Week 5: Tough Times

In my group, we discussed the story on Monynhail. This story had two elements I believe. The assumed truth, that though no one saw Monynhai die and the factual truth that young boys die very easily in Sudan. These two ideas of truth were fascinating and caused me to reflect on what we had discussed previously that day. The feast with the chief also has similar truth parallels within the creation story. The creation story features something real and contextual, this is the cow. The cow remains a feature of the story implying the superiority of the Dinka, yet the cow itself is something real. The second element of the real story is the understood superiority of the Dinka over the Arabs. The parallel I draw is between the the fact the kids die easily in Sudan and the cow. This and the parallel between the "known" truth about the outcome of Monynhai and the understood truth of the superiority of the Dinka over the Arabs. I wondered how this understanding of superiority impacted the Lost Boys when they came to America. I think these understandings about truth greatly impacted their beliefs and experiences in the US. For much of their history they had been told that they were superior, then all of that is taken away and they are put in a situation where they have no control over their lives. This was no doubt very disorienting and probably led to some of the mental instability that they mentioned in the film.