Bounce

Chapter 2

The bounce effect

Thinking positively

Emmanuel Jal was taken from his village in Sudan after his family had been murdered. By the age of seven, he was a boy soldier in the Sudanese army. He was trained as a soldier to use a rifle and to kill the enemy. In the middle of one chaotic battle, he and some friends managed to escape. Then their lives became even worse: one by one they died of starvation and Emmanuel says his lowest point was sitting next to his friend, who had recently died, and being tempted to eat him.

At the age of 11, he was rescued along with 150 other young boys, by a British aid worker called Emma McCune, and smuggled into Kenya. Emma adopted him and he attended school in Nairobi for the first time. When he was ...