ISALC: ESL 411: College Prep. Reading/Writing - Spring 1998
Diversity and Civil Rights in the U.S.

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Losing Freedom and
No More Hope

by

Eri Maruyama
I entered the dark, dark hold. I had mixed feelings of shock, horror, confusion and demoralization. I pondered why these people treated us this way. I cried constantly. I did not mean to cry but tears of vexation poured out of my eyes like a leaking faucet. There was no way I could run away from those slave catchers when they tried to catch me. Even my hero, who was also my wrestling coach, was caught by them. He was such a strong man that I never thought anyone could beat him up. So when I saw him I felt powerlessness in myself. At the same time I lost all the confidence that I had before from the manhood training. I tried the hardest so that I could be a strong man like my father. So my shock was as deep as the hell and my vexation was as big as the ocean. "Oh, Allah (God) help me out." I cried inside.

A couple days had passed and the smells of the hold were getting worse and worse as days passed. The smell was like a rotten egg. Everyone threw up because of the rolling and pitching of the ship and it did not get cleaned up. Because the temperature inside the hold was so hot, everyone sweated so badly. My body was all sticky and I could easily smell myself. I just can not explain how bad the smell was. I guess it was even worse than a rotten egg. There is nothing as bad as this in the whole world.

It was not just the smell which made me crazy but also the sea sickness. Almost everyone was crying or screaming. It was due to their anger, frustration and disorientation. I screamed too and my passion added to the total situation. Although we were all from different villages and spoke different languages, we understood each others pain. I even refused to eat, but I had to eat in order to get freedom again. I got my confidence back and felt a little bit stronger than at the beginning

We had a slave uprising on the ship. I was so confident that I did not think about us losing it. We were almost winning the fight but when I saw a young man ready to fire the cannon, I went pale. I was not even scared; I was too shocked to think or do anything. I just felt such a hopelessness in myself.

When I saw a slave trader kill my wrestling coach my head was knocked down. Everything went blank. I again lost all hope. Back to the beginning the horrible food tasted even worse. I could taste nothing. It was really like horse manure. We were chained in the ship with both legs and hands. The chains hurt me so badly, it was killing me and even I heard them as if they were laughing at me. The chains enjoyed hurting me; they would never let me go. They watched me twenty-four hours a day like a member of the slave traders. The sound of the chains even scared me. It was from everywhere and I became unconscious and I saw my father, my mother and my brothers leaving me alone in hell and they were in heaven enjoying themselves and I woke up and felt such a loneliness and exhaustion.

Other than the chains, there was another thing that made me crazy. It was a noise from the ship itself. The ship was old, maybe the same age as my great grandfather, making a creaky sound like a house in a strong wind. It was such an annoying sound coming every second. It just made me mad and drove me crazy. I woke up constantly at night. It was almost impossible to sleep pleasantly and comfortably in the atmosphere with someone screaming. Some people just went crazy and would not stop crying or screaming. I felt so sorry for them. I was lucky enough that I did not get that bad.

Another depressing thing was that people were constantly dying from the heat, hunger and sickness; they did not have any energy to stay alive. A person next to me died and they took him away. I guessed he was thrown away after the death, like a piece of rubbish and never was seen as a human. At this point my anger reached it's limit. I could not understand why those traders, mainly white people, treated us this way. I did not know or could not guess where we are going to be taken. It was such a scary and anxious feeling of not knowing practically anything in the next minutes. We also did not understand the White's language so it made it even more scary and hard for us.

I never forgot my family during this time. I just hoped that they were well in Gambia, not having such a terrible time as I was having. When I thought about my family, I always thought about my village where I spent unforgettable precious days and never guessed I would be in such a situation like this. I am still confused and not quite understanding my situation. I am just hoping that I can go back to my country and my village and run through the huge fields, catch the pretty birds with my hands and just be with nature as I used to. Gambia is heaven to me and now I am in hell, the deepest part of hell, the deepest and the darkest of all.

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Updated: 3/14/98