Some drawings of the war in the Ivory Coast:

These drawings showed the normal life of child soldiers in the Ivory Coast on their daily rounds, strolling through cities like and stealing from people. When all they want is peace and they are being forced to murder the ones they truly love. And the UN storming through their towns not even stopping the war just scaring th inhabitants with there guns but there not stopping the violence. These children are given guns and forced to fight in a  war, a war that the adults don't want to fight in and they are forced to rape women and murder families bcecause of a war which the U.K is doing nothing about since we only can help a 'certain amount' are country is so rich and powerful but yet they can send soldiers to Iraq for oil but they cant send none to the Ivory Coast to save lives.

I learnt from this that Kojo was very scared and alone a lot of the time since he was drafted into this country all alone since his family were murder and he was force to become a child soldier. I also learnt that his countries native language is french. This also made me understand Kojo better and it taught me things about him that you could just pick up from the script like he had a lot of darkness inside of him and how he has strong feelings for Ara since she was the first person he has been close to since the murdering of his family.

On this drawing of Cheung their is not much detail but I learnt through this that Cheung is athletic and he can do many athletic things like hand stands and cartwheels. Even though there wasn't much on the sheet, I think the character of Cheung was that he just like to joke about a lot and he was like always ready for action, or the arrival of his mother since she payed a man to get Cheung onto a  lorry to get to the U.K.

Through this I think I learnt a lot about Ara, I learnt that she is very confident and she had strong feelings for Kojo since 'he was her only family' and they were very close, close enough for Kojo to tell her his story about his family and being in the army in the Ivory Coast. Some people pictured Ara with a hijab because I think Afghanistan is a Islamic country so they would be quiet strong believers of their religion, but I don't think she would have since she because extremely close to a boy(Kojo). I think Ara would have been a very stong women who wasn't afraid to stand up for what she believed in and I think she only wanted the best for Kojo throughout the whole play even with her getting to stuudy in the U.K she was trying to encourage Kojo to as well.

The Ivory Coast

France made Côte d'Ivoire a protectorate in 1842, but did not actively occupy the territory until 1882. The country became a French colony in 1893. Côte d'Ivoire became an autonomous republic within the French Community in 1958 and achieved full independence on August 7, 1960. In October 1985, the United Nations approved a request from the Ivorian government to change the country's official name from Ivory Coast to Côte d'Ivoire.

Côte d'Ivoire maintains close ties with France, but also seeks to expand its contacts with other nations. It is Africa's largest exporter of coffee and cocoa, and also one of the largest exporters of timber and other tropical products.They gained Independence in the 60s along with many other African countries like Ghana and Nigeria.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivory_Coast

The capital of the Ivory Coast is Yamoussoukro, In 1998, the city had about 155,803 inhabitants. It is the fourth most populous city in Côte d'Ivoire, after Abidjan, Bouke, and Daloa.

I think my character Kojo never lived in a city I think he lived in a rural area where it would have been easy for him to be taken as a soldier. And since he had to walk along a dust track indicates poverty which I don't think their would have been a lot of in the cities.

MY PERFORMANCE

I think my performance went well even though I forgot which scene I was in but luckily Leanne remember and came on stage.I think when I did my small monologue that it went well and I tried to express my characters feelings a lot when I performed that bit of the play.

 Another persons performance I thought went well was Daniel, especially his monologue with the x-men, I thought it was really good because the physicality he chose suited the character he was given. I thought performing in Semi-Traverse was a bit difficult since I always had to be facing one direction. Since when I performed using thrust it was a lot easier because ive got audiences from 3 different directions and I don't really have to aim my performance at a certain area.

Thursday 24th January 2013

Last lesson we started off the lesson by finding a space in the room, closing our eyes and getting into the character. I realized in that exercise that my character was very different to me. Since he experience so many terrible things in the Ivory Coast, with the war he may have witnessed so many murders and rapes. I watched a film recently about the kids of the Congo and they were child soldiers, and the film was based around a group of friends that all got drafted into the army and who just wanted to have fun. In the film the main character what about 14(the same age as Kojo) and his family were raped(mother and sisters) and beaten and he was forced to murder his father. 

The film really made me realize that experiences like the one Kojo went through are real and people all over the world are experiencing them everyday.
 That is one of the reasons why I am grateful I got such a powerful part to play in the piece, since it is such a serious play and you could say it is based on true stories that people read about everyday.

Thursday 17th January 2013

This lesson we played a game called prisoner, we had a partner and they sat in front of us and they were are prisoners and we were guards, the aim of the game was to not allow are prisoner to break free.
 I think the reason why Miss made us play this game was for us to be my in touch with are characters and are improvisational skills, like how to react quickly in situations. For e.g if you forget your lines while you're performing to use the techniques you used in the game we played.