Kunta Kinte
(A.k.A. Nate Garcia)
Dear Mom and Nasik, I have left you there alone trying to seek food somewhere somehow. I know you are sick with AIDS and we can’t do anything about it so we should make the most of our time by simply surviving until it’s your time to go, which hopefully isn’t soon. I’m here at a camp trying to learn the ways of our people; the Kaszi Tribe. I am trying to learn to hunt, though I am only 16 years old. I am now on my way to the wild by myself with my bow and arrow, spear, and rock-tipped dagger…. I was out last night and you wouldn’t believe what happened; I was out late at night and there wasn’t a sound of wind blowing. It was dead silent and I desperately needed to move but I would have alerted any incoming animals. Three hours go by and still nothing, by this time the sun was coming up. I finally decide to leave when all of a sudden, I hear a twig snap, a huge thud, and a horrendous screech of a poor creature thunders through the forest. I quickly move towards the sound to find a young zebra clenched by a lioness. I see no lion or cubs so I decide to sneak up on the lioness and try to kill it. I’m right behind it and I bring out my bow and arrow to injure this beast, I aim carefully just as I was taught and shot the creature where I thought was her neck was. She let out a horrific roar as if she was ready to pounce on me and she does try to. I quickly reach my dagger and she is not even 5 feet from me. I was so scared that I closed my eyes and stuck the blade out hoping I didn’t miss. I then blacked out. When I awoke, I was on the floor with a dead lioness on me. I was so scared that I got up and stabbed it with my spear countless times repeatedly until I was tired and knew for sure it was dead. By now it was noon and I took my animal back to camp which some I sent to you with this letter. I hope the messenger didn’t eat any. Anyway, I was also taking my lioness to the camp when I stopped at a pond and went spear fishing for about five minutes. I caught some pretty big fish and I sent you the biggest piece. After my incident with the lioness, everyone treated me with much respect. The next day I was in the wild, I saw white men with slaves and it was terrifying because they had these stick think that they hit them with. I was almost discovered but I was hiding behind a tree. I quickly rushed to everyone to tell them the bad news when they argued how white men don’t come here anymore, but as each day passed others started reporting white men here and white men there, and finally the leaders believed. We were moving to another area, farther away from the white men were seen. While we were on the move I decide to take a shortcut and go through the plains when all of a sudden I see black men with collars on and they look at me evil as if I should run away. So I start to run and see that they are chasing me and I was scared I go back to the others and we take down the black slaves. We found out that they work for white men and were treated fairly better than the resisters because they helped out bring profit to white men. We decide to kill all but one to tell the white men we want them to leave…for good. He scurries off and is soon out of site. We continue walking when I look another shortcut but this time I’m lost and don’t know my way back. I then see more black people and this time I’m greatly outnumbered 5 to 1. I sprint as fast I could away from these men and I almost escaped, but one threw a chain with metal balls on the edges and I caught my feet. I hit the floor with a loud thump! I try to get up and escape but it was too late; they had put chains on my arms and legs. I am helpless and I am being taken to their sea machine, so I am truly sorry mother but you won’t be seeing me anymore. I am being taken to be a slave and be tortured. You and Nasik please take care of yourselves. I will always love you two so much. I know we live in much poverty with no man around but you women must stick together no matter what happens. I hope you find good men one day and move to the city to find jobs for yourselves. You must leave they hut and take all belongings somewhere safe good luck mother. –Kunta Kinte
Abioye (A.K.A) Fausto Meza
Today I am sure it is my last morning. My last few breaths. Today is the day I will be able to meet my king, my father and mentor in heaven. I’ve been sick from A.I.D.S for 7 months and survived countless brutal sicknesses. I Wright this letter for w ever might have a slight interest I reading this. For this is short parts of my life, for you to be able to be aware of the cruel and harsh life I had, you would need to spend countless hours in my torn shoes.
As a youngster I never had a mother, for she died having me. It was has ironic what she begged my father to name me, Abioye, for it means born from the wealthy. We were amongst the poorest of the poor, we didn't have a house instead we lived in a mud hut in the middle of a desert that gives nothing but unbearable heat, and offers nothing but death. At the age of 8 i learned various skills for survival, i later mastered those skills which would save my life late on in my story. Skills such as hunting, fishing, and eating what the plain desert offered. And best of all he thought me how to ignore pain and hunger. After the age of 13 we went on a journey that scared my life forever. We were heading to one of the supposedly wealthier areas in western Africa, when we passed a village that was completely destroyed. The whole place was burned to ground, bullet pellets were everywhere. The smell of dead and burn flesh seemed normal to my dad as we roamed about hopping to find food or money. It was sad that we didn’t find anything at all left over from this village. Just the naked bare carcasses of dead women and men laying around. This is when father told me to go into a house and search while I saw him get closer and closer to a dead woman naked in the floor. Days passed by as we finally found a village that was functional, we decided to stay, as the leader saw us as guest and not a threat. That’s where I spend two years of my life, were I lost my father in a raid, a raid that killed almost everyone but me. For I went running and hid for days fearing I’d be killed. At the age of 17 I grew strong and independent, I needed no one and no one needed me. At that age I started exploring the art of seduction on several women. Although I was fully aware that I had such a disease that ends the live of the strongest of the strong, I dint mind to spread it, the pleasure was more great to me than the pain. I was with sever women at the time, but I never married, I went from village to village never staying long, always robbing what they had, for I knew death was soon to follow in their paths.
I am now 27 and the world was hit me in every cruel way possible, taking away people I love, slowly I begin to wonder when I will die, when will the raids catch up to me and take me by the head and kill me. For the fear of dying kept me alive and alert, and the fear of living kept me strong and fearless of almost everything. I finally got to a city, a city that was talked of in many villages I’ve lived in. This city, in the other hand was not magnificent, it was not great, it was a dump, a ghetto that claimed the lives of even more people. Hear I found a job, with a man I’ve seen before, the man I know killed my father when I was only 15. This man I gained his trust and he gained mine. We surprisingly became good friends, until the day came that he tried to run with the money we both obtained after four years of hard work. My solution was to kill him. For I knew I would die eventually, I could feel my bones weaken by the day, by the hour. I was then 31, I felt no sorrow or regret, for in a year I was too weak to feel such feelings. I am here, now a new man, with a few hours to live. I wallow in filth and frustration, not knowing my life could have been worst. It all doesn’t matter, for ives seen death in the eyes many times, I’m not afraid of it no more, I’m happy I’m a leave early, for this world is undeniably fucked up.
