They sold my sisterThis is a short story about the life and the traditions in Africa. The african girl Naliki describes the time when her parents sold her sister.
It’s a first-person story, we see the story from Naliki’s point of view, and because of this, you feel closer to the people in the story and closer to the action, like you’re taking part in it. It makes a different impression of the actions, when they’re seen from a little girl’s point of view.
Naliki is the narrator of the story. She is ten years old in the beginning of the story and twelve years old when we hear about her again in the end, where she’s afraid of being “sold” herself, first because she wants to be the first Maasai girl reaching the last stage of reading. In the end she is afraid, she’s going to be sold before she has finished school. Naliki’s being raised with beating, page 13 line 19-20 “one day much later, my mother beat me up thoroughly when I used the word ‘sold’ ” , and page 17 line 6 “she slapped me. I did not cry” the fact that she doesn’t cry, shows that she maybe has learned to deal with it. I think she’s a brave little girl on reflection of the fact that her mother beats her, she lives through seeing her sister get sold and kind of helps the elder sister dealing with the beginning of the marriage and manages to let the sister cry out by her shoulder. That shows, she’s a mature little girl, who has to be kind of mature to be able to be there for her sister when she needs her.
In this story I’m hesitating between liking or disliking the parents, because it is hard for me with an other believe, entirely to understand the tradition with those arranged marriages. Naliki’s parents are very habitual. They think about the future of their daughters, and have no mean attentions combined with the arranged marriages. They see it as a way of helping their daughters into having a good life added to the fact that they’re getting a good dowry. They want to marry Nyamalo off to a rich…