Chad - Told by Starlight in Chad

Book 32: Told by Starlight in Chad - Joseph Brahim Seid 

This book is a small collection of folklore that has been written down, passed on from the oral tradition. Each story is recognizable as the Chadian version of stories found in basically every culture. An interesting, though short read. 
 

 

Central African Republic - Batouala

Book 31: Batouala - Rene Maran

The Central African Republic is a land-locked country in, well, the center of Africa. It was colonized by the French in the 1890s, and gained independence in 1960. It has been engaged in an ongoing civil war since 2012. As of 2019, it ranked 188th out of 189 countries on the Human Development Index (HDI). 

Batouala was originally published in 1921, and it won the prestigious Prix Goncourt. It is thought to be one of the first works in the Negritude movement, a literary movement of the 1930s-50s that began among French-speaking African and Caribbean writers living in Paris as a protest against French colonial rule. 

The novel centers on the the lives of the chieftain, Batouala, and his nine wives. While there is certainly commentary about colonization - Batouala has much to say about the strange and lazy white people - most of the story focuses on his rivalry with Bissibingui, a young man in the village. Bissibingui is quite the ladies' man, and has gotten attention from all of Batouala's wives, but particularly favors Yassiguindja - who is also Batouala's favorite. Basically, this book is a soap opera, which isn't exactly what I was expecting. 

Canada - One Native Life

Book 30: One Native Life - Richard Wagamese

"In 2005, award-winning writer Richard Wagamese moved with his partner to a cabin outside Kamloops, B.C. In the crisp mountain air Wagamese felt a peace he'd seldom known before. Abused and abandoned as a kid, he'd grown up feeling there was nowhere he belonged. For years, only alcohol and moves from town to town seemed to ease the pain. In 'One Native Life,' Wagamese looks back down the road he has traveled in reclaiming his identity and talks about the things he has learned as a human being, a man, and an Ojibway in his 52 years. Whether he's writing about playing baseball, running away with the circus, attending a sacred bundle ceremony, or meeting Pierre Trudeau, he tells these stories in a healing spirit. Through them, Wagamese celebrates the learning journey his life has been."

___

I loved this book. Simply loved it. It is equal parts heartbreaking and heart-healing. The essay that appears on page 30, "Upside Down and Backwards," is a good example. In this essay, Wagamese writes of his struggles as a young child. His teachers thought he was "slow, a difficult learner" and held him back for a year...and then put him in the back of the classroom and ignored him. As he entered Grade Three, he moved to a different school and the teacher wanted to introduce him to the class, so she had him write his name on the blackboard:

"I went to the board, leaned close to it, squinted and began to write. I heard snickers at the first letter and open laughter when I'd finished. 

I'd written my name upside down and backwards. To the rest of my classmates it was strange and hilarious, but it was how I'd learned, and I felt the weight of their laughter like stones. Walking back to my seat that day I felt ashamed, stupid and terribly alone.

But I had a teacher who cared. She walked me down to the nurse's station herself and waited while I got my eyes tested. Astigmatism, the nurse told her. Terrible astigmatism. Then the teacher listened closely as I explained why my writing was wrongly shaped. 

I had taught myself to write by squinting back over my shoulder. When we were taught to write in script, I wasn't given any attention, wasn't offered any help in forming the letters. So I watched the kid behind me and I mimicked what I saw. What I saw was upside down and backwards, and that was how I had taught myself to write." 

The teacher spent hours working with him to undue his self-taught method. To this day, he writes Gs and Ds back to front. But, he says, "Sometimes life turns us upside down and backwards. It's caring that gets us back on our feet again and pointed in the right direction."

Not all of Wagamese's essays have endings quite this nice or lessons quite this Hallmark-esque. But I learned something from nearly all of them. 

Yes on this one. Great book. 

Cameroon - The Poor Christ of Bomba

Book 29: The Poor Christ of Bomba - Mongo Beti

"In Bomba the girls who are being prepared for Christian marriage live together in the women's camp. Gradually it becomes apparent that the local church men have been using the local girls for their own purposes."

__

Sure, the book is about that. But first, you have to suffer through over 100 pages of the narrator talking about following the priest while he travels from village to village, judging everyone for not being pious enough (read: not giving the church/him enough money) and damning them all to hell. And throughout this journey, the narrator is fully supportive of the priest. So supportive, in fact, that nearly every sentence is an exclamation. But I digress. Eventually, the narrator tires of the priest. It happens sometime after a village woman gives the narrator a handjob and he falls in love with her. By the time they return to the main village, everyone has figured out that the priest is a sleaze who has been forcing women into slave labor in exchange for agreeing to perform Catholic marriages. 

This was not one of my favorites. To say the least. 

Cambodia - First They Killed My Father

Book 28: First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers - Loung Ung

"One of seven children of a high-ranking government official, Loung Ung lived a privileged life in the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh until the age of 5. Then, in April 1975, Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge army stormed into the city, forcing Ung's family to flee and, eventually, to disperse. Loung was trained as a child soldier in a work camp for orphans, her siblings were sent to labor camps, and those who survived the horrors would not be reunited until the Khmer Rouge was destroyed."

__

This is an extremely well-written book about a part of the world and a time in history that is glanced over in most American history books. We've all heard of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge and we all have a vague sense that they were terrible. We also seem to leave out the part about the Vietnamese being the good guys in this story. Go figure. 

It's not an easy read. War and genocide never are. But Loung's story is powerful and important. You should read this one even if you're not doing an around-the-world challenge. 

Cabo Verde - The Last Will & Testament of Senhor da Silva Araujo

Book 27: The Last Will & Testament of Senhor da Silva Araújo - Germano Almeida

"Everyone in Cape Verde knows Señor da Silva. Successful entrepreneur, owner of the island's first automobile, a most serious, upright, and self-made businessman, Señor da Silva is the local success story. Born an orphan, he never married, he never splurged; one good suit was good enough for him; and he never wandered from the straight and narrow. Or so everyone thought. But when Señor da Silva's 387-page Last Will and Testament is read aloud; a marathon task on a hot afternoon which exhausts reader after reader; there's eye-opening news, and not just for the smug nephew so certain of inheriting all Señor da Silva's property. With his will, Señor da Silva leaves a memoir that is a touching web of elaborate self-deceptions."

__

I wouldn't call it a "touching" web of elaborate self-deceptions. Señor da Silva is supposed to be a sympathetic character. I think. I didn't find him to be. He was pretentious, self-absorbed, and, frankly, a rapist. That little bit is entirely glossed over. But anyway. He also died utterly alone. So that's something, I guess. Thankfully, most of this short book is more about other people and their relationships with and lives after Señor da Silva, because that guy was terrible. 

Not my favorite book. Obviously.

Burundi - Small Country

Book 26: Small Country - Gaël Faye

"In 1992, Gabriel, ten years old, lives in Burundi in a comfortable expatriate neighborhood with his French father, his Rwandan mother, and his little sister, Ana. In this joyful idyll, Gabriel spends the better part of his time with his mischievous band of friends, in a tiny cul-de-sac they have turned into their kingdom. But their peaceful existence will suddenly shatter when this small African country is brutally battered by history."

__

Burundi lies at the southern border of Rwanda. 85% of its population is Hutu, 15% are Tutsi, and less than 1% are indigenous Twa. So when the Rwandan genocide broke out in 1994, it didn't take long for the violence to spill over the border into Burundi. 

The novel begins in 1992, in a peaceful Burundi. Young Gabriel has a fairly normal life, though not one entirely without difficulty. His father is French, an upper middle class businessman. His mother is a Rwandan refugee, with many relatives still living in Kigali. They own land, have a cook, a maid, and a driver. But soon his mother's family in Rwanda warns them of coming atrocities and Gabriel's world starts to change. He resists the changes - he doesn't believe that anything bad can or will touch him in the safe confines of his town, his street. He escapes first into his friendships and then into books. But the war finds his town, his friends, and then his family. 

This book is so good. It's terrible in its reality, but I'll be honest - I didn't know the Rwandan genocide extended beyond the borders of Rwanda. This small book about a small country should go on everyone's to-read list.