino spends much of his time in his hometown of Marial Bai, helping rebuild and supporting the community. Dave Eggers has made several trips to Sudan, both during and after writing the book. From his essay about going there:
"The second day we were all in Aweil, we saw a massive parade making its way through the muddy streets of the downtown area. This was National Girls’ Education Day, a demonstration of youth commitment to education. The parade consisted of huge groups of students from various schools and nearby towns, all in school uniforms, marching with banners proclaiming the importance of entering and staying in school.
It was a very inspiring sight."
"In Aweil we visited the compound, formerly owned by relatives of Valentino, where he and his father spent time during the early days of the civil war.... Valentino points out where he and other children hid during raids by the Sudanese army. The hole in the sheet-metal door that Valentino is pointing to was caused by a Kalashnikov when Sudanese army soldiers fired on the compound, c. 1986."
To read more, visit: http://www.valentinoachakdeng.org/blog/?p=37
3 comments:
I know this had nothing to do with the question but i neede a place to post this this clip is a tour of sudan hosted by a sudenese orphan its good if you like to imagine the setting of a book so now you will be able to picture what sudan kinda of look like i try to load the clip on it but it does not work on this site so click the url.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75D_TSDoyF8
Hey Desmond, what a great find! I'm going to post some links on the main page to these videos.
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