Review: Nervous Conditions by Tsitsi Dangarembga

Author:Tsitsi Dangarembga
Publisher/Format: Lynne Rienner Publishers, Second edition, Pprbk, 224 pages
Year of publication:  2004
Subject: treatment of women in colonial Rhodesia
Setting: Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe)
Genre: fictional autobiography
Source: Maine Humanities Council "Let's Talk About It" book club

From the beginning this story grabbed me.  Young Tambu opens by telling us she is not sad when her brother dies.  Whoa!!!  Who would not mourn the loss of a sibling?  She gives us a picture of her life as one of poverty, lack of education (or opportunities for anything other than the very basics), and utter hopelessness that things might improve.  Until her brother dies.....There are no other sons, so suddenly, she is next in line to be educated, to have a chance to improve not only her life but that of other women of her village. Until then, her life is encapsulated in this quote:

My father thought I should not mind (Not going to school) Is that anything to worry about? Ha-a-a, it's nothing, he reassured me....'Can you cook books and feed them to your husband?  Stay at home with your mother. Learn to cook and clean. Grow vegetables.'  pg. 15.

My father (who was the son of immigrants) had much the same thought about the value of higher education for women. Fortunately my mother had a more enlightened attitude. And Daddy did eventually admit that he was quite proud of all his daughters' accomplishments.

In "Nervous Conditions" Dangarembga gives us a portrait of two cousins in Rhodesia during the late 1960's and early 1970's. Tambu, the main protagonist, is constantly compared and compares herself to her cousin Nyasha, who was raised in England where her parents were studying, until her early teens. After her brother's death, Tambu goes to live at the mission complex when her Uncle (Nyasha's father) is made headmaster of the school. Nyasha is uncomfortable living in Africa, having never been given the chance to experience the language or mores of village life. Tambu, on the other hand, is fascinated with Nyasha's Englishness on the one hand, but repelled by the fact that the English influence is gradually destroying her family and its traditions.

There are other women's stories woven into this one: Tambu's mother, who is unable to see herself as other than the possession of her husband. Tambu's aunt (Nyasha's mother) struggles to reconcile her African identity with the life she lived in England, and the creature comforts she enjoys by virtue of her husband's position and their relative wealth. Lucia, a woman who lives in the village and who has a child by father unknown, wants to better herself, get an education, and doesn't care a fig about social status, or cultural taboos.

Watching all these women react to the men in their lives could paint a picture of bleak despair, but Dangarembga manages to give us hope, offers us a picture of women overcoming the ravages of colonialism, educating themselves and their families to recognize the dignity of human beings, taking control of their own lives, salvaging the traditions of their culture and molding it into a life to be valued and celebrated. Through Tambu's eyes we experience the open-eyed wonder of a young girl who suddenly has clean clothes, a real bed, modern bathing and toileting facilities, not to mention a more varied diet than she'd been used to and her ambivalence about these "privileges" when she returns on school holidays to the family's hut.

Her uncle is viewed as almost omnipotent by both the men and women of the village, the family and the school, and she struggles to come to terms with the power he can exert, his seeming generous support of her family, and the often confusing contradictions of his actions and his English education. It's a fascinating book, beautifully written, and full of puzzling juxtapositions, examples of cruelty and of kindness. The picture it paints of the life of women in Rhodesia during that time period does not give us as many answers as it provokes questions. I certainly hope the author will write a follow-on book about young Tambu. It would be intriguing to see how she turns out as an adult.

I read this book as part of a series of book discussions sponsored by the Maine Humanities Council who provided the books to our library for the "Opening Windows: Women's Stories from Different Cultures" series.  Our group has certainly learned a lot, and enjoyed the previous books in the series.  We all agreed that this was definitely our favorite so far.

Review: The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind

Author:William Kamkwamba with Bryan Mealer
Format: ARC paperback, 347 pgs
Subject: growing up, famine, science experiments, building windmills
Setting: Malawi Africa 2000-2008
Genre:  memoir
Source: Review copy from Harper Collins


At the age of 12, William Kamkwamba is literally dying of starvation. His country, Malawi, a small land-locked slab of sub-saharan Africa is suffering raging famine exacerbated by totally corrupt and inept rulers.  The Kamkwamba family (parents and 4 children) has been reduced to eating one small meal a day consisting of a small handfull of a grain concoction and sometimes the addition of a pumpkin leaf.  William, the only son, has been forced to drop out of secondary school because his farming family cannot afford the tuition. The erratic rain patterns (too much, then too little) of the past year have meant that their tobacco and maize crops failed.  No food, no money to buy food, no crops to sell to make money, malaria and cholera adding to the mix, and no work for William or his father.  Life could have been very dismal.

But William is a curious and basically happy child.  He returns to the local grade school where the village library is housed.  There he spends his days reading everything he can get his hands on so he won't be too behind if the chance to return to school ever happens.  He finds books that came in a shipment from America, among them Integrated Science and Explaining Physics.  His world expanded, and he immediately realized that if they could have electricity, his father could run a pump that would allow them to manage their water supply and have not only one, but two harvests a year.  His family would not have to spend money on kerosene to have light at night, nor would they have to go to bed when it got dark at 7pm if the kerosene were running low.

Inspired by his reading and by seeing bicycle lights glowing from the energy generated from the dynamos run by pedals, he set about to build a windmill to generate that electricty for his family.  It never occured to him that this was something many would consider impossible.  The story of how he scavenged, begged, borrowed or found enough work to pay for parts and tools, and then built a working windmill is only the beginning of this inspiring story. Once the windmill became reality, and his house was 'wired', his family became the local cell phone charging outlet, and visitors began arriving to see this strange contraption made of a bicycle wheel, a bamboo tower, melted PVC pipes for blades, and hundreds of feet of bare metal wires.  My favorite part was the 'insulated' light switch made from a discarded flip-flop.

The story of his adventures out of his village after he was 'discovered' by scientists and philanthropists is even more endearing.  His first airplane ride, sleeping on a real bed in a hotel, and most of all discovering computers and the internet are joyfully related. Now in his 20's, and a university student, William is determined to bring electricity and education to his entire country.  I can't wait to see him succeed.

This is a book that can be enjoyed by readers from about age 10 through adulthood.  It is an uplifting tale that affirms our belief in human nature.  It would make great extra credit reading for a basic high school physics class.

Many thanks to Harper Collins for the review copy.

Challenge: ARC

Travels with Tutu: La Goulette Tunisia

Now here's the photo that says it all....the camels are still here, but so are the big commercial cruise ships, the modern airport, big city life along side very ancient customs, traditions, buildings, and culture. Tunisia was the most surprising place we visited, and I'm not sure why. I confess that I knew next to nothing about this country, except that it was on the northeastern corner of Africa. I think I had visions of Humphrey Bogart, or Lawrence of Arabia, but what I saw was modernity living inside ancient civiliazation. Tunisia is a republic. Independence from France came in 1956, and in 1957 the Tunisians implemented a constitutional government. Tunis, the capital, was the city we visited. The port is known as La Goulette. The official language is arabic, English is widely spoken, and the weather is hot. Like the US, there is complete separation of church and state, so Muslims, Jews, Christians, Hindus, and many others live and work side by side. Women have complete autonomy and equal rights. We got all this from the bus tour guide! Since neither of us had ever been here, we chose to take the all day tour, in spite of the heat. At the height of the day it got to 110F. We began early in the morning, and the tour tried to get us to the outside venues before the temp climbed above 100, so we found ourselves wandering around ancient Carthage when it was only 95! This area of the world has endured wave upon wave of invaders and conquerors, and I'm not doing a history lesson here. The ruins we visited were predominantly Roman, and as is to be expected, there were miles of aquaducts, baths, fora, and colluseums for games and theatre productions. Next we went to a tradtional Souk (market place) where we had time to stroll, bargain (or avoid the hawkers), and wonder whether what we were seeing was authentic, and would survive the trip home. After free time, we filed into a little shop, climbed a mountain of stairs, and were treated to a rug weaving and knotting demonstration. The fact that they offered us goodies, drinks, and had even the foresight to air condition the place, made for much more ready to spend customers. If we hadn't already over the years collected more "oriental" carpets than we have floors to put them on, I'd have been pulling out the plastic. These were gorgeous. Not cheap. But a good buy. And gorgeous. After that, we went off to a Tunisian restaurant for a delicious lunch: lots of wonderful vegetable dishes (the cold minted carrots were particularly refreshing), tumeric chicken in rice, saffron couscous, fried fish, several different potato dishes both hot and cold, icy chunks of ruby red watermelon, and thick, gooey, sweet fig bars that reminded me of baklava--take a fig newton, roll it in honey and crushed sesame seeds and you've got it. Which reminds me: at this point in the cruise, fresh figs started showing up everywhere, and since one of my fondest childhood memories is my Italian nona shoving a freshly picked fig into my mouth and showing me how to catch the juice before it rolled off my chin, I was in heaven. I think the ship food manager was probably wondering why the figs were always disappearing as fast as they went on the buffet line--breakfast, lunch, and supper. Bob and I always took a couple back to our stateroom to put in our fruit bowl. Bananas, apples and oranges are OK, but FIGS............. oh my yes. Anyway....after lunch we then went to the 'typical' ancient village of Sidi Bou Said. Every building is painted white with blue trim, and by this time of the afternoon, the village was shimmering in the heat. You could almost see the heat waves rising in the air. We had to walk about 1/2 mile from where the bus dropped us off, climb up into the village, and negotiate a lot of steps, and a lot more hawkers. I must admit that after 4 trips to Hong Kong, and several other trips to the Philippines, Bangkok, Seoul Korea, Penang, and Singapore, I thought I was immune to the blatant in your face experiences of traders in a market. I was wrong. These guys are intense, unstoppable, and I hate to say it, but they were obnoxious. I wanted to buy a few souvenirs, but felt like what I really wanted to do was deck somebody. When the most arrogant vendor took my shopping basket and dumped it on the floor and stormed away, I said "that's it--I'm outta here", and tried to leave. However, of course, we had to play the game of "please missus....how much you want to pay?" when he came screaming after me. Bob was in another part of the store, and didn't see what was happening at first, so I finally had to enlist the help of the tour guide (who I'm sure was seeing his cut go down the drain) to say "Look --I just want these three items, and this is what I'm willing to pay. I don't want to bargain anymore." We started at the ridiculous price of $1051 US dollars for a basket of 6 items some of which I would swear were made in China, and finally was able to get out of there for $71 US for 4 items. YIKES! I always enjoyed haggling, but this was overwhelming. (Maybe I'm getting old?) Another stop we made was at the Bardo museum (I think this is considered the national museum) where we saw some truly spectacular mosaics. Many of these were discovered in ancient ruins, and moved from the site by sawing off the mosaic from its surface and leaving a thin layer of the stone to which it was attached, wetting them, letting them 'soften', carefully rolling them up, and then transporting them to be remounted at the museum. The small shot here does not do justice, be sure to see them full screen by going to the pictures on Facebook. It was a long, long, hot, hot day, but worth the chance to visit a part of the world we probably will never be able to return to. If you ever get the chance, please go see Tunisia. What we saw was beautiful.

Not now.....maybe later

Cutting for Stone is just not my cup of tea. It received great reviews, but I found the book ponderous, over-written, and just not to my liking. I have too many books I want to read to spend anymore time. I've taken over two weeks trying to read this one, and gave it 150 pages, but I just couldn't get interested. The story is supposed to be a love story and I kept waiting for it. It is about twins boys born to an Indian nun and British doctor who worked in Ethopia. The nun dies in childbirth, the father leaves town, and two other doctors take up raising the children. One of the things I found disconcerting was the constant change of voice--at times we are hearing from Marion, the oldest twin, at other times, third person voices are telling the story from the point of view of the two doctors raising the boys. It's gory, lots of medical detail, and lots of interesting cultural information about an area of the world I knew little about. But it was just....too.....much of everything. I have put it aside, and will try later this year to finish it.

Review: Tea Time for the Traditionally Built

Being a 'traditionally built' woman myself, I've always loved Alexander McCall Smith's Mma Precious Ramotswe of 1st Ladies Detective Agency fame. This 10th book in the series is as gentle and delightful a read as the previous ones. In this episode, Mma R's little white van finally bites the dust, and she is in mourning. Her side-kick Grace Makutsi is busy keeping her fiance Mr. Phuti Radiphuti out of the evil clutches of her nemesis from the Botswana Secretarial College, Violet Sephotho. In the meantime, the agency is hired by Mr. Molofololo, the owner of a local football team, to look into why his team has been losing. Is, as he suspects, one of the players sabotaging the games? Neither Precious nor Grace knows a thing about 'football' (soccer) and it takes the help of Mma Ramotswe's foster son Puso to get the answer. This series is one of my all time favorites. On the surface, it's hard to say why. It certainly is not in the same league of other 'mysteries' or detective stories, but the grace, gentleness, courtesy, and pleasant good writing guarantees that when I pick one up and read it, I will put the book down feeling good about human beings. In addition, McCall Smith's wonderful introduction and explanation of the customs, traditions and culture of Botswana are truly enlightening for someone who has never been there. If you are lucky enough to get it in audio, the cadence of Lisette Lecat's readings adds even more richness. These books were made to be heard, not just read. Since Precious is still searching for her white van, an 11th book looks like a good bet.

Review: Wife of the Gods

Inspector Darko Dawson has been sent to Ketanu, a village several kilometers away from his home base of Accra, the capital of Ghana, to investigate a murder. He has mixed emotions about going, since Ketanu is the site of his mother's disappearance more than 25 years ago. In fact, he still has relatives living there. While in Ketanu, not only must the urbane Dawson contend with a population fixated on witchcraft, but the murder investigation involves him with many local superstitions, faith healers, and priests with several wives. While the publisher compares this book to Alexander McCall Smith's 1st Ladies Detective Agency series, the only similarity is the setting. This is a good police procedural, with well developed and believable characters, an engaging setting, and a cleverly twisting plot that kept me guessing until the end. Dawson is a wonderful character-- a dope smoking, firey tempered, independent, 'take no prisoners' detective. He reminds me very much of J.A. Jance's J.P. Beaumont character. While he fights his own demons, sneers at inept superiors and peers, and constantly annoys everyone, he befriends the helpless, listens to his inner senses, and cleverly solves the crime. Dr. Quartey writes eloquently, in spare but beautiful prose. The book proceeds quickly from the opening to the end, --in fact, the cliche 'page-turner' is very applicable. I especially enjoyed having a glossary of Ghanian terms available. It made the dialogue (which is masterful) readily accessible to a reader unfamiliar with the area. I was thrilled to see that he is already working on book #2. Both the character of Dawson and the author have the makings of a great series. I was lucky enough to get this as an Early Reviewer for LibraryThing. Watch for it in July!