A Passage to Africa by George Alagiah

Introduction

Somalia is a small state in Africa . It has no functional government since 1990, As a result war, diesease, Piracy and Famine have ravaged or broke out. George Alagiah a BBC TV reporter writes about his experiance in somalia .

How does the writer describe the village of Gufgaduud?

• It is a small village.
• He compares it to a Ghost Village using a simile "like a ghost village" To suggest it was abundant.
• No Foreign aid is available' A place where the aid agencies had yet to reach.
• women were searching for wild edible roots. shows how backward the situation was.
• There ws sweetness and death in the village and death was accepted as inevitable. eg: "onle one daughter had died"

Language use

The account is mainly in the first person because he's describing a personal experiance. This gives authencity to the writing. eg: "I saw a thousand hungry, lean, scared and betrayed faces as I criss-crossed Somalia...."

use of powerful simile "like a ghost village" to compare Gufgaduud to an abondoned village. The effect of this is to hint the reader the suffering, abondonment and loneliness. The writer also foreshadows the outcome of the story and creats anxiety of the village.

The writer tries to use dashes in his description,"forty-five minutes-...."and many more. This is done to stress and emphasize the hopeless condition of the hamlet. Line 49 is used to stress that it was not a joyful smile, it was a shy uttered by him.

The writer has used alot of emmotive words in his description. whih answers "WH" questions. This brings out loneliness, suffering, neglet and degnadation. eg of emotive words: "hungry, lean, a ghost village, quiet, suffering, lonely death, shattered leg" etc

use of rhetorical questions bring out the suffering difficulties and eprevation. eg: "how could it be?","what was it about that smile?"

sensory appeal is used very powerfully specifically appeal to senses of sight, smell, taste. eg: "craving for a drug", "smell of decaying flesh","yellow eyes"

use of metaphor. eg: "the shattered leg..." This implies the wounds and suffering.

Use of sharp effective sentenses to grab readers attention. eg: "then there was a face i would never forget."

use of dampened tone brings out pity and symppathy and creates an atmosphere of gloom and pain.

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