Chapter 8 - A Man

This chapter for me was a very strange chapter, due to the fact that I'm a girl and that this chapter had talked about his transition into becoming a man.

At some point in this chapter I felt a bit uncomfortable reading about circumcision of a boy but then it just became something that I had to accept and understand.

The chapter starts out with his final year in school and now he had to move on and he had to grow up and finally become …

a man

Camara was now going to go through the biggest even in his life, which is the circumcision. This was the step towards Layes manhood, and it was a big deal to him and the society. The circumcision is a life changing event and Laye had mixed feelings about it, it was more of fear and a bittersweet feeling, because know he is dependent and he holds responsibilities for his own responsibility. This event was the next step up from Konden Diara, because this even is a more life changing event and a big step in his life. as he said on page 112;

"This festival was unlike others. Although it was supposed to be entirely joyful, there was a gravity about it that other festivals did not have, a gravity arising from the fact that the event which it commemorated was the most important event in life; to be exact, the beginning of a new life"

Camara had stayed up at night because the thoughts of growing up and becoming a new sort of person, one who know must deepened on himself was a scary thought and also the thought of getting circumcised and how that might feel.

Camara was afraid and needed the will power to get through, as the next day approached it was time for him to finally become a man.

After the circumcision the mothers would get to see their sons from a gate and his family was waiting for him to great him.

After a few weeks he had went back home from the concession, his family was waiting to great him.

Camara is now a new man.

He now has his own hut.

And he has new clothes, new man clothes that his mother had left for him in his hut.

His mother had a sat look in her face, this foreshadows his mothers emotions towards her son growing up.

Every mother see's her son grow up, and time flies, and things change, however this is life and Camaras mother had given me the feeling that she wasn't ready to let go, she wasn't ready…