- Malcolm Gladwell (author of The Tipping Point and Blink) tells stories from his first days as a reporter: laugh out loud funny. It’s on the free podcast of This American Life, Episode 348 (“Tough Room”); it’s the fourth story in the podcast and starts 45 minutes and 25 seconds in if you want to skip right to it.
- Elna Baker, a New York comedian, tells the story of trying to cut a divine deal to find her soul mate, and how she got rejected. Again, immensely funny.
gambian primary schools (with photos)
Today I had the opportunity to visit a couple of Gambian primary schools. These schools, a similar distance from the capital to those I visited in Sierra Leone, were in much better shape, and it was heartening to see. Pictures here.
do’s and don’t’s of avoiding street and beach touts
Last time I was in the Gambia, I was constantly approached by touts on the beach, so much so that I adopted an alternative identity. This visit, I’ve been experimenting with different ways of avoiding undue trouble with hustlers.
Don’t…
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Pretend to be mute. I tried this last week, and the beach hustler kept trying to communicate with me in sign language. The guy would not give up.
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Falter. Last night, on my way home from a restaurant, I changed my course because I remembered I wanted to buy water and attracted significant attention. Hustlers can smell uncertainty.
Do…
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Walk purposefully.
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Dress like a boring working person rather than a fun-loving tourist.
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Mutter to yourself and occasionally start laughing, unprovoked by external stimuli. (I wish I could claim this was a purposeful ruse, but, well…)
on-line book schedule and discussion for Thiong’o’s The Wizard of the Crow, coming soon
Ngugi wa Thiong’o published this immense book in 2006, The Wizard of the Crow: almost 800 pages of political satire in a fictional African country. Beachlover over at Shelfari has posted a reading schedule to help people get through it, and there will be an ongoing on-line discussion of the book there as well. Read this bit from Aminatta Forna’s review of the book in the Washington Post:
Wizard of the Crow is first and foremost a great, spellbinding tale, probably the crowning glory of Ngugi’s life’s work. He has done for East Africa what Ahmadou Kourouma’s Waiting for the Wild Beasts to Vote did for West Africa: He has turned the power of storytelling into a weapon against totalitarianism.
Last year I read Thiong’o’s Petals of Blood and thought highly of it. Some years ago I also read his The River Between and enjoyed it but not quite as much. Time for the masterwork!
non-depressing development fiction: FOUND!
A month ago I posted a query about “upbeat” fiction that takes place in developing countries. The reason is that my book club is tired of depressing fiction (after Purple Hibiscus and A Thousand Splendid Suns). Some of the suggestions were odd. For example, someone called The Poisonwood Bible upbeat; I wonder if they’ve read it. (I liked it a lot but wouldn’t call it upbeat.) Here are the suggestions I garnered which seemed like they might really be upbeat, the first two especially:
- Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard, by Kiran Desai (Who knew she wrote a comedy before the devastating Inheritance of Loss?) – India
- Last Orders at Harrods, by Michael Holman – Kenya
- Red Earth and Pouring Rain, by Vikram Chandra – India
- Wizard of the Crow, by Ngugi wa Thiongo – Kenya
- The Whale Caller, by Zakes Mda – South Africa
- Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands, by Jorge Amado – Brazil
- Gabriela, Clove, and Cinnamon, by Jorge Amado – Brazil
- Spud, by John van de Ruit – South Africa
And here a few that might be upbeat (I wasn’t totally convinced by those who posted):
- Uhuru Street, by MG Vassanji – Kenya
- The Gunny Sack, by MG Vassanji – Kenya
- Measuring Time, by Helon Habila – Nigeria
- The Power of One, by Bryce Courtenay – South Africa
the US role in Kenya’s current crisis
Read Chris Blattman’s comments, summarizing and providing thoughtful commentary on a hearing in the U.S. Senate Foreign Affairs committee last week.
This is very worth your while.
at the risk of getting eaten by a crocodile
This afternoon, a friend from the Gambian government took me to see a few of the sites around Banjul. The first we stopped was Gambia’s sacred crocodile pool: this pool was discovered long before colonial times, the home of myriad crocodiles, and has since developed into a must-see spot in Bakau.
As we approached the pool, we saw a crocodile or a model of a crocodile lying out in the open, stock still. I started to ask one of the attendants in the crocodile was real, and he said, The plastic one? So I walk over to the plastic crocodile and begin to reach out to touch his long nose when another attendants firmly instructs me not to touch the snout, as it’s very dangerous: just the tail. Oh. Not plastic.
in freetown, it’s thanksgiving every day [photos]
Okay, every Sunday. From January through May.
Every Sunday afternoon from January through May, some school or another holds a thanksgiving parade, thanking God for the blessings of the previous year. This transcends religious affiliation: my Muslim driver’s son’s school had its celebration last week, and I attended the parade of a Methodist school.
The Methodist school not only had its own band playing, its own children marching, its own alumni marching, but it also hired a host of other marching bands from other schools. The results was thousands of happy young people celebrating their education. It was marvelous!
My friend RK, who took me, is closely involved with the school’s music program, so he knew everyone at the parade. Marching bands would stop and play for him specifically. We watched the parade past, then drove somewhere else to watch it again, and then drove to his house to watch the end from a second-story balcony. AWESOME! Here are some photos. [Sadly, I loaded the photos in reverse order; I think it doesn’t matter so much in this case.]
gambian film market produces the future!
Yesterday morning a colleague and I walked through Banjul and stopped at a stand selling DVDs. I was fascinated to see a DVD labeled Prison Break: The Complete Fifth Season. Of course, the tv show Prison Break only started in 2005, so a 5th season wouldn’t likely begin until 2010. If you want the future, Come To The Gambia!
Expanding Horizons book review: Before we were free, by Julia Alvarez
Taking a brief break from Africana, part of what I did while my tv was in the closet in Freetown was listen to this excellent audiobook, which was part of my list for the Expanding Horizons reading challenge. I really enjoyed this book (even though I’m not really the target demographic) and will surely give it as a gift when my nieces reach age 12 or so. My thoughts:
poignant, compelling, revealing, excellent story of life under a dictatorship
Julia Alvarez tells the story of the end of the Trujillo dictatorship (1960s Dominican Republic). She cleverly tells the story from the perspective of a pre-teen girl (Anita) while weaving in major political players and events. She captures Anita’s loss of innocence as the oppressive political regime begins to impact her life first obliquely and then very directly. From the start, Alvarez engages us with her main character as she simultaneously paints on a much larger canvas. [As an adult male (without a pre-teen daughter), I found some of Anita’s talk about growing into a woman and being in love with the boy next door tiresome, but it all felt right for the character.]
Alvarez doesn’t shy away from the fiasco that took place after Trujillo’s assassination, but she does leave off just before the country’s first post-Trujillo elections (which were a farce, leaving a Trujillo crony in power for some thirty years). After you’ve finished the book, re-read the author’s note at the beginning: Realizing Alvarez’s intimate connection to the fictionalized events in the book is all the more poignant.
Note on content: Besides girlhood crushes, there is a brief, non-graphic mention of various forms of torture (ugly but important) and an allusion to Trujillo’s penchant for young mistresses.
For adult readers, this is a sweet complement to Alvarez’s wonderful earlier book, In the Time of the Butterflies, which tells the story of the Mirabal sisters, three key anti-Trujillo revolutionaries. While that book took us inside the resistance movement, having this book narrated by a child opens a window into how children are affected in times of oppression. For another perspective on the end of the Trujillo regime, read Mario Vargas Llosa’s excellent La Fiesta Del Chivo [The Feast of the Goat]; that book is not appropriate for child readers, with graphic portrayals of torture and of violence against a child (apparently accurate to the time and place).
Julia Alvarez reads the unabridged audiobook herself and is perfect for the role (all the more impressive as I’ve heard Alvarez speak in person, and she doesn’t really sound like a twelve-year-old girl).
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