http://www.great-quotes.com/quote/1372671

I really like this quote as it really describes the life of Ishmeal as a kid in one sentence.

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2012/04/sierra_leone_10_years_after_ci.html
This website showes sierra leone after 10 years of the civil war.

sierra Leone's young army

Sierra Leone Timeline

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-14094419


This is a link that shows a break down of the 10 year civil war in Sierra Leone.

http://www.unicef.org/about/employ/

This is a link of UNICEF, and it is the organization for children of bad treatment. This organization is the one that took Ishmael in at first, and really helped him. Unicef is doing this still to this day to help children in need all over the world. The picture below is a UNICEF worker in Ghana helping out. This just shows how involved the people of the organization is.

This picture here is showing the ruins of Sierra Leone after the civil war was finished. As you can see, this is only a small street that is completely destroyed. Just imagine the rest of the town. You can see the kids wandering around looking hopeless, wondering why someone would ever do this to innocent people. This picture should give you an idea of what they went through during the time of the civil war.

Here is a picture of where Sierra Leone is located and what their flag looks like!

This is a picture of modern day Sierra Leone. As shown in the picture it looks like a very poor area. There is a lot of run down buildings and trash on the streets. Although this place may look broken down, people who live there may be proud of their village. To them, they might see the beauty in all of the trash and debris. Has there ever been a time in your life where you have been proud of something others might not be proud of?

http://sierraleonecivilwar.com/

This link will show us a brief summary of what really happened in Sierra Leone, which is where the civil war that Ishamael is writing about. This article will tell why this war  started, and other types of things like others factors that are smaller contributers to te start of the war. This article tells us that Sierra Leone was rebelled against because of the hard times in the government, and the rebels wanted to take the diamonds considered "Blood Diamonds".