"Nine Hills to Nambonkaha: Two Years in the Heart of an African Village" by Sarah Erdman AmazonThis book is set in Northern Ivory Coast, around 1997, incidentally while I was living in the country too. (Was was there in 1995, through the first Christmas Coup in 2000, and locked down in 2004 in the bush for some time.)
To Understand what life is like in a former French colony/West African country, south of the Sahara (Sahel), this is a a highly recommended read.
She describes the patterns of life and death, work and rest, roles of men & women, the state of women in the village, cycle of dry to rainy season, incessant number of non educated wandering kids always at your door, very well.
If you wonder just how simply can one live in Africa, the Peace Corps shows the way. One can live very economically in Africa. The more we adopt local life, food, and rhythms, the more economical it becomes. Renting big villas, running AC's, and basically living and eating like a westerner can be costly.
Not all can live as simply as others, and unfortunately, most internationals never experience sleeping in a village much at all, hidden away in the central city villa, sojourning out to do their job and go home at night.
This book is smooth and well written to the rhythm of life there. Great detail, but not laborious. I was nodding my head on every page with shared understanding.
The only weak point is the book is Sarah's desperate lack of understanding of her own world view, even her own "christian faith". Makes it hard for her to go deeper into understanding the worldview of the locals. She just touches the surface of describing what they do, but has little insight or understanding as to why it is done. She takes pathetic stabs at it while having a total lack of understanding about the local "worldview", and offers little insight into how it is shaping the people before her, at the most foundational level. She never probes past the surface of this and looses some of the richness of insight about the people that could have been expressed. Typical of many kids her age fresh out of university! Having not probed their own worldview let along possessing the ability to express another persons. But most westerners don't even know what a worldview is, let along have any ability to articulate what theirs might be, and how it affects what they see, experience, or write. So most will not miss it in the book at all.
The feel of the rhythm of life in the village she captures is very exceptional.
All future interns will be required to read this book.
A second book highly recommended and read among the peace corp is
"Monique and The Mango Rains" by Kris Holloway AmazonSimilar story only set in Mali, West Africa. Shorter and less details, but still a good read.
Travelers, Short-termers, and visitors to Africa of any kind need this kind of read.
No comments:
Post a Comment