The House at Sugar Beach #5

After Daddy left, everything began to change drastically. The country people were sick of being underneath the Congo people of which Helene and her family were a part of. Helene was unaware that anything was going until the government was officially overthrown, “A coup d’etat, I learned that day, was a French phrase meaning “overthrow of the government” or literally, “cutting off the head,” (Cooper 166). This foreshadows the bloodiness and violence that will soon transcend over the country.
Because there were mostly just women at the house at Sugar Beach after daddy left, they were much more vulnerable. Soldiers came, ransacked the house, and took mommee into the bedroom. They left and she came out saying, “Those damn soldiers gang-raped me” (Cooper 177). This was extremely traumatizing for her and the girls who were forced to stand by and watch it happen. They looked up to their mother for strength and seeing her get taken advantage of drained a lot of their courage. Nobody should have to go through that.

The House at Sugar Beach #4

A shocking turn in the story was when Helene’s parents got a divorce. For years her mother had been threatening that she would leave if her father didn’t stop sleeping around but in the end, he was the one that left. While they were on vacation in the United States, Mommee received a letter from her husband saying he wanted a divorce and everyone was shocked, especially Helene. “I had a lot of faith in my ability to talk mommee into coming back to daddy if she left him. Never, not once, had I thought it would be daddy who would leave. I hadn’t practiced talking him out of leaving,” (Cooper 130). Helene is so young and naive and didn’t deserve to go through that.
I normally think of divorce as an ugly American custom and it never even really occurred to me that it might be happening in Africa. This hit the Cooper family really hard and everyone was extremely distraught. There are so many wars and terrible things going on over there. It is tragic to think that even young children if Africa have to deal with it on top of all the other cultural struggles going on around them.

The House at Sugar Beach #3

Helene and her family still celebrate Christmas but theirs is so incredibly different than the Christmas we are accustomed to. When Helene and Eunice hear the drums that represent the arrival of Santa Claus, they jump out of their seats and run to greet him. The description of their him is nothing I would ever expect, “Santa Claus, on stilts and wearing a grass skirt, a wooden mask with eye holes, and long blond hair, loped into the yard, he was surrounded by three drummers,” (Cooper 108). Not quite the jolly, fat, candy cane colored man most people affiliate with this holiday. Even though the specifics are different the principles are actually relatively similar. All of the people there join in singing, “We-ah we-ah, Santa Claus we-ah, aye, We-ah we-ah, Santa Claus we-ah aye,” (Cooper 109). The song is different, but the custom of singing Christmas carols is the same.
Shortly after Christmas, Helene receives another exciting visit. Her father invites a few of his friends over for a drink and Helene makes it her mission for them to accept her. As they walk into the parlor she grabs her father’s Newsweek and pretends to be reading it. She lets the men talk for awhile then decides to make her official entrance into the conversation. She ends up confusing the subject and saying something completely foolish. The men laugh and laugh but she does not care one bit because he dad repeatedly says that’s my daughter! His approval is all she needs.