They Poured Fire on Us From the Sky- Slavery

Slavery is in the past and people don’t have to worry about it anymore right? Wrong! Especially in Sudan in the first part of their now 26 year war. During some of the raids of the villages some villagers would be dragged on the back of horses and be sold as slaves. In the book, They Poured Fire on Us From the Sky, during one of the raids of the village a man named Deng was taken from the villages, “The Murahliiin had thrown him on the back of a horse and took him to a faraway place where he was sold as a slave.” (Bernstein 44) He goes on to tell the village about his experiences and the masters that owned him. He told them about the hard life that he had lived in the past few years while living as a slave. He told them under his first master, “Any person caught escaping is killed in the presence of all eyes as an example.” (Bernstein 44) The work was hard and there was very little food for each of them to eat. They also were severely punished, “The slightest mistake provoked a severe whipping.” (Bernstein 44) He wasn’t even called by his real name. One of the girls in the family that fell in love with Deng, which was against Muslim law, would call him by his real name and her father would say, “Why do you call him by his name? He is Kadam asuwat ‘black slave’” (Bernstein 44) even though he bathed everyone, cleaned their house, cooked for them, cleaned their clothes, and herded their cattle all day every day he was treated poorly, obviously not paid, and whipped if he didn’t do something just right. Through all the hard work he grew weak and still had to work. When he tried to escape he was beaten almost to death by the whole family except for one person and had to go a few days without any food. This made him even weaker.
A lot of people think that there slavery is gone and has been gone for a while. However, it obviously isn’t. Even in the US there is still slavery and it is a major issue that needs to be solved. I don’t think that it can ever be solved and it will always be an issue. However, the problem in Sudan is that the people that are trading the villagers as slaves are associated with the government. Therefore, the government obviously doesn’t care and if they don’t care then the issue will never be solved or at least get better. At least the government in the US has made laws against slavery. In Sudan they are telling people to abduct the villagers.