We Are Orphans Here Review

This essay takes place in the hot zone of the middle east, Isreal. Depicted is a camp that holds in the refugees with inhumane living conditions. The trash is burned at border walls as an act of symbolism. There are criminals and dangerous men who walk the compound. When we read the camp, we picture something minuscule. When shown the photos the actual "camp" is a lot bigger than what my imagination created. There's a tone of sadness as we can't help but feel sorrow for the children and families who live here. There's a tone of optimism with the introduction of the character Baha. A man who wants to create a better living space for everyone. This often reminds me of MLK as a man who wants to create positive change. Like Martin, Baha was gunned down by someone who was scared of change. This creates a bleak sense. As if the hope of positive change died with him, but as the narrator says in the end "A baby can thrive no matter." Compared to Two Shallow Graves I'd say after reviewing again this story is much sadder. These are children who suffer. WHo are using drugs as early as eight. Who grow up without fathers and mothers and live in a cage. It is sadder because these children don't have the privilege to experience a life they deserve.

In the essay "Two Shallow Graves" by Jason Arment, made me feel sad. I did not find anything that humor me in this essay. its hard to make humor out of something that makes you feel for a person and there is really no time to make humor when you are trying to survive in war.

Two Shallow Graves

My first impression from this essay was in the intro when he talks about the man they have who was a farmer, that's what he had assumed and  

"\We are orphans here."

                              "W\e are orphans here" was a very interesting essay to read about for my opinion. The author gave the readers many ways to image who she is. After reading the intro the reader can already conclude that Rachel is an american.After reading the essay I can conclude why the author named this essay " we are orphans here", the author mentioned that there was no place for children to play or move around. I believe this is one of the reasons the author named this essay as she did. throughout the essay the author explained many negative things about the refugee camp, but barely any positive things about it. I believe the author feels pity on the people, mainly children that live there, which is the reason for my opinion she gave the essay this title. thoroughly the essay was pretty bleak for my opinion. However the only part of the essay which i thought wasn't bleak was when Rachel stated "baha founded a community center so that older children have a place to hang out". Everything else mentioned in the essay was very dull for my opinion. Bureaucracy is a system of government in which most important decisions are made by state officials rather than by elected representatives. In this essay it was a bureaucracy system because the officials basically made rules for the camps. For my opinion both essays were very dull and sad to read. 

We Are Orphans Here Review

    This essay is bleak and talks about Kushner's experience in Shuafat Refugee Camp with Baha as her guide, a twenty-nine- year-old Palestinian community organizer. The author, as a special guest at the Refugee Camp, shows us what she saw and heard in the first person. As I read about the poor living condition of people there, I sympathized with refugees and felt angry because neither the Palestinian authority nor Israel provides services to the  Refugee Camp, which causes many innocent people die and a lot of social problems, such as crime, jihad, and trash fires. According to the title "We Are Orphans Here", it comes from what Adel said. On the other hand, "Orphan", means a child whose parents are dead, which refers to these refugees without the government's help and protection, forcing to live in tough condition. And the kids here don't seem to have a good future. As for Baha, it can say that he is a hero and he is important to the whole Refugee Camp because he make a great contribution to the Refugee Camp. In the end of the essay, author describes Baha's death in a flat tone but it implies that the entire camp will suffer in his absence and the refugees' fates are dispiriting.

                               "We Are Orphans Here"

The ethos was impressive because the way writer expressed the story created a picture in font of my eyes. The significance of the title "We Are Orphans Here" was that it kind of tells you about what the story is going to be because the word orphan means a child without parents and we means there are a lot  of people who are alone.The text "the building next to us was twelve stories. Next to it was another twelve story building". After reading this line it all starts to make sense like how the refugee camp was like and i searched for the pictures of Shuafat Refugee Camp on Google and it was almost the same as i imagined.After looking at those pictures i wanted to get to know more about that Refugee Camp. Bureaucracy 

• What is bureaucracy?  What role does bureaucracy play in both of these essays? Does it serve a purpose for good, bad, or is it more indeterminate? 

A bureaucracy is a system of government in which most of the important decisions are made by state officials rather than by elected representatives. Bureaucracy plays a big role in how the lives of the people living in refuge camp are run. Due to the strife of war torn countries and lack of a place in the world the people inside the Shuafat Refugee Camp are barely considered citizens and even though there are taxes being paid to the government that took them in as sanctuary.

"We Are Orphans Here" Response

From the beginning of the essay, "We Are Orphans Here" the author gave me the impression of being surprised of the people around her and the unfamiliar settings. She recalls the admiration the community has for Baha and I believe she herself is at least a little inspired by the way everyone looks up to him. He was like this celebrity that people relied on and he was eager to help. Rachel Kushner goes as far as to describes him as "an informal mayor". As a character, I wouldn't say she has authority, that position would definitely fit Baha, as so many people respected him, but she was a curious outsider looking in and when she gets to see, firsthand, the tragedy, she's sympathetic.

A part that really stood out to me in the essay is when she meets Adel's daughter who is physically disabled due to the school bus accident, leaving her face burned and without ears, Kushner  just wanted to offer something as comfort or to give her some kind of promise, hope, even, but nothing was good enough. No material offering was good enough. She wanted to give her earrings the earrings she was wearing but she knew that wouldn't fix the fact that Adel's daughter would go on to live a difficult life.

The title for this essay, I would say, is straightforward. These people who live these unsafe and impoverished lives are living in refuege camps. It's a temporary shelter, kind of like orphans in an orphanage, until the situation gets better. If it ever does, that is.

We are Orphans and Two Shallow Graves

We are Orphans and Two Shallow Graves are both connected.  The essays are connected because they both take place in Middle Eastern areas.  And we(people who watch the news) are always hearing about these terrible things that go on in the Middle East.  It changed the way I read the essay because feel like have heard of these things before.  I knew the essay would have a sad tone when i realized the setting.  For example in "We are Orphans Here" the author mentions a little girl named Mira who was missing part of her arm and a kneecap due to a bus accident in which people burned to death.  Accident or not it seems like we always hear of these type of tragedies mostly in those areas.

In both essays "Two Shallow Graves" and " We Are Orphans Here" I didn't really find humor of within both of them . They both take place in the Middle East , either a war going on or families in refugee camps . These moments that I read from both these essays makes my reading experience seem very dull. Knowing what these people had to go through and no one doing anything about it , or to help at least . 

"We are orphans here"

The impression i felt from the author is that they speak with a very sad tone and give off a story where we feel as if there is a significant problem going on. Me personally i felt the Palestanian and Israeli essay more and felt more related to that one just because the fact that i am a Palestanian. Growing up i used to hear and see alot about whats going on in my country but all the time i just felt greatful for not being in their position. I felt this way until summer 2016 when i visited Palestine and saw the harsh conditions that they were living in. Now when i talk about the conditions they were in, im not only talking about the lack of clean water and housing conditions, im also talking about their enviroment. The country is very dirty and has garbage and mud all over the place and the worst is walking down the street and hearing gunshots and bombs going off everywhere. The night time was the worst and i felt very confused as to why all this was not fazing my family that does live there until i realized that they are used to living in these conditions and getting news that so and so died or someone got shot. For the 2 weeks i was there we got 2 knocks on the door with someone breaking the news to my cousin that someone they knew died. Its a sad world and i barely survived those 2 weeks so i always think about what i seen over there. I actually got 2 guns pointed at me and my family at the airport by israeli soldiers for jumping on the wrong shuttle bus.

In the essay "we are orphans here" Rachael sort of talks about how life was kind of hard in the refugee camp. Also I found it interesting how she brought up this guy Baha Nababta who acts sort of like a mayor in the camp and this guy is like God to everybody, whenever someone has a problem they go to him.

Two Shallow Graves

The essay is placed in Iraq. Off the bat the tone is dark and melancholy. Were introduced to this unparalleled world where there's nothing but heat and misery. There's a prisoner who's not titled a prisoner but a "Person Under Custody." Hands behind his back with a sandbag over his face in the merciless sun. That's the mild side of war. The narrator depicts this separate world that somehow fits into our world. War was always ruthless and inhumane but do actually get depictions of the tear drops forming on the sand as the prisoner cries and prays because he knows hes going to be tortured like a animal causes my hope in humanity to die down. Humans acting inhumane is the best summary I can give when speaking about this war. Inhumane is not an accurate word but nothing summarizes the painful misery that soldiers live in. The mental trauma the builds up causes nightmares and the decay of his life. In 10 days the soldier spent 150 hours on post. The sweat and fungus builds up on his skin. We often fund these wars with out tax dollars and selected government officials. There is a mandatory grit and ruthlessness needed. When humane is shown its often identified as weakness and treason. "Two Graves" is a manifest of war.