This sentence is on pg 23 in chapter 3 . Beah was just done cooking the rice and okra soup when he and his friends heard a gunshot. Soon after they heard many gunshots one after another like thunder. At first the boys thought it was soldiers shooting their rifles but they soon realized it was not, but in fact it was the rebels as soon as about fifteen minutes passed just eneugh to dish out the rice. That is when all hell broke out and gunshots were heard hitting the tin roofs of houses and the whole village panicked and started to run. No one took anything with them, they just ran for their lives. mothers lost children.
What i think this sentence shows is the absolute fear of death and the willingness to loose everything to stay alive , the human drive to survive is so strong that we will give up anything holding us back from that survival to go on. even of that is our own child. The people in the town left all of their belongings and loved ones behind in the blink of an eye because death was so close. For someone on the brink of death nothing else matters but survival. It is the fight or flight thought processes that all humans have in their brain. Either you flee death or you stay and fight it there is no in between. for the villagers there was no other option but to run , if they had stayed they would have surely been murdered. I think any person faced with this situation or one similar would do the same as the villagers did, i know i would. I think this shows a lot about human nature and how we are still chained by our brains survival mode. If we were to learn anything we should learn that some things can not be stoped and that to survive we must sacrifice.
