Leah's Physical Environment

A physical environment is the part of the human environment that includes purely physical factors (as soil, climate, water supply).(“Physical Environment”def.1) Leah experiences many things in the congo that plays a role in the character she becomes. A lot of things that many people take for granted in the United States is water supply. While many people in the US can just walk to the sink and receive water the people of the Congo have to walk many miles and carry water all the way back to the village. Also the same with having to engage in a lot of physical activity to just eat. Leah has to go to the chicken house to gather eggs and she attempts a garden not only for a hobby but in order to eat. If it wasn't for Mama Mwanza giving the Price

From this point on in the novel Rachel never truly takes on any kind of relationship with any body within the Price family. Later on in the novel the 3 sisters that remain living meet at Rachel's hotel and she is very snobby towards Leah and her 4 sons, solely because they are biracial. In this part of the novel the reader may conclude that Rachel relates to her father how he thought he was the best because he was a Christian and whoever wasn't was leser of a person than he was. Rachel sees it as she is a better person than anybody who isn't white. Leah adapts way better to the surroundings of the Congo than what Rachel does. Rachel is more concerned with her appearance than anything else. The reader witnesses this during the ant invasion when Rachel left every valuable thing behind just to grab her mirror. Rachel is nothing like the character Leah while Rachel self centered, Leah thinks about other people and lets her emotions play a role in her character.

1) The Price family originate from a small southern town in Bethlehem, Georgia. Leah has lived in Bethlehem all 15 years of her life before her family decided to uproot and moved to a completely different country. Leah finds herself within another small population in the small village of Kilango in the Congo. Kilango is a humid climate that is can best be described as a tropical climate. It is not rare for the village of Kilango to experience droughts, which results in most of this area not being cultivated. Lucky for the natives the Kwilu river, which is connected to the Congo River, is nearby the village which helps provide the natives with water during long droughts. The Women of the Congo are the ones who fetch the water because she is the one who really need it to live up to her “wifely duties”. The Kwilu river is also a great source of transportation and one of the most fertile areas for farming. Leopoldville is known as the largest city in the Congo. This village is a spot where a lot of trading, traveling, and manufacturing take place. Leopoldville is covered with rainforest and is walking from the Congo river. This is more of a civilized area even though it has no comparison to the home that was once Leah Prices in the United States. Living in the Congo showed Leah that things were not going to be as easy as simple as it was back home. The Congo forced Leah to grow