Dimensions: 2nd Reading Assignment

A Bend in The River
Parts 4, 5, 6
(Pages 59- 107)

     Part four was a short section about Salim's visit to return the stolen ledger to Father Huismans at the lycee. The first time Salim went, Father Huismans was away, and Salim met with a Belgian teacher instead. The teacher was unhappy with his job and very irritable. Salim's second attempt to return the book was a success. Father Huismans was an optimistic priest who respected, and collected, African beliefs and artifacts. Salim notices that Father Huismans finds himself a last lucky witness to the dying African civilization.
     In part five Salim learns that the war hasn't really ended, as it begins to errupt all around his town. On page 67, Salim narrates "And the war, which we had thought dead, was all at once around us. We heard of ambushes on roads we knew, of villages attacked, of headmen and officials killed." Salim put his gold and valuable things into a crate, along with some of Metty's, and buried it. White soldiers came to Salim's town. Later, in the early state of peace, Father Huismans was murdered. The spiritual African things he had collected lost their value to Salim; eventually a tourist came and took them away.
     Part six starts out the second chapter of the novel, which is titled "The New Domain." Projects were started around the town; the population grew. Mahesh, who Salim was becoming friends with, had a deep yearning and interest for small business ventures. He would order a machine from far away, thinking that he could profit from it. He seldom did. Mahesh also got involved in some illegal stuff, and a few times Salim would have to help him out by hiding these things. Later, Mahesh began to make a profit from running Bigburger. The President, or "Big Man" as Salim sometimes says, had wanted to show them a new Africa. The town became modern, and in this, lost many of its old, sacred African ways. The Domain, a few miles from Salim's town, became a university that Ferdinand was able to attend on a scholarship. Salim began to hate the place; he wished for a home he had lost. At the end of this section we find that Metty had a child and hadn't told Salim about it. Things are quickly changing for Salim.