Week 6: Conclusion of "What Is the What"

This week's readings were the rest of the book. The very last paragraph answered a question I'd had for a few weeks and that I talked about in one of my last posts. I always found it very interesting that Valentino is constantly trying to get his story out there, constantly wanting to tell someone what he has lived through. In the last paragraph he states "I speak to these people, and I speak to you because I cannot help it. It gives me strength, almost unbelievable strength, to know that you are there." He just wants to be heard because, as he had stated plenty of times before, he wants people to know of his existence and his experiences. He also wants to bring some well-deserved attention to all the atrocities that have occurred in southern Sudan. I was relieved when he said this paragraph because I thought it was the perfect way to end the book. It answered many of the questions I had before and brought a sense of closure from everything that was going on.