Well of course you are going to do that by donating $10 to Passports With Purpose, by picking a travel-related prize that you want, right?

NO? Oh, I see, you are going to donate $50 and put it all on that one prize you’re hankering for.

NO? Still don’t have it right?  Oh, I see, you are going to donate $100, but you are going to put it on 10 different prizes.

See, there are lots of ways that you can help build two libraries in Zambia with Room to Read, to help kids who like to read as much as you do.  Take a gander at that thermometer thingy over there on the right hand side of this page, and you will see how Passports With Purpose is doing.

Okay, but could be better.  After all, your LAST DAY to bid is coming up soon–Friday as a matter of fact.

So I am here to let you in on a little secret.  Those prizes like a $4000 trips to Maui, and a $3000 trip to La Puerta Spa and $3000 Mexico Resort stay are absolutely wonderful. You think so. I think so. Several hundred people think so. Do the math. How are your odds? I have the feeling that the fantastic collection of $300 worth of books that you can win from Interlink Books, or the $100 worth of CDs from Mac Millan Audio you can stock up on for your next road trip– although they are terrific for a traveler who reads, and a great addition to a traveler’s library–may not get as many bids as a $4000 trip.  What do you think? Maybe the odds are better for us library nerds?

Interlink Books

INTERLINK BOOKS

Have you looked at the catalog for Interlink Books? You will see:

                                  Interlink Books

Changing the Way That People Think About the World

I quoted their self description once before, but I’m going to repeat it, because it is so enticing for travelers who really want to KNOW the country they are traveling to.

Using travel as a way to build cultural bridges has been part of Interlink’s fabric since its birth 24 years ago…(Our books) give you the background information to enrich your journey; they encourage you to connect with people; they nudge you to leave your comfort zone, and help you to discover the unfamiliar. If you would like to get to the heart and soul of a city, go there with an open mind—independently; read about the city’s history and indulge in its genuine cuisine culture; and most importantly sample the literature of its leading novelists.

Sounds like it could be the mantra for A Traveler’s Library as well, doesn’t it?

I can’t begin to tell you what a joy it is to browse through their carefully selected titles. You can browse by region of the world or by category. Although they have a category called “travel”, every book they carry relates to enriching your travel experience, or tempting you to book a ticket.

And here’s a tip–sign up for their e-newsletter. I get the best ideas for new reading material from them and they are constantly introducing me to foreign authors I would otherwise have missed.  But then go to Passports With Purpose and bid on  $300 worth of  Interlink books. (It’s fourth under Gift Certificates).

MacMillan Audio

And audio books. Don’t you love ‘em? Here’s what Macmillan audio has to say about their business:

Macmillan Audio offers titles both abridged and unabridged both on physical media and by digital delivery. The division was honored with prestigious Audie Awards in three categories in 2007, and has Pulitzer Prize-winning authors and Academy Award-winning narrators on its list. Macmillan Audio publishes audio editions of the best fiction and non-fiction books for adults and children, from among the Macmillan trade publishers including Farrar, Straus & Giroux, Feiwel and Friends, Henry Holt and Company, Picador, Roaring Brook Press, Square Fish, St. Martin’s Press, and Tor Books, and it acquires titles from outside publishers as well.

The Macmillan Audio list is filled with such bestselling and acclaimed authors as Jackie Collins, Michael Cunningham, Jeffrey Eugenides, Janet Evanovich, Thomas L. Friedman, Robert Jordan, Robert Ludlum, Tom Perrotta, Marilyn Robinson, Scott Turow, and Tom Wolfe.

Books we have talked about here that come on MacMillan Audio, The Last Child (thriller and winner of Edgar award) by John Hart; Back of Beyond by C. J. Box; Summer Rental by Mary Kay Reynolds.  Or try something I haven’t read yet:  the Irish Country series by Patrick Taylor or the books about Province by Peter Mayle.

Bid at Passports With Purpose is $100 worth of audio books from MacMillan Audio. (It’s 5th under Gift Certificates.)

Hotel Monteleone

Hotel Monteleone

On Thursday this week, I’m going to talk a little bit about my third sponsored gift, a 3-night stay at the Hotel Monteleone in New Orleans. You can read more about Hotel Monteleone at this article from the archives. (Bid on it, 4th under Hotel-North America)

Good luck winning books or audio books, and please thank MacMillan Audio and Interlink Books for supporting Passports with Purpose.  And while I’m on the subject of thanks, here are the financial sponsors of Passports With Purpose. PLEASE support them in every way possible. Go to their website, check out their products. Tell them we love them.

• Round the World With Us
• TravellersPoint
• Home and Away 
• Good 2 Go (travel Insurance)

But go make your bid today while it is fresh in your mind.

THANKS!!

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We, a far-flung group of travel writers under the leadership of the 4 cupcakes from Seattle–Pam Mandel, Debbie Dubrow, Beth Whitman and Michelle Duffy, have contributed to Heifer International, built a school in Cambodia, and built a village in India. Travel writers, like all travelers, tend to see both the beautiful sights of the world and the areas of need. Because we are so fortunate to be able to travel, some of us want to give back to the world.

TODAY the Participating Bloggers will simultaneously announce the beginning of this year’s bidding at Passports With Purpose.

NOW we are building two libraries in Zambia. Each year the 4 cupcakes get together and consider worthy projects. Each project partners with a well-vetted organization–this year it is Room to Read. What could be more perfect for the readers of A Traveler’s Library, than to help build libraries in a far off place?  I know you are going to want to be part of Passports with Purpose this year. Just in case you somehow missed out on the past excursions into cyber-fun, here’s how it works.

1. Approximately 100 bloggers have spotted, requested, cajoled and sponsored gifts to be raffled off in a cyber raffle. At the end of this post you will see the THREE prizes being sponsored by A Traveler’s Library, but for Heaven’s sake, don’t limit yourself to those (although we think they are pretty nifty). Take a look at the entire list at the Passports With Purpose site.

2. When you have found a few of those great prizes that you simply can’t do without–or that would make great gifts for someone you love–”you pays your money and you takes your chance.” A mere $10 per chance means you could walk away with a prize worth more than $1,000. Bid $10 on each prize you want, or put all your chance on one coveted item.  For less than the price of most paperback books, you might be flying high, staying plush and dressing to kill. And NONE of the prizes is worth less than $100!

So bid whatever your budget will allow knowing that everyone wins here. At the very least you will get a warm fuzzy feeling because you’ve helped open up the world of books to some kids in Zambia. And since we know you love books, or you would not be HERE of all places–how cool is that?

3. Act quickly, because this raffle only lasts for two weeks. The final day for bidding is December 16, and we’ll tell you who won which prize just before Christmas.

And here are the PERFECT Raffle prizes for Travelers Who Read. I am so excited. You are gonna LOVE these prizes!

Padllewheeler on the Mississippi

Hotel Monteleone

The wonderful Hotel Monteleone, my favorite hotel in New Orelans, is known as a Literary Landmark. So OF COURSE they are the perfect prize for an event raising money for libraries. For the third year in a row this gorgeous, family-owned hotel is offering a New Orleans vacation to one lucky contributor to Passports With Purpose. I always stay at the Hotel Monteleone when I am in New Orleans because I love being walking distance to the Mississippi, on  Royal Street with its fantastic shopping,  and right in the center of great jazz and fabulous food. I’m not alone–Truman Capote, Tennessee Williams, even Ernest Hemingway have stayed there.

The Details: A Four-Day/ Three-Night Stay in deluxe accommodations as guests of the historic Hotel Monteleone located in the heart of New Orleans’ French Quarter. The $900 certificate is valid Sunday-Thursday nights. (Excludes Friday and Saturday nights and Special Events/ Blackout Dates.) The certificate includes room & tax charges.

Interlink Books

 Interlink Publishing Group, Inc.

Another perfect tie-in to this year’s project–building libraries.  If you have read much of A Traveler’s Library, you know how much I love Interlink Publishing, specialists in inter-cultural books.  I even recommended them as a source for one of those Ten Perfect Gifts for Travelers Who Read.  With the gift certificate that Interlink is offering, you can buy enough books to keep you reading on every country on your wish list, or cook foods from every place you ever visited, or fiction to keep you entertained while you’re flying away on your travels.  You might even feel generous and turn this into gifts for the whole family.

The Details: Winner will receive an e-mail gift certificate for Interlink books worth  $300.  The choice is yours!

MacMillan Audio Books

Audio book MacMillan

We have reviewed some audio books here at A Traveler’s Library, because they are perfect companions on a road trip. And MacMillan Audio supplies most of our audio books, like a Louise Penney mystery, a Mary Kay Andrews romance and a C.J. Box thriller. At one stage in my life I drove from Tucson to Phoenix on a weekly basis and could not have survived that boring stretch of I-10 without a collection of audio books. A friend listens to them as she works out. Some people have their ear phones on as they do housework. Of course that only applies to people who actually DO housework, but I digress…

If you win the great prize offered by MacMillan Audio, you will have enough listening material for your next cross-country road trip, for sure.

The Details: The winner will receive a catalogue of MacMillan’s latest offerings, and the winner will be able to choose $100 worth of audio books. It is all up to you–fiction, non-fiction, educational or frivolous. You and your ears can have fun with your favorite literary form.

So that’s it from A Traveler’s Library for prizes for the Passports With Purpose fund raiser for libraries in Zambia. Now go check out what all the other prizes are, and then come back and tell us which ones you really, really want to win. We’ll be waiting.

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Destination: Africa

Book: One Day I Will Write About This Place (NEW August 2011) by Binyavanga Wainaina

(NOTE: After I wrote and titled this review, I carefully read Binyavanga Wainaina’s sardonic instructions on “How to Write About Africa” in the magazine Granta. You may want to check as you compile your Africa reading list.)

Binyavanga Wainaina reinvents memoir writing in One Day I Will Write About This Place.  I read two or three books a week and many of them are very, very fine writing, but this one knocked me back in my chair and made me reconsider the conventions of writing. Original. Poetic. Surprising. Experimental. He sees and hears and feels the world in ways you never thought of before.  Right from the first page, this book is a WOW experience. In this quote, he is describing a day playing soccer in Kenya when he was seven.

Warm breath pushes down my nostrils past my mouth and divides my chin.  I can see the pink shining flesh of my eyelids. Random sounds fall into my ears: cars, birds, black mamba bicycle bells, distant children, dogs, crows, and afternoon national radio music. Congo rumba.  People outside our compound are talking, in languages I know the sounds of, but do not understand or speak, Luhya, Gikuyu.

Maybe it is this early exposure to various languages that seem to be sounds without meaning that creates an approach to language that seems as much incantation as communication. These verbal meanderings come across as playful and spontaneous, but in fact are carefully crafted, because, as he says while contemplating the words “thirst and thirsty”, ”Words, I think, must be concrete things.  Surely they cannot be suggestions of things, vague pictures: scattered, shifting sensations.” Nothing escapes him.

One bee does not sound like a swarm of bees.  The world is divided into the sounds of onethings and the sounds of manythings.  Water from the showerhead streaming onto a shampooed head is manything splinters of falling glass, ting ting ting.  

All together they are: shhhhhhhhhh.

Shhhhh is made up of many many tinny tiny ting ting tings, so small that clanking glass sounds become soft whispers; like when everything at the school parade is talking all at once, it is different from when one person is talking.

This reminded me of Edgar Allan Poe’s love of words which bursts out in his poem, The Bells, when he finds words to mimic the sounds of the bells from tinkling to tolling, and extols the “tintinabulation of the bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells.” Wainaina knows very early that he is meant to be a writer and spends all his money on novels and all his time reading. He says, (as many writers have discovered)  ”I…start to write and answers arrive, and after a while I realize I have followed a straight line and I am done.” But as a young man, the impressions of the world are overwhelming. “I do not have enough words for all of this,” he says. Eventually, he sends off a travel narrative to an Internet site and is paid for it. He is a professional writer.

But One Day I Will Write About This Place is much more than a travel memoir.  Instead, he uses the journeys he made through Africa to add to the picture  of the struggles that ripple over the continent.  Kenyans grow up saying, “We are not like those Ugandans,” but then the tribal conflicts emerge in Kenya as well. Because he is identified as Gikuyu, even though he does not feel that identity strongly (he just wants to be Kenyan) he and his family are in danger when the government turns anti-Gikuyu.  Even before the most dangerous period, his brilliance and high grades are not enough to get him into a top high school because he has the wrong identity. This awareness of dominant and minority groups sharpens Wainaina’s observations of other parts of Africa.

From childhood games, the influence of American culture, hairstyles and clothing choices, the book progress to corrupt politics and shockingly bloody oppression and reprisals. Wainaina depicts an Africa where real people live (see Granta article referenced at top)–an Africa that will stay in your mind.

He finds hope in the fact that Uganda has rebuilt itself. “This country gives me hope that this continent is not, finally incontinent.”

The light Wainaina sheds on “the dark continent” and his strikingly original expression make this book a must for the traveler’s library. And a real find for anyone who wants to expand their knowledge of Africa.

Having won several literary awards and started a literary journal Kwani? (why not?), he now teaches at the Chinua Achebe (See Things Fall Apart review) Center for African Writers and Artists at Bard College in upstate New York.

The book title is linked to Amazon for your convenience. If you click through to Amazon and purchase anything at all, I get a few cents which helps support A Traveler’s Library. Thanks.

I am visiting Africa through literature on a semi-regular basis, as I try to expand my woefully small pool of knowledge. I welcome guest posts on books about Africa that may have inspired you, or suggestions to add to my reading list. And you can enter the Book Giveaway when you leave a comment, subscribe to A Traveler’s Library, or add your name in other ways. (See the rules here, and the list of books here.)

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Destination: Africa, the Serengeti

Book: Wildlife Photography: On Safari with Your DSLR by Uwe Skrzypczak

WIN THIS BOOK (See below)

Available in print  from your bookseller or in digital form through I-Tunes.

In this book, although the title is Wildlife Photography and it focuses on the Serengeti of Africa, the author means to help anyone who wants to become a professional level photographer.  Uwe Skrzypczak, (pronounced ScripCheck), discusses Equipment, Techniques and Workflow for shooting with a DSLR camera (Digital Single Lens Reflex–he uses Nikons). He also gives pointers that will help you plan your African trip. And of course, he  illustrates the whole with his amazing images of lions whose faces are dripping blood from a recent kill, a mob of gnus rushing to cross a river, the blur of a cheetah running full speed.

He says he chose to concentrate on the Serengeti because it has the greatest diversity of wildlife in the world, and it obviously is an area that he knows well. That is important because his main commandment is “Know your subject.”  Just as someone photographing a sports scene needs to have an idea where the players and the ball are going next, wildlife photographers need to anticipate the actions of the animals they are portraying.

I will freely admit that much of this book was over my head. WAY over my head. But I decided to present it to you because I know that many travelers yearn to improve their photography, and many travel bloggers aim to become at least semi-professional in their approach. And besides that, it sheds light on Africa, a current area of concentration at A Traveler’s Library.

I skimmed descriptions of camera equipment , but if you are a camera nerd, you know you’ll never get the best shot possible if you do not have the right equipment. His advice on storing images and managing them on the road is something that I can use. Similarly, camera settings involve more math than I am capable of concentrating on, but I know that it is important.

In chapter three, Uwe gets to a field that applies to anyone with any kind of camera–composition. He says:

Wildlife photography is an intuitive sub genre within the field of photography. You need to develop your instinct not only for the technical side of your work, but also with respect to the animals you are photographing.

A helpful hint he gives is to photograph animals at eye level whenever possible–that is, so their eyes are approximately mid level in the shot.  If you shoot from the open top of a jeep–common for people on safaris–he suggests waiting until the animal raises its head.

Among the travel guide type of suggestions he gives is a helpful table of the right time to be in the right place at Serengeti National Park to take advantage of mass movements of animals.  We also get helpful descriptions of the main areas and practical tips. An example: the Ngorongro Crater, which is part of the park, but more restricted, can cost up to $1060 for the six hours limited time in the area. You can stay on a lodge on the rim if you can afford more than one day of jaunts into the Crater.

Wildebeest migration crossing the Mara river

Uwe also discusses the main Serengeti National Park and the Masai Mara, a river system.

Hippopotamus

I learned many things about African wildlife, and the Serengeti..not just photography. For instance, hippos are actually the most dangerous animals to man. Also, Uwe points out how hard it is to photograph leopards and says,

Don’t be deceived by the many “action” photos shot in front of dusty or stony backgrounds that you can find on the Internet. These photos are mostly of tame leopards taken on farms in Namibia or South Africa.

The book closes with a narrative about his trip in 2007 when he needed to get a very particular shot of a male lion to use as the cover of a children’s book. I found the behind-the-scenes look at his work very interesting.

In addition to the blog linked to his name in the first paragraph, he has a website in German, Serengeti Wildlife. At either place you can see examples of his exciting photography.  He suggests many links to keep informed about African wildlife and parks. Here are those I think would be of most interest for travelers.

The Serengeti National Park

Tanzania National Parks

Kenya Wildlife Service

Have you ever been on a wildlife photo safari? Are you a wanna be professional photographer? I will give this book away to someone who leaves a comment in the next week. (Ending July 18) [Only residents of the United States and people over 18 are eligible.] 

NOTE: The photographs shown here are NOT by Uwe Skrzypczak, but are taken from Flickr with Creative Common license to illustrate the places discussed.  The publisher supplied the book  for the purpose of a review. The book title is linked to Amazon for your convenience. If you click through to Amazon and purchase anything at all, I get a few cents which helps support A Traveler’s Library. Thanks.

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Destination: Ghana, Africa

Book: The Civilized World, a NEW book (April 2011)   by Susi Wyss

We have taken a look at a book that shows an old, tribal Africa and travel literature about the days of the explorers. Recently I talked about The First Grader, a film that shows the results of the Mau Mau uprising in Kenya from the 1950s. With The Civilized World, we get a new view– a look at contemporary Africa, Africans living in a modern world, and non-Africans who live in Africa.

Ghana Window

I always come away slightly puzzled from the kind of literature that ends with unresolved conflicts, or at least not solidly resolved. So if you are like me, be warned, the characters are intriguing and solid, but the story line expects you to use your imagination a bit. The women have plenty of self-doubts, but all do something gutsy. One of the Americans has lived in Africa so long, working at non-governmental organizations, that she hardly thinks of herself as American any more. One African woman opens her own business, and despite her insecurity becomes a success. One American woman marries an African man and although she has trouble fitting in to his family in Africa, manages to juggle job and family back in the United States. One African woman believes she knows best for everyone and only seldom questions her interference.  At the extreme edge of this circle, the third American woman never will fit in. She is engaged to a man who works in Africa, and planning to start a family, but she never feels quite safe.

A reviewer at Publisher’s Weekly says, “Wyss offers nuanced takes on vastly different corners of Africa, transcending travelogue to achieve resonant narratives–sometimes funny, sometimes stark–with both grit and heart.”

Accra Ghana street scene

I am not sure why the writer of that blurb decided on “transcending travelogue” because these stories do not even pretend to tell of people traveling in the usual sense to a different place. Perhaps because it is a book about Africa, there is a built-in assumption that there will be landscape and safaris involved.

Instead each character tries to adapt to blending and conflicting cultures. Most are successful at negotiating that path, and even the least successful ones reach a hopeful kind of self-awareness.

Each time I read another book or see another movie about Africa, I learn something new and begin to feel that the dark continent is becoming lighter.

Map of Ghana

Photographs from Flickr with Creative Commons license, except map which comes from Ghana Web, another source of info about  the country. Please click on picture or the map to learn more about the photographer and see more of their photos, for a fuller view of Ghana.

Please keep the suggestions coming for good literature to help us all  understand Africa.

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Destination: Kenya

Movie: The First Grader, A National Geographic Film (2011) PG-13

I went to see The First Grader expecting to see a heart-warming feel good story about literacy. National Geographic is one of the producers, so I expected that it would be beautifully photographed and give me a scenic tour of Africa.

Justin Chadwick, whom you may remember as the director of The Other Boleyn Girl, directed the film. He worked with the BBC and the British Film Council. The fact the film was funded by a British entity is ironic, since the plot criticizes Britain’s handling of the 1950′s crisis in Kenya after the attacks of the Mau Mau, who terrorized white settlers as they battled for Kenyan independence.

The 84-year-old central character in this true story, Kimani Ng’ang’a Maruge (1920-2009), was a Mau Mau veteran and served time in a prison camp. Soldiers shot his wife for not telling who he was. They tortured him because he would not recant his pledge to the Mau Mau. Maruge never learned to read, so in the new century when he gets a letter from the now independent government, he takes the Kenyan government up on their offer of free education for everyone, and shows up at the local elementary school.

We learn the back story in flashbacks to his youth and see one scene of a Mau Mau attack and many scenes of the brutality of the British.  This was an eye opener for me.  Like many Americans, I tend to remain ignorant about the history of African nations, and all I remember about the Mau Mau times was feeling sorry for white farmers who had been in Africa for generations, as they were savaged by what we saw as a gang of thugs.

Now I see it differently. Yes, the Mau Mau did many very bad things, but the colonial rulers’ reaction, if it is anything like the cringe-inducing scenes in the movie, fought violence with violence in an equally inhumane way.

Kenya school children

The scenes in the school are delightful and at first I was thinking how my 6-year-old grand-daughter could benefit from seeing children in another country as they learned the alphabet. But DO NOT take young children to this movie.  The stark reality of the Mau Mau uprisings, and the somewhat related nastiness of townspeople toward the school teacher who decides to help the old man learn, makes a tough lesson for adults.  It is a lesson too complex for small children, particularly when you mix in a bit of government corruption and the prevailing poverty.

Oh dear, I hope I have not made this all sound too glum.  It is not glum. It is simply a well-rounded telling of the story of one man and reflection of many others. The view of Africa–both the countryside and Kenya’s capitol, Nairobi, may not be packed with travelogue beauty, but it shows real lives in a real and oddly alluring land.

Oliver Litundo, who plays Maruge, has played only bit parts before (after a career as a news reader), which makes his performance that much more amazing. Quoting from the National Geographic site: The children in the film–who are in many ways the stars–had never seen a film or television set before, let alone be involved in a filming process.

Kenyan children

Instead they are locals filmed in their own real school. And those school children are so beautiful that you would swear they are pampered little actors and actresses. And by the way, this is a good, heart-warming story about literacy. (That is my opinion, and I’m sticking with it, despite critics all over the map.)

You can make a difference by clicking over to You Tube to see The First Grader trailer . See how you will be contributing to children’s education. The film has pretty much run its course in the Western U.S., but will still be playing in East Coast states for a few weeks. The release date for London is June 24. The National Geographic movie site has a schedule for the U.S. Or put it on your Netflix or Amazon wait list.

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Carrying machetes on the street of Lastoursville, Gabon, photo by Martha Cooper

Destination: Gabon, Africa

Book: How to Cook a Crocodile by Bonnie L. Black

I raced through How to Cook a Crocodile by Bonnie Lee Black, wanting to know what adventure the next day would bring.  I liked nearly everything about this memoir with recipes.  I liked the clearly-told story of a fifty-year-old-woman who gave up the life of a high class caterer in Manhattan for a life filled with heat and biting bugs in equatorial Africa.

I liked the pictures that accompanied stories about the lovely people she met.

I liked the basic and staight-forward recipes–some from her former life, but most the nutritious dishes she taught in classes in her Peace Corps assignment in Gabon.

And of course I was intrigued by her romance with a younger man, who besides being an attentive lover, constantly told her that he appreciated her wisdom–a quality lacking in younger women.  I was disappointed when he just suddenly disappeared at the end of the book.

It seems very appropriate that we should be talking about a memoir of a Peace Corps volunteer during the 50th anniversary of that organization.  How COULD it be 50 years since Sargent Shriver suggested the Peace Corps idea to President John F. Kennedy?

How to Cook a Crocodile is particularly appropriate because it was the first book published by the newly formed Peace Corps Writer’s Books. (see below)

Bonnie Black and friend in market. Photo by Martha Cooper

Just when I was thinking that Bonnie Black is hopelessly Pollyanish about her circumstances–living with no refrigerator, walking a mile to buy groceries each day, fighting mud and snakes and enervating heat, I came to a letter she wrote to her sister.

She explains that because her letters might be opened, the Peace Corps urges volunteers to stay positive in letters home.

“The truth is (and I trust this letter isn’t intercepted) I try to write letters only when I’m in a positive frame of mind and I’m enjoying my experience here–which is to say, roughly four days out of the week.  The other three?  Forgetaboutit….(for instance) There are a b’zillion tiny ants everywhere–in your toothbrush, bed, clean underwear, fridge, everywhere….well, on such days (3 out of 7) I write only in my journal….”

Bonnie Black's house in Gabon Photo by Martha Cooper

Black obviously approached the work with gusto and her creativity earned her the nickname of “Martha Stewart of Gabon.” But since I see Martha Stewart as shallow and artificial, that label did not impress me favorably.  I will admit that I gasped when I saw the  (after) picture that showed what she had done to the living room of her house, which had stood abandoned before she moved in. Used to operating in America where everything was available and she had the price, Black adapted to working with more ingenuity than cash.

From the stories of her every day struggles, I could picture the landscape and the houses and the life of Lastoursville, Gabon. One telling moment comes when she asks Bev, her missionary friend for her “3 rules for living successfully in Gabon.”  Practical Bev says

1. Always carry toilet paper
2. Never expect anything–that way you can’t be disappointed
3. Never criticize the government. If you don’t follow rule three you’ll likely find yourself dead.

I would have liked to see more insight into the emotions and motivations of the Gabonese people, and less self-congratulatory stories about her decorating and teaching successes. The memoir lacks the sense of self-discovery that can give this genre universality.

It struck me as unfortunate–rather sad, really–that Black only once got to experience African life in jungle villages.  Instead she spent her time in one small town, with infrequent trips to the capital.

That fact makes this one of those books about an exotic place that does not make me want to go there (like those un-travel books Alisa Bowman wrote about here a while back.)  My travel bug only perked up when Black took that short excursion into the jungle and remote villages.

Village house in Lastoursville. Photo by Martha Cooper

Now at least I know something about one of the 52 countries in Africa.  A former French colony, located near the equator, it is populated by a million people and although nominally a republic, has a strong president and weak opposition system. Gabon is not likely to become a tourist attraction any time soon, although Lonely Planet points out some interesting sites, but this book helps us see one small piece of Africa.

In March 2011, Peace Corps Writers Books released Answering Kennedy’s Call: Pioneering the Peace Corps in the Phillippines.

Get some taste of the book, How to Cook a Crocodile at Bonnie Lee Black’s blog on the former Peace Corps Volunteers site.

Black sent me this book so I could review it, and her book designer sent me the photographs by Martha Cooper to illustrate the post. All photos appear in How to Cook a Crocodile.

Here at A Traveler’s Library, we have visited  quite a few African countries through books or movies, but by my calculation, need to get to 41 more. If you don’t remember which 11 we have already visited, use the search box.  Then suggest books for countries we have yet to visit. I need your ideas.

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Lake Chad in Nigeria from space, NASA

Destination: Nigeria

Book: Things Fall Apart (1959) by Chinua Achebe

You won’t learn here about today’s Africa, racked by wars in some parts and thriving on tourism in others.  This is the Africa of the Africans, when outsiders were just beginning to encroach. Missionaries showed up (a white man–not an albino, someone says–riding an iron horse), some slave traders, the British government claimed power, while villagers who had once been sure of the truth faced new paradigms that puzzled and upset them.

Ibo Statue from Nigeria

The iron horse tied to a tree stayed put, but soon even the natives were riding the iron horse called a bicycle and clustering around stores where they could trade and buy rather than subsist on the yams they grew.  It is an upsetting time, and in Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe tells it the way an old Ibo villager in Nigeria would tell it to a youngster.  We learn the family connections and rank of the characters. We learn about what they did from dawn to dark, and how they gained status within their community.  We learn about their many gods, and how puzzled they are when their powerful gods seem to allow these white men to come and set up a church to worship the white man’s God. Above all we can see the humanity of these “primitive” people and the value of their lives.

The title derives from the poem by William Butler Yeats, and the book closely parallels the poem.

Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

The book is one of the first books written by an African, from the African point of view instead of accepting the judgement of Europeans. The characters are clearly drawn, the dialogue replicates the rhythms and idiom of tribal speech.  The book is written in simple language, and in my public library is filed in the young adult section, but that strikes me as wrong. Just as Hemingway’s Old Man and the Sea might be accessible to young adults because of the surface simplicity, there is a whole universe of meaning in this book.

You can find a lot of study guides and analyses of Things Fall Apart by googling Achebe’s name.

“Chinua Achebe is an African great and perfect introduction to African writers. Things Fall Apart is a must-read classic,” says Gayle Pescud, a fellow Lonely Planet Blog Sherpa blogger, who lives in and writes about Ghana. Gayle introduced us to a book about Kenya, Unbowed in a guest post last September.

I know too little about Africa. I am going to remedy that by reading and reporting on a series of books (and probably some movies) about Africa in the coming months.  Do you have books to recommend? Now if you have nine minutes–here’s the author himself.

The incredible photo at the top that looks like an abstract painting tells another story about Nigeria. Click on the photo for information on Nigeria’s Lake Chad. Thanks to the photographers whose photos I use here–all form Flickr and Creative Commons. And the video is from You Tube, where you can find more videos of Chinua Achebe.

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A Book for the Middle East in Troubled Times

Rebel flag, Libya

Destination: Libya

Book: In the Country of Men (2006) by Hisham Matar

It has been difficult for me to comprehend the arrogant statements of the dictator of Libya, Muammar Gaddafi. When he asserts, “The people LOVE me!” in the face of thousands of ill-armed, desperate rebels trying to depose him, I think he must be out of touch with reality.

Then I read  In the Country of Men and I understood a little better. The novel, written by an ex-pat Libyan, Hisham Matar , tells the horrific story of people who live under conditions similar to Stalinist Russia. In public they loudly announce their loyalty to the revolution and The Guide (reference to Gaddafi). In private, the intellectuals read widely and share ideas about how to change their government.

They watch television to catch sight of friends who have been hauled off to revolutionary court, and see public beatings as “confessions” are extracted and public executions. The fact that the author chooses a nine-year-old boy as his narrator makes the story that much more horrifying.

In a child’s view of the world, anything could possibly be true. “Shlooma” is still learning what things mean and how the world works, so he describes terrifying events and evil people in an almost matter of fact tone. His main concern is his relationship with his parents.

Concern. I think that was what I craved.  A warm and steady and unchangeable concern.  In a time of blood and tears, in a Libya full of bruise-checkered and urine-stained men, urgent with want and longing for relief, I was the ridiculous child craving concern.

He mistakes an oily enforcer for a friend and nearly betrays his own beloved father. He discovers his own capacity for evil when he betrays his best friend. A friend whose father had taken him to see Leptis Magna, the great Roman city whose ruins lie in the desert 120 km outside Tripoli.

In the perfect society that Gaddafi imagines his country to be, we see people who do not practice religion at all, an alcoholic mother, families who live in terror because the father has been dragged away.  But because the story is the story of a young boy, we also see the very human results of that mother, the distracted father, the normal rivalries between neighborhood boys. We learn what his house looks like, what he eats, how he plays during one summer in his life. Here is a description of shops:

Black silk scarves billowed gently above one, columns of stacked red caps stood as tall as men outside another. The ceiling was made with dark strips of fabric. The white blades of light that pierced through the occasional gaps illuminated the swimming dust and shone still and beautiful on the arches and floor, but darted like sparkles on the heads and down the bodies of the passersby, making the shadows seem much darker than they were.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this magnificently poetic book, even though it’s message becomes painful at times.

As for learning about today’s Libya, I did not realize how many attempts at uprising their have been against Gaddafi in his forty years of rule. This book reflects an attempt in 1979.  A friend of the family says,

“There was so much hope, so much hope.  Three years ago eight thousand students in Benghazi and four in Tripoli. Twelve thousand students took a stand in an illiterate country of less than three million…It took three years for hope to be reborn only to see the few who dared sacrificed for the many.”

Time after time “The Guide” has flicked away the bothersome people. His network of enforcers keep people in line and he sees a calm and compliant people. The few troublemakers will be easily dealt with as they have been in the past. That is the mindset that establishes his self-deluding “The people love me” statement. And that is why I am reading and sharing literature that comes from the troubled Middle East here at A Traveler’s Library.

The other countries of the world have stepped in this time. The situation is different, whether Gaddafi knows it or not. He may not, but we need to understand as much as possible. Read a New Yorker interview with Hisham Matar about the current uprising. You can follow @hishamjmatar on Twitter

Review the other Books for Troubled Times, as you read the news. Syria is edging toward the top of the news once more as rebels there attract attention. Our book, The Calligrapher’s Secret shows Damascus in a quieter time and perhaps explains some of the divisions in the country. We have also discussed, Egypt (A Traveller’s History) and Afghanistan (The Minaret of Djam), and before the recent uprisings, Yemen (The Woman Who Fell From the Sky).

The Libyan flag photo is from Flickr, and you can click on the picture to learn more about the photographer. If you choose to purchase one of these books, or anything else that tickles your fancy, after clicking on one of my book links, I will make a few cents off of each purchase. Thank you!

I strongly wish that I could visit the many Roman ruins that inhabit the shores of Libya. Perhaps…some day.  Do you have a list of places that you would like to travel to in more peaceful times?

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Book Cover

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Destination: Africa

Book: Crossing the Heart of Africa by Julian Smith (NEW December 2010)

I enjoy hearing stories about the adventurers who busily mapped the globe around the end of the 19th  and the beginning of the 20th centuries. In Crossing the Heart of Africa, Julian Smith tells the story of a brave (or is it brash?) young man who sets out to impress the father of his lady love by walking 4500 miles from the Zambezi River in southwest Africa to Cairo in the north. The Victorian adventurer kept a journal and later published a book about the trip.

So author Julian Smith had plenty of source material although Ewart Grogan is not exactly a household name like the original Richard Burton or Dr. Livingston, despite three biographies that have been published.

Julian Smith weaves a fine tale. I liked his writing style. It was the whining I did not like.

Unfortunately, every book these days has to have an angle, and preferably one where the author either faces danger or does the travel-is-all-about-my-feelings number.  Smith follows the general path of Grogan across Africa, although being a typical rushed inhabitant of the 21st century, he does not have time to walk, so he takes buses, bikes, and boats to follow the trail. Even more unfortunately, he tells us all about his own romance and his uncertainty about being tied down by his imminent marriage.

Transportation in Mozambique, East Africa

The book tells us much about the difference between Victorian society and social networking society as it does about the unflappable and handsome Grogan. Grogan and his love have no doubts that the risks he is taking will win him the prize, and that however long it takes, she will be waiting for him. Smith has nothing but doubts. Should he get married? Should he venture into the Congo?

Grogan shrugs off the most horrible problems–ill with malaria, losing nearly all his equipment to thieves, facing down headhunters, finding a track across lava fields and swamps never before crossed by a European. Smith struggles with the morality of giving coins to poor children and worries about whether the bureaucrats are going to return his passport. Grogan steadfastly refuses to drop even a postcard to his intended when he’s near civilization. Smith frets over not making daily phone calls or sending e-mails.

Ah, yes, in Victorian England, a man was expected to take on physical, even mortal, challenges and keep a stiff upper lip about it all. In the 21st century, a man is expected to soften that lip and talk about his feelings.  Here are two passages that show the contrast:

Grogan’s arm was a sleeve of pain from wrist to shoulder.  Even if he could have raised a rifle, he found the last box of shells were corroded and worthless.  The party was reduced to eating raw hippo meat and sucking mud puddles for moisture. The diet started to turn Grogan’s hands black.

And here’s a challenge Smith faces:

An old couple climbs aboard and starts playing tease-the-mzungu[white man]. They point and ask me questions and laugh when I don’t understand.  Eery culture has assholes.  I’m too drained to care. Cyclic pressure clenches my guts, even though I haven’t eaten anything since lunch….Bumping along in a bus with a bad case of Montezuma’s revenge is nowhere near as bad as tramping through a monsoon with a potentially fatal fever.

Right. It’s not.

If there were two paths to follow, the Victorian adventurer would plunge into the abyss–follow the un-marked trail. Our role models today train us that it is better to think of a way to avoid danger than to throw oneself into it.

Uganda, The White Nile

In Victorian days, love meant total devotion, not friends with privileges, and a statement of love meant you were about to devote your life to that person, not try to find excuses to avoid marriage.

Smith is a fine writer, but frequently I wished I could find a way to cut out the poor-me pages  and stick with the story of the single-minded adventurer, Grogan. Smith tells that story very well. I particularly like some of his offbeat research, like this about travel:

“To travel” originally meant to “suffer.”  A thousand years ago, life was dangerous, but leaving home was sorse.  The word itself comes from the Old French travailler, meaning to toil, as in “travail”.  It’s rooted in the Latin tripalium, a torture device made of three poles tied together, to which victims would be attached and lit on fire.

So now you now why we are so hot to travel!!

Despite my mixed feelings, I believe this is a good book for a traveler’s library.  Smith provides plenty of geopolitical background and historical context along with stark descriptions of Africa today. And if you love the Great Age of Adventure, you’ll love this book.

The two Africa pictures are from the author’s web site, and if you click on them you can go to the site and see more of his pictures from the journey across Africa.

Some lucky person today is going to win a copy of this book, which was given to me by the publisher for review. Just leave a comment below by January 17 at 6:00 a.m., and tell me if you have been to Africa or if you like to read about Africa or if you went to Africa what you would like to see. (see all the fine print about contests here.)

You might also like:

• Unbowed
• Heart of Darkness
• South Africa
• Lost Boys of Sudan

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