“In Africa, they say there are two hungers, the lesser hunger and the greater hunger. The lesser hunger is for things that sustain life, the goods, the services, and the money to pay for them, which we all need.
The greater hunger is for the answer to the question ‘why’, for some understanding of what life is for” (Handy 13).
From the moment we enter the world, we are wondering; questioning. Every morning, we see the run rise, the wind howl, the birds sing, and as humans, we question it. We are hungry for answers to the deeper meanings of life, attempting to understand our purpose and destiny. These are our greater hungers.
Further from the core of our being, a hunger that is most familiar to us is the lesser hunger. Things needed to survive. …show more content…
but, as I watched the brothers running across the roof, flying their kites...I wondered how free a daughter could ever be”(Yousafzai 26). Her father and mother had a respectful and loving relationship, as well as her father owning a school that of which she grew up in. Seeing how most females in her country did not share this luxury, Malala was inspired.
Malala’s story shares a connection with the second memoir I read, The Color of Water, by James McBride. The Color of Water is a story that follows McBride’s childhood and the mystery behind his white mother.
McBride, growing up in the early ‘60s, faced much racial discrimination. McBride’s mother, Ruth, who grew up in the south, also witnessed this aspect of cruelty, saying she “ always felt that way about the South, that beneath the smiles and southern hospitality and politeness were a lot of guns and liquor and secrets”(McBride 95). McBride, despite facing discrimination, is proud of his skin, saying that his “siblings had already instilled the notion of black pride in [him]”(McBride 90) and that “ as a kid, [he] preferred the black side”(McBride 91). This connects with I am Malala as even though it would feel as if the world around them was against them, the two narrators still manage to find pride and achieve excellence in who they