For Cameroon, I read How Beautiful We Were: A Novel by Imbolo Mbue. This is the story of a fictional village called Kosawa, and a fictional American oil company that sets up camp nearby and wrecks havoc upon the land with pipeline spills and noxious fumes. The water is poisoned, the soil is ruined, the air is toxic, and children are dying in heartbreaking numbers. If I had to describe this book as quickly as possible, I’d call it Erin Brokovich: The African Edition.

The novel is told from different perspectives, including many chapters told from the perspective of “the Children.” The Children are a group of age mates, and when it’s their turn to narrate, the story is told from the perspective of “we” and “us.” Over the course of several decades, the persons included in this group change and shift. This sounds like a narrative disaster, but Mbue makes it work. (Also, how lovely is the concept of age mates?)

This book does something that I don’t believe I’ve ever encountered in a novel: it raises questions about the role of corporations in modern society. What is a corporation? Does it have a sense of morality? What happens when an American corporation does business in countries ruled by corrupt governments? Can the American legal system hold American corporations responsible when the corporation engages in illegal acts in distant continents? Should it?

I kept thinking about the gas I buy to fuel my SUV. Where does the oil to make the gas come from? What harms are being done? What uncomfortable truths am I ignoring?

I could go on, because this book really made me think and raised a lot of questions about environmental degradation, corporate morality (or lack thereof), corruption, courage, resistance, and revolution. If I was a high school literature teacher, I’d definitely want my students reading this book. I do believe I’ll be adding Imbolo Mbue to my list of favorite authors.

For Cambodia, I read a Loung Ung’s memoir First They Killed My Father in which she describes her experiences during the Cambodian genocide. Ung summarizes the book as follows:

From 1975 to 1979–through execution, starvation, disease, and forced labor–the Khmer Rouge systematically killed an estimated two million Cambodians, almost a fourth of the country’s population.

This is a story of survival: my own and my family’s. Though these events constitute my experience, my story mirrors that of millions of Cambodians. If you had been living in Cambodia during this period, this would be your story too.

First they killed my father, Author’s note.

Ung was five years old in April 1975 when Pol Pot came to power and the genocide began. Her family of nine–two parents, and seven siblings, ranging in age from three to eighteen–lived together in the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh and were forced to flee. They traveled into the Cambodian countryside on their truck until they ran out of diesel and had to join the thousands of people walking to villages.

This is not your usual survival memoir. This is the story of a child who lived through unspeakable horrors and witnessed the worst of humanity. Ung describes what happened to her family while diving deeply into her thoughts and feelings. As a history major, I learned about lots of famines, wars, and atrocities and became desensitized to the death tolls of lives lost long ago. This memoir reminded me that history happens to people.

I was wrecked by the time I finished.

I did not simply learn about the Cambodian genocide. I experienced it through the heart, mind, and a soul of a child, which made me think of my own children. To be honest, it’s uncomfortable for me to write this post because I am revisiting the anguish and utter despair I felt for Ung’s family. My heart aches to think of all those families devastated by famine, forced labor, and senseless executions, and as I write this, the ache is pushing out from my chest, thrumming with horror for all the people living in the world today under violent conditions.

Why does humanity commit such evils as genocide?

How do we change and grow and realize our true potential as loving, creative species?

I don’t have the answers to those questions, but I know it’s important to find time and space to honor stories such as First They Killed My Father. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to deepen their connection with humanity across the globe and through the ages. If we want to do better in the future, it is important to bear witness to how humanity has failed in the past.

For Cabo Verde, I read Chiquino: A Novel of Cabo Verde by Balthazar Lopes, translated into English by Isabel P.B. Fêo Rodrigues and Carlos A. Almeida with Anna M. Klobucka. I actually wrote a post about why I chose this book, probably thinking I would create a blogging record of how and why I chose all the books for the C’s (and then D-Z). What a noble aspiration! Too bad I didn’t follow through with that plan for the rest of the C’s…

Anyway, back to Chiquino. I thoroughly enjoyed this book. The novel has a three act structure, starting with the protagonist’s childhood on a rural island, continuing with his education on the more populous island of São Vicente, and finally his return to his home island as drought and famine strike the archipelago. The writing style is lyrical, and I was not surprised to learn the author was also a poet.

During the novel’s middle act, the protagonist is friends with an intellectual group of students who decide to start a revolutionary newspaper. In the context of heated discussions about what they should write for the newspaper, Lopes says:

We need to write things that could be written in Cabo Verde, that couldn’t be written, for instance, in Patagonia. We don’t care about Scandinavia and its fjords. We are interested in the coal men on the docks of São Vicente, who have been unemployed for far too long.

Chiquino, Baltazar lopes, pg. 87.

That is exactly what Lopes did in this novel. He wrote a book that could only be written in Cabo Verde, exploring the themes and issues that were important to its people and capturing the life of its people during the first quarter of the twentieth century. He brought to life the geography, smells, and weather of the archipelago; the local lore and folktales of witches and mermaids; and the struggle to earn a living. Throughout the story, Lopes imparted “the Creole longing for the islands and their people.” Id. at 56

The novel felt languid, but when I was done, I felt as if I had spent a semester abroad in Cabo Verde. I also came away with a deep appreciation for the dilemma that Cabo Verdeans faced during the early twentieth century. They wanted to stay home with their families and land, but if they did not emigrate to America or join a whaling ship, their opportunities to make money were few and far between. Lopes says its much better than I can:

Going to America meant the same thing to him as it did to other young men who left the hoe behind to embrace the great adventure. The emigrant experience in North America was the defining moment of their lives. And all of them were leveled by the mills, which reduced to nothing the intellectual distinction they had carried with them from the islands. But the health of his lungs was the most effective ally of that Creole nostalgia that irresistibly pulls them back to the archipelago any son of the island, no matter how deeply accustomed to the pace of American life.

Id. at 163.

It’s books like Chiquinho that remind me why I started my Read Around the World quest. I’d recommend it to anyone who wants to break out of their Western reading bubble.

For Burundi, I read Baho! by Roland Rugero. I really wanted to like this book–it has an exclamation mark in the title!–but alas, Baho! ended up being my least favorite book of the B’s. On the bright side, it was a super fast read clocking in at only 91 pages, so at least I did not suffer for long.

This book actually had a lot of potential. I enjoyed the writing style (sparse with well chosen, precise language) and the writer explored interesting themes (mob mentality, justice in a war torn society) but ultimately, one thing ruined the entire story for me.

The author talked about rape in a way that was disrespectful and harmful to women.

Here’s the premise of the entire book: a young man who does not speak attempts to ask an adolescent girl where he can use the bathroom by grabbing his crotch. Several women have recently been raped, so the girl screams, thinking she is about to be the rapist’s next victim. Pandemonium ensues as villagers descend and a mob chases the young man.

Maybe the author intended these circumstances to be funny? Or maybe he just wanted to create a scenario that would led to vigilante justice at the hands of an enraged mob? Whatever his intentions, his story didn’t work because he described the perceived threat of rape insensitively, even callously:

For two months, the obsessive fear of rape has haunted this country’s women. Mothers make their little girls wear panties under their wraps when they go to draw water and under their skirts when they go to school, when before they did not. Girls are required to go everywhere in groups.

Baho! pg. 15.

On the same page, the author writes that in two months, six girls have been raped in the area. And he dares suggest that being afraid of rape is obsessive? It’s been five days since I finished Baho! and UGH, just rereading that passage makes me want to spew obscenities.

The book’s tone regarding the fear of rape never improved. The author almost seemed to be ridiculing people who would defend girls from rapists. If the author wanted to make a point about mob mentality, then he should have used any other perceived crime but not rape. Not in this world, where women still struggle to be believed and cannot roam the world as safely as men. Not in a world where rape is used as a tool to dominate, as a savage act of violence, as an instrument in war.

Rape should not be used as a clever literary device, end of discussion.

For Burkina Faso, I read Of Water And The Spirit: Ritual, Magic, and Initiation in the Life of an African Shaman by Malidoma Patrice Somé. When I finished this book yesterday, I gave it 3/5 stars on Goodreads (rounding up from a 2.5) but the more I think about it, the more I like it. I’ve already revised my Goodreads rating to 4/5 and who knows where I’ll be in another month.

This book is a spiritual memoir. Malidoma was born in Upper Volta (now Burkina Faso) as a member of the Dagara tribe. When he was four years old, he was abducted by a Jesuit priest and taken to live at a nearby missionary school. There were, however, hints in the memoir that Malidoma’s father gave the green light to his abduction, and according to Wikipedia, Malidoma’s father took him to a Jesuit boarding school. Perhaps Malidoma later modified his story? Either way, Malidoma’s years at the boarding school were traumatizing and both emotionally and physically abusive.

While at the boarding school, Malidoma was forced to learn French and stop speaking his native Dagara. As an adolescent, he was transferred to the seminary to train to be a priest where he endured more physical and emotional abuse and sexual abuse as well. At about the age of twenty, Malidoma rebelled, escaped the seminary, and walked home over a hundred miles to his home village. Through the African bush. I cannot even imagine.

Except I can imagine what it was like to walk through the African bush because Malidoma did an excellent job of describing the setting throughout the book. I could really visualize his tribal village, the missionary school, the seminary, and the African bush.

Fun fact: As a woman born and raised in California, I think of the African bush as “wilderness” but the members of the Dagara tribe refer to the city as “wilderness.” Just one of the many ways that this book reminded me the two much of life is about our personal experiences and perspective.

Malidoma made it back to his village, but he had forgotten his native tongue and could not speak with his parents. Fortunately, his sister could speak some rudimentary French and with time, Malidoma remembered Dagara. However, he was not welcomed with open arms by his entire tribe. The elders were concerned that Malidoma, now literate, did not belong and would upset the balance of village life. He had also missed the male initiation rites that happen in the bush during adolescence. After much agonizing and reflection, the elders decided that Malidoma could participate in the initiation rites–although they warned that as a man in his twenties, the experience might break him.

Malidoma decided to participate in the initiation rites, and he described these in great detail. My Western beliefs were very prickly during these passages, and I often had to remind myself that to an outsider, my beliefs might seem pretty crazy. If I believe in miracles like Jesus turning water into wine, why should I criticize the things that Malidoma believed happened during his invitation rites? (For example, that he jumped through an animal skin into another dimension.)

Except sometimes, maybe we need to accept that beliefs vary wildly throughout the world but we are also allowed to challenge these beliefs so humanity can grow and change and improve.

I believe there are infinite ways to experience spirituality and connect with the divine. Although there is no RIGHT way to practice spirituality, there are ways that can be wrong–and there were some elements in Malidoma’s book that raised some serious red flags for me. Most obviously, Malidoma participated in initiation rites with adolescent boys from other villages and four of the boys died. FOUR. I am trying to accept and embrace the fact that we all have different beliefs, and I’m coming from a Western bias, but if four adolescents at the local Catholic school died during their confirmation, I would be raising hell.

Another red flag: when Malidoma returned to his village, the elders were concerned that he would be a bad influence on the community because he could read and write. Literacy was perceived as evil. Again, I know I’m coming from a Western bias here, but it seemed like the elders were worried that literacy would introduced new ideas to the young and that could upset the patriarchy. Malidoma’s memoir described a spirituality that seemed to support a seriously patriarchal society and I often found myself wanting to hear from the female members of the Dagara tribe. Do they connect with the tribe’s beliefs in the same way as Malidoma? Do they have their own initiation rites? Do they feel uplifted and inspired by their beliefs or are they stifled and smothered by village life?

Ultimately, I’m really glad I picked Of Water And The Spirit for my Read Around the World quest. As I continue to think about this book, I feel myself pulled by two competing concerns: (1) respecting the beliefs of people who live in a community completely foreign to me; and (2) challenging beliefs that might be oppressive to some members of a community. Or, perhaps I am dealing with two personal and competing concerns: (1) my inherent people pleaser, who does not want to offend anyone, and (2) my inner voice that wants to challenge inequities and the status quo.

And this is why I’m obsessed with this project. With each book, I feel my soul and mind expanding.