George Alagiah

A PA SS A G E TO A FR IC A

Vocabulary
Revulsion: Disgust
Surreptitiously: secretly
Inured: hardened
Hamlet: a small settlement,

generally one smaller than a village

Tacit: understood or implied without
being stated

Introduction
Somaliais a small state inAfrica. It

has no functional government since

1990, As a result war, diseases,
Piracy and Famine have ravaged or
broke out.George AlagiahaBBC
TVreporter writes about his
experience inSomalia.

Analysis

Title

A Passage to Africa

Passage

Paragraph 1
thousand, hungry, lean, scared and

betrayed faces.
but there is one I will never forget

Paragraph 2
Setting Is there
Hamlet
Back of Beyond = Hyperbole
Long sentence to give direction
The agencies had yet to reach there
Ghost Village = Similie

Paragraph 3
The role of these journalists in those

areas.
ghoulish hunt
trample huts
striking pictures
Craving for a drug
same old stuff the next
move people in the comfort of their
sitting rooms back home

Paragraph 4
Pity is gained from the readers
Plight of two girls
No rage, No whimpering =

Anaphora
simple , frictionless , motionless
famine away from the headlines

Paragraph 5
Plight of a wounded woman

abandoned
decaying flesh smell
gentle V-shape of a boomerang
She was rotting
Struggling breath

Paragraph 6
Repetition

Paragraph 7
Revulsion of the writer at the feeding

centre
Yes, revulsion,
beyond controlling their bodily
function.
Surreptitiously

Paragraph 8 and on
The woman covers herself up
The man does not let go of his

gardening hoe
The smile from a man

The sm ile
beyond pity and revulsion.
turned the tables on the tacit

agreement
posed a question that cut to the
heart

W hat does the sm ile do?

It reverses

roles

It affects
the writer
very
powerfully

It
stimula
tes
actions
It
raises
Questi
on

Last paragraph
I owe you one
Expresses gratitude, sympathy and

thanks to the man

Tone
At the beginning
inured and distanced
What might have appalled us ... no longer impressed us much.
Admits it himself - thissoundscallous, the ghoulish manner
ofjournalists
Revulsion for the dying and sick
a mixture of pity and revulsion
The degeneration of thehuman body... is a disgusting thing.
Death described dispassionately
sameold stuff
No rage, no whimpering, just a passing away
that simple, frictionless, motionless deliverance from a state of
half-lifeto death itself.
It was, as I said at the time in my dispatch, a vision of famine
away from the headlines, a famine of quiet suffering and lonely
death.

At the end
more personal
Pities them: they aspire to a dignity

that is almost impossible to achieve

I had to find out.
Regrets the fact that he never found
out what the mans name was
I owe you one

Purpose
Isolated
Suffering
Powerlessness
Harsh conditions in the
village- atmosphere of death,
decay and abandonment
Violence

Reveals how the new s industry/new s crew

really w ork

View people as subjects

No real connection between
the two parties
Trying to hunt for the most
shocking images to captivate
readers

H ow does the w riter describe the village

ofG ufgaduud?
It is a small village.
He compares it to a Ghost Village using a

simile "like a ghost village" To suggest it was

abundant.
No Foreign aid is available' A place where the
aid agencies had yet to reach.
women were searching for wild edible roots.
shows how backward the situation was.
There was death in the village and death was
accepted as inevitable. Example: "only one
daughter had died"

Language used
The account is mainly in the first

person because he's describing a

personal experience. This gives
authenticity to the writing. Eg: "I saw
a thousand hungry, lean, scared and
betrayed faces as I criss-crossed
Somalia...."

Language # 2
use of powerful simile "like a ghost village" to compare

Gufgaduud to an abandoned village. The effect of this is to

hint the reader the suffering, abandonment and loneliness
The writer has used a lot of emotive words in his

description. This brings out loneliness, suffering, neglect

and degradation. Example of emotive words include
"hungry, lean, a ghost village, quiet, suffering, lonely
death, shattered leg
use of rhetorical questions brings out the suffering

difficulties and deprivation. Eg: "how could it be?","what

was it about that smile?
Use of sharp effective sentences to grab readers attention.

Eg: "then there was a face I would never forget."