A passage to Africa

Paragraph 3: In the ghoulish manner of journalists on the hunt for the most striking pictures, my cameraman ... and I tramped from one hut to another. What might have appalled us when we'd started our trip just a few days before no longer impressed us much. The search for the shocking is like the craving for a drug: you require heavier and more frequent doses the longer you're at it. Pictures that stun the editors one day are written off as the same old stuff the next. This sounds callous, but it is just a fact of life. It's how we collect and compile the images that so move people in the comfort of their sitting rooms back home.

-"ghoulish manner"- similar to the 'ghost village', portrays emptiness. -"hunt" suggests how the views of the camera crew towards the Somalian people are animalistic. Also, they never seem to be satisfied as they keep going until they find the 'most striking pictures'. -He uses a simile, "the search for the shocking is like the craving for a drug", to show the addictive nature of the journalistic process. -Maybe, the fact that this time he referred to himself, as well as the camera man, could suggest how he feels guilty, hence, him admitting to it. -The camera men appear to be addicted to finding these showing images of the people, instead of feeling the urge to help them as they 'crave' finding images. Portrays to the audience the shocking views of the camera men. -Very heartless of them, they are used to such stories - they are the 'same old stuff'.

Paragraph 9: I saw that face for only a few seconds, a fleeting meeting of eyes before the face turned away, as its owner retreated into the darkness of another hut. In those brief moments there had been a smile, not from me, but from the face. It was not a smile of greeting, it was not a smile of joy — how could it be? — but it was a smile nonetheless. It touched me in a way I could not explain. It moved me in a way that went beyond pity or revulsion.

-'face' is repeated -"a fleeting moment"- transient moment but it seems to have a long-lasting impact. This intrigues the reader as we wonder how such a small event can have such a powerful effect on this man who has seen so much human suffering that he is not really affected by that. -He can't define the smile, which suggests that there is something powerful about it. In fact, the fact that it is so out of place enables it to affect Alagiah so much: he is used to the suffering but he is to used to the smile. -The mystery surroundings of the smile also further intrigues the reader. -"it moved me in a way that went beyond pity or revulsion"- the repeated structure and repeated "me" shows how now he is the subject and the impact is on him. -Pity and revulsion were his original feelings, now he can't describe his feelings in words, just 'beyond'. It is now more deep and true.

Paragraph 10: What was it about that smile? I had to find out. I urged my translator to ask the man why he had smiled. He came back with an answer. 'It's just that he was embarrassed to be found in this condition,' the translator explained. And then it clicked. That's what the smile had been about. It was the feeble smile that goes with apology, the kind of smile you might give if you felt you had done something wrong.

-A short sentence is used, "And then it clicked". This means it is all coming into place, which is suggesting a moment of realization for Alagiah. -He now writes with a more confident tone. -The whole paragraph has short sentences which emphasise the clarity of his realisation

Paragraph 11: Normally inured* to stories of suffering, accustomed to the evidence of deprivation, I was unsettled by this one smile in a way I had never been before. There is an unwritten code between the journalist and his subjects in these situations. The journalist observes, the subject is observed. The journalist is active, the subject is passive. But this smile had turned the tables on that tacit agreement. Without uttering a single word, the man had posed a question that cut to the heart of the relationship between me and him, between us and them, between the rich world and the poor world. If he was embarrassed to be found weakened by hunger and ground down by conflict, how should I feel to be standing there so strong and confident?

-He begins the paragraph with long sentences to explain his realisation. -The writer uses the metaphor 'cut to the heart of the relationship between me and him' to show the power of this movement. -He uses declarative statements: "the journalist observes, the subject is observed. The journalist is active, the subject is passive". These statements are commandments in the world of journalism. We can see that the smile was so powerful that it managed to transgress these 'laws'. -He ends the paragraph with a rhetorical question to make us think of the vast difference between out lives and the lives of the Somalian.

How does the write create a sense of pity?

-He juxtaposes the shocking and the boring, 'same old stuff' of 'dirt floor' 'hut' and 'sitting rooms'. This increases the pity by putting into perspective the difference between our lives and the Somalians' -The colloquial language 'same old' and 'craving for a drug' suggests that people don't really care about their suffering which increases our pity.

How does the writer create a sense of horror?

-He uses the semantic field of bodily disgust in 'disgusting, 'taboo', 'excretion of fluid', 'vomit'. This is a hidden horror which reporters never say. Even this writer keeps a distance from admitting everything, by repeating the infinitive 'to': "to be in a feeding centre is to" -In the paragraph with the old woman, Alagiah uses sensory language about the 'smell' of 'decaying flesh' and the 'festering wound'. The paragraph is structured to place this information at the end, after a long build up, which intensifies the effect. -"she was rotting"

Paragraph 7: My reaction to everyone else I met that day was a mixture of pity and revulsion*. Yes, revulsion. The degeneration of the human body, sucked of its natural vitality by the twin evils of hunger and disease, is a disgusting thing. We never say so in our TV reports. It's a taboo that has yet to be breached. To be in a feeding centre is to hear and smell the excretion of fluids by people who are beyond controlling their bodily functions. To be in a feeding centre is surreptitiously* to wipe your hands on the back of your trousers after you've held the clammy palm of a mother who has just cleaned vomit from her child's mouth.

-In the beginning of this paragraph, he is admitting to his feelings in an honest way, which would have surprised the reader. This suggests a candor or honesty to this piece which makes it engaging as we are intrigued to see this man admit something which would usually be deemed unacceptable. Alagiah seems to be sharing unpleasant truths with us and we find his frankness appealing and the bluntness with which he relates these facts makes this insight to human nature all the more shocking.

Paragraph 6: And then there was the face I will never forget.

-Isolated line -'Face' repeated to signify the importance of it, structurally building up to create tension. -This short and dramatic sentence is the climax of the story

Paragraph 4: There was Amina Abdirahman, who had gone out that morning in search of wild, edible roots, leaving her two young girls lying on the dirt floor of their hut. They had been sick for days, and were reaching the final, enervating stages of terminal hunger. Habiba was ten years old and her sister, Ayaan, was nine. By the time Amina returned, she had only one daughter. Habiba had died. No rage, no whimpering, just a passing away — that simple, frictionless, motionless deliverance from a state of half-life to death itself. It was, as I said at the time in my dispatch, a vision of 'famine away from the headlines, a famine of quiet suffering and lonely death'.

-The fact that she had gone out 'in search of wild, edible roots', re-demonstrates desperation, feeding her children nutrition and animalistic. -The writer uses a short sentence, "Habiba has died". This sentence is blunt, yet very powerful. -Death is easy for them, it's almost better. Ironic as mother goes in search of food and the daughter dies from hunger. -'Half-life' suggests they were never really alive. -The use of names and ages make it more personal which shows that he does feel emotionally connected. -The writer uses assonance-"frictionless, motionless deliverance". The repitition of 'less' slows down the sentence -The repetition of 'no' demonstrates the simplicity of her death.

Paragraph 2: I was in a little hamlet just outside Gufgaduud, a village in the back of beyond, a place the aid agencies had yet to reach. In my notebook I had jotted down instructions on how to get there. 'Take the Badale Road for a few kilometres till the end of the tarmac, turn right on to a dirt track, stay on it for about forty-five minutes — Gufgaduud. Go another fifteen minutes approx. — like a ghost village.' ...

-The phrase 'back of beyond' suggests isolation of the Somalian people. -The writer evokes sadness through the demonstration of how abandoned and forgotten these people are. -The use of long sentences, consisting of lists, further emphasises the isolation of these people, leading to pathos. In addition, it is as if the news crew are hunting for the worst image, where they could actually be helping these people- they are not being treated as humans but more as a story or a means to shock the viewers back home. -"Ghost suggests isolation and emptiness, could also imply soulless, both literally and figuratively, as there aren't that many people in the village, these people also themselves lack souls.

General structural comments

-The piece has a definite plot and it from a first-person perspective -The first couple of paragraphs are structured in a note form, with extracts from his notes -The next few paragraphs are structured like a descriptive piece, with its of adjectives and imagery. -The heavy use of hyphens in throughout shows his flowing thoughts and creates a more informal feel. -Lots of rhetorical questions to involve the reader and show the writers confusion

Paragraph 1: I saw a thousand hungry, lean, scared and betrayed faces as I criss-crossed Somalia between the end of 1991 and December 1992, but there is one I will never forget.

-The repetition and constant use of the personal pronoun "I" indicates personal engagement, more intimate. -This experience stands put, right at the end, and it's not because of the suffering he witnessed as suggested through the word 'but'. -This is a very short introductory paragraph, but, with long sentences which highlites the significance of the event. This is a complex idea/event that requires a thoughtful re-telling and exploration. -The use of the word 'never' is very strong and shows how greatly this thing has affected him.

Paragraph 13: I have one regret about that brief encounter in Gufgaduud. Having searched through my notes and studied the dispatch that the BBC broadcast, I see that I never found out what the man's name was. Yet meeting him was a seminal moment in the gradual collection of experiences we call context. Facts and figures are the easy part of journalism. Knowing where they sit in the great scheme of things is much harder. So, my nameless friend, if you are still alive, I owe you one.

-There is a powerful and different ending with a tone of appreciation. -The writer uses direct address, "I owe you one", to bring this man to life.

Paragraph 8: There's pity, too, because even in this state of utter despair they aspire to a dignity that is almost impossible to achieve. An old woman will cover her shrivelled body with a soiled cloth as your gaze turns towards her. Or the old and dying man who keeps his hoe next to the mat with which, one day soon, they will shroud his corpse, as if he means to go out and till the soil once all this is over.

-There is now a more personal tone as the writer pities them: "they aspire to a dignity that is almost impossible to achieve". -"they will shroud up his corpse", the modal verb 'will' suggests that it is going to happen for sure.

Paragraph 5: There was the old woman who lay in her hut, abandoned by relations who were too weak to carry her on their journey to find food. It was the smell that drew me to her doorway: the smell of decaying flesh. Where her shinbone should have been there was a festering wound the size of my hand. She'd been shot in the leg as the retreating army of the deposed dictator ... took revenge on whoever it found in its way. The shattered leg had fused into the gentle V-shape of a boomerang. It was rotting; she was rotting. You could see it in her sick, yellow eyes and smell it in the putrid air she recycled with every struggling breath she took.

-This old lady was isolated, just like the rest of the village, "abandoned". -He uses a hyperbole, "she was rotting". This suggests a show and painful process, not very human-suggesting both physical and mental decay- she doesn't want to live. -"the shattered leg had fused into the gentle V-shape of a boomerang": figurative language. -Use of senses such as smell in this paragraph create a more vivid image of the scene

Paragraph 12: I resolved there and then that I would write the story of Gufgaduud with all the power and purpose I could muster. It seemed at the time, and still does, the only adequate answer a reporter can give to the man's question.

-This paragraph is short since now he has realized and has a more determine tone to share his inspiration

What was the writer's purpose?

-To shock people -To give readers an insight to how a journalist, as opposed to reader, sees suffering and how they are obligated to report harsher and harsher news. -"I owe you one" - a dedication to the man who smiled

Who is the writer's target audience?

Readers of newspapers/magazines that live in more favorable conditions