I had been impressed by George Alagiah the man and the author of Home from Home but this book does memory an injustice.

Soon after, though, they found that these new men mistreated and cheated them greatly, and had superior military technology. Also expresses the false hope of a 'dying man' who keeps his 'hoe' next to him (a farming tool), as though he still hopes to go and 'till the soil once all this is over'. but there is one I will never forget’- intrigues the reader and encourages them to read on but at same time shows he doesn’t care for any others. The alliteration and rule of three in ‘ collect and compile ’ juxtaposed against ‘ comfort ’ sets out the basic tension in the article: of making money from collecting other people’s suffering, and selling it to people sitting comfortably at home. The ‘River God’ is lonely because he is only used by others, no one stays to be with him, they leave – ‘and I like the people who bathe in me .This seems most clear in the final line, when he discusses his regret at not knowing the man’s name. He acknowledges that situations often appear desperate, and the problems intransigent, but he is not without hope that solutions can, and will, be found. Towards the end of the 19th century, European nations started claiming territory in Africa due to the fast paced manufacturing and the need for more materials to keep up with production. It is a face, not a man, not a name, simply a face; as were those faces that he saw and forgot that were mentioned before. All the sights he saw that day fills him with revulsion, all he could see was sickness, decay and death; everybody, sucked dry of vitality “vitality by the twin evils of hunger and disease”, “disease, is a disgusting thing” but the discussion of this disgust is a taboo that is yet to be breached in the media, none talk about the decaying flesh and the smell of the “excretion of fluids by people who are beyond controlling their bodily functions.

The noun ‘Passage’ is ambiguous; of course the obvious meaning would be that the following is an extract, a piece of writing. H. Auden; rasicm and prejudice; German Jews; Holocaust poetry; sanctuary Remember by Christina Rosetti Robert Browning poems Rudyard Kipling Rudyard Kipling's If Strive for immortality suffering and death sympathy. George then carries on to talk about how the people also suffer from shame about their predicament, at the sight of these healthy reporters some cover their faces or go deeper into the darkness of their rooms. The setting is cemented in the second paragraph: the use of the archaic noun ‘hamlet’ to describe the small village, the hyperbole ‘back of beyond’, the fact that agencies cannot reach that village, the long sentence giving directions of how to reach there, the dash before further elaborating on the bleak picture and the use of the simile comparing the place to a ‘ghost village’; all convey the isolation of the village, it’s detachment from the rest of the world, along with giving the reader a sense of the unnatural death and disease which surrounds the settlement like an ever present aura.This is particularly moving for the reader as it describes in harsh terms a particularly terrible situation which readers can see in their own lives. The strategy of making the audience feel sorry for the author let’s them feel as if they are somehow connected to what she is saying. It is as though all these years later, he remains haunted and he is unable to forget the man who smiled. He cannot pin down what the smile means, he describes it in negative sentences, it is not one of greeting or joy.

From a personal perspective, as one living in South Africa these past ten years, it's especially saddening to see that his hope for the future of this beautiful country, put on a positive and inclusive road by Nelson Mandela, has since succumbed to the twin blights of corruption and governmental mismanagement. Author is writing about a time when he went to Africa during the war, describing what he sees and the suffering of people living. The degeneration of the human body, sucked of its natural vitality by the twin evils of hunger and disease, is a disgusting thing. We are comfortable in our own lives, the mere day to day troubles of fluctuating weather our main concerns while in parts of the world people are dying by the thousands every day.The repetition of this fact in a short sentence: ‘Yes, revulsion,’ not only implies that the readers should be confused and shocked by this, but also shows how the author himself is surprised and perhaps ashamed in admitting this, but feels a determination to do so. The Cherokee had warned about an illness that nobody in Alfred, Georgia paid attention to, so all forty-six prisoners stayed, scooping mush and tapping their chains, resting and planning their next move. But one man changed his perspective and ideas with a single smile, he was outside the house when he saw the reporter, after which he smiled in embarrassment and moved back into his the man was outside his house, this incident shakes the author to his core. What’s particularly affecting is that Alagaiah links the man’s embarrassed smile to the kind of thing you’d give ‘ if you’d done something wrong .

The beginning of the passage is a one sentence introductory paragraph starting with a series of adjectives in rapid succession: ‘thousand, hungry, lean, scared and betrayed faces. Alagiah alternates between unpleasant and gentle words, describing the old woman’s leg as ‘ gently ’ curving, the girl’s death as ‘ simple, frictionless, motionless ’ repeating the soft liquids and sibilants in ‘ less ’, suggesting the ease with which death occurs.European countries imperialized Africa because they wanted to spread Christianity and abolish slavery. This hatred that he harbors for his own feelings is explained when he admits that all those things that might have appalled him before don’t even leave an impression on him now, showing how his job is changing him, making him harder, more cynical and detached. Images that move people in the comfort of their sitting rooms back home are how we collect and compile them. Whilst the first set of adjectives are harsh, the second contains much gentler and softer description.