The ambiguity present in the title directly engages the reader.

It makes the reader

ponder upon if the title was a pathway to Africa or a text about Africa.

The hyperbole immediately creates a sense of suffering while evoking sympathy

in the reader. The fact that the writer chose to make his first statement by
saying this, creates the idea that there was nothing else as significant as this
suffering in Africa.

George Alagiah writes about his experiences as a television reporter during the war
in Somalia, Africa in the 1990s. He won a special award for his report on the
incidents described in this passage.

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.
Immediately draws attention as the writer brings ‘one’ out of
The listing of negative adjectives further ‘thousand’ to the center of focus. This implies significance and
establishes the idea of suffering. keeps the reader waiting throughout the text until Alagiah
finally talks bout this one significant face.

I was in a little hamlet just outside Gufgaduud, a village in the back of beyond, a Hyperbole highlights
place the aid agencies had yet to reach. In my notebook I had jotted down the rurality of the
instructions on how to get there. ‘Take the Badale Road for a few kilometres till village. If deeply
the end of the tarmac, turn right on to a dirt track, stay on it for about forty-five analyzed can be
minutes – Gufgaduud. Go another fifteen minutes approx. – like a ghost village.’ linked to the lack of
… reach the village has
for example lack of
Simile followed the hyphen. Instructions are noted down. This shows how difficult it was medicinal and health
to reach the village and the lack of infrastructure, it is also facilities.
This could suggest two things. closely related with the idea of rurality.
• Be a hint of death.
• Lack of activity, liveliness,
and cheer
 Lexical choice of Ironic as the most
In the ghoulish manner of journalists on the hunt for the predation portrays striking pictures
most striking pictures, my cameraman ... and I tramped ‘journalists’ almost as would be the ones
from one hut to another. What might have appalled us scavengers. This with the most
when we’d started our trip just a few days before no confession and suffering.
longer impressed us much. The search for the shocking is acceptance create
like the craving for a drug: you require heavier and more credibility in the Indirect criticisms for
frequent doses the longer you’re at it. Pictures that stun writer’s words as well readers as well, for
the editors one day are written off as the same old stuff because he criticizes being too inured or
the next. This sounds callous, but it is just a fact of life. his own profession
It’s how we collect and compile the images that so move insensitive towards
people in the comfort of their sitting rooms back home. others suffering.

There was Amina Abdirahman, who had gone

The simile ‘like craving for a drug’ compares a journalist’s insatiable
out that morning in search of wild, edible roots,
craving for suffering. It shows how addictive it can be to search for the
leaving her two young girls lying on the dirt floor
situations with the most pain and suffering. It also suggests how they
of their hut. They had been sick for days, and
want a more striking picture each time like a drug addict would need a
were reaching the final, enervating stages of
higher dose each time. terminal hunger. Habiba was ten years old and
her sister, Ayaan, was nine. By the time Amina
This paragraph maintains a tone of criticism. While the returned,
writer, self – criticizes
she had only one daughter. Habiba had
himself he also criticizes the readers died. No rage, no whimpering, just a passing
away – that simple, frictionless, motionless
There was Amina Abdirahman, who had gone out that morning in search of
deliverance wild,
from edible
a state roots,to death
of half-life
leaving her two young girls lying on the dirt floor of their hut. They had
itself. been
It was, as I sick for
said at thedays,
time inand
my dispatch,
were reaching the final, enervating stages of terminal hunger. Habiba was ten years old
a vision of ‘famine away from the andheadlines,
her a
sister, Ayaan, was nine. By the time Amina returned, she had only one daughter. Habiba had
famine of quiet suffering and lonely death’.Very
died. No rage, no whimpering, just a passing away – that simple, frictionless,
ironic motionless
as the incidents with the most suffering
deliverance from a state of half-life to death itself. It was, as I said at the time in my
‘impressed’ them. This dispatch,
is further shownahow
vision of ‘famine away from the headlines, a famine of quiet suffering
immuneand theylonely
becomedeath’.
and how they want more
and more suffering each time.
Use of real names creates credibility and helps Extent of suffering is The simple and short sentence
the reader connect to the situation more. highlighted. used to describe Habiba’s death
portrays how much of a comfort
Death is described almost as a fortune rather than a tragedy. A cynical tone is created death was than the suffering
The anaphora: ‘no rage’ and ‘no whimpering ‘further as it shocks the reader they went through. It also shows
simplifies the situation and highlights how insignificant it that even this extent of how common death was that
was. It again highlights how death was just another day to suffering was not death did not sound a big deal
day event by portraying how immune everyone was to worthy enough for a to them nor the writer.
death. headline.

Throughout this paragraph a matter-of-fact tone is utilized to show much of an

obvious even death was. It further reveals the lack of significance in death.

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.

And then there was the face I will never forget.

 The vivid descriptions consisting of a wide variety of visual imagery portray a very disturbing image. The colon
which is soon followed by “ smell of decaying flesh” along with the fact that he was driven by the ‘smell’ links
back to the ‘ghoulish manner’ of journalist almost as if suffering attracted them.

Ellipsis breaks the flow almost as if the writer was taking Parallel structure reflects how she was also rotting along
a deep breath to get the courage before he could lay out with the wound and evokes a lot of shock and pity.c
the horrifying details of reality.
Explains why death was better than living
Oxymoron shows the writer’s disturbed and confused
mind set as to the extent that suffering can cause people
to fall to.

The writer again narrows the focus to the face he mentioned at the very beginning of the text. The short sentence which
precedes a series of long paragraphs immediately grabs the reader’s attention.

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.

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.

The writer constantly highlights how significant this face was to him and he confesses his feelings of pity and revulsion

The short sentence confirms his Links back to the idea of Gufgaadud being a ghost village. Anaphora highlights
thoughts of revulsion. While the immense impact
showing the writer’s own this experience had
The writer keeps on confessing his feelings and indirectly
embarrassment for feeling this on him.
criticize journalism
way, the fact that the write
honestly shares it with the
The writer honestly accepts Creates a very disturbing image The writer is
reader wins the reader’s
how he felt but he knows he but this aids the reader to extremely
credibility.
should not have felt that way relate to the writer’s feelings moved by
their sense of
dignity and he
appreciates
this very
much
 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.

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.

The face becomes very important to him , the constant The effect of a smile is clear, as there is a prominent
repetition demonstrates this. change in the sentence structure. This disjoint
sentence structure suggests that the writer is thinking
and actually reflecting on it.
Short sentence
impactfully
emphasizes his Suggests a realization and he has started to understand
moment of epiphany something more than he felt before.
or reality.

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?

Shows how surprised the writer is about the impact the Makes the writer question his own life, his purpose, his
smile had on him profession. It also makes the readers think and ponder upon
their lives.

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. 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.

Oxymoron highlights how much the writer values

Alliteration of Portrays that the lesson learnt their meeting
plosives denote the was more worthy even than
determination of the knowing the person’s name
writer How much the writer treasures the A
meeting and how influential the moment reminder
Passage ends in an extremely grateful and thankful was. of death
tone
ideas
George Alagiah is describing a visit to Africa. He is discussing the horrors that he saw on his
visit and how they have haunted him since.

context
George Alagiah is a BBC newsreader. He used to be a reporter and he was sent to Africa to
cover the events that unfolded in the 1990s in Somalia. At this time, there was a civil war
and the people encountered many difficulties.

author’s purpose
He is writing reflectively and his attitude towards the events seems to have changed since
he originally reported on the event. This seems most clear in the final line, when he
discusses his regret at not knowing the man’s name. It suggests that his purpose and
empathy level is different now that it was then.

language
Emotive Language

Emotive Language is any language that makes you feel something for a person or situation.
It is an umbrella term and there are many different devices that create emotive language:

‘I saw a thousand hungry, lean, scared and betrayed faces’.

It is the list of 3 adjectives that create the pity and empathy that we feel for the situation.
Another example is:

‘simple, frictionless, motionless deliverance’

Note the contrast between the two quotes mentioned above. Whilst the first set of
adjectives are harsh, the second contains much gentler and softer description. It is almost
as though Alagiah is contrasting the harshness of the incidents with the human empathy
that he feels.

However, emotive language is not only created through adjectives:

‘The degeneration of the human body, sucked of its natural vitality by the twin evils of
hunger and disease, is a disgusting thing’

The use of the verb ‘sucked’ creates the lack of control that the people encountered and the
noun ‘evils’ represents the disgust he has for the situation.

Simile

A simile is when you compare one object with another. A simile uses the words ‘as’ and ‘like’
to compare.
As a highly experienced journalist, Alagiah becomes critical of his profession:

‘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’.

He compares reporting to addiction. It is as though they are always wanting something

more controversial and more repulsive.It also seems as though the profession is bad for
him: much like a drug.

Rhetorical Question

Rhetorical questions are questions that require no answer. The question remains
unanswered in the piece.

Alagiah is haunted by the question: ‘What was it about that smile?’ It is as though all these
years later, he remains haunted and he is unable to forget the man who smiled.

Listing

He lists incidents that he has seen over the years that will forever be in his head. It is as
though he is traumatised by all he has seen, from a mother with her children to an old
woman.

structure
It is interesting that the description of the place comes before we understand why Alagiah
was in Africa. This creates a sense of disgust and repulsion.

Alagiah lists incidents that have remained strong in his mind. He finishes the piece with the
haunting image of a man. Despite the fact the image is haunting, the man was ‘smiling’.. It
is as though it is a contradiction to the emotion Alagiah was feeling.