Leah Price is one of two twins born to Orealeanna and Nathan Price.. Her twin sister, Adah, has been physically handicapped since birth. Leah seems to be feeling responsible for this when she says on page 241 that… . Leah also seems somewhat jealous of the fact that Adah, despite being physically challenged, she seems to be smarter than Leah, a quicker learner, one might say. An example is of the languages. Adah picked up on French and also on the dialect of Kilanga faster than Leah did, and because of this, takes it somewhat offensively.
Leah is quite idealistic and passionate towards her family, especially her father. She always tries to be on his ‘good side’ by helping him in the garden and with other such errands. Leah tries to follow in her father’s footsteps as much as possible, and this can be seen on page 244 when she says … which implies that she always trusted his decision . However, upto that point, she seemed very narrow minded, believing her father was right about everything. She believed that the Congolese people would die and go to hell without the help of God, and her father was doing the right job and was persistent with the messages. However, when she sees her mother get out of bed after about a month of sickness and sees her go against her fathers authority, she realizes how short sighted and narrow minded she really was. This is seen when she says ‘I doubted his decision…I wanted to believe him…But where is the place for girls in that Kingdom? The rules don’t apply to us, nor protect us either…There’s a great holy war going on in my father’s mind…’. She realizes that there is a world of insecurity out there in the world. This whole transformation Leah goes through makes her realize that her mother was right to ‘flout her fathers authority’.
Leah is a quick learner in general and is also quite idealistic as she follows all her fathers sayings upto that particular point. She realizes that she is confronted with injustice of being a woman, racism because she is white and an African culture she admires instead of hates, despite her fathers practice. Leah is compassionate and has a sort of survivors guilt towards Adah for her physical handicap. She has lost basically all faith in her father due to the new ideas of her mother. She realizes that she has finally been set free by that revelation.
