Category: African Experience

African Experience, book-review, books, literature, read around the world, reading

Seven Moons of Maali Almeida

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by Shehan Karunatilaka

Maali Almedia introduces himself with what should be on his business card:  Photographer, Gambler, Slut. He awakes to find himself in what seems to be a government office. He isn’t sure he if he is dreaming or awake because of the “silly pills” he had taken the night before. He slowly comes to realize that he is dead – murdered. Around him are lines and chaos as people try to figure out where they are and what comes next. He is faced with a dead political activist, who is to help him prepare to go “into the light” after having seven moons (days) to come to grips with this and prepare himself. He is also pursued by a slain member of the JVP (communist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna’s group) that is seeking to gather an army to exact revenge on those that killed them and thousands of innocents.

Through eavesdropping and memory, we learn of Maali’s history, of the country’s history, and the history of people he knew. He roams through the rooms where his friends and his enemies are looking to find him. Along the way he also meets some that he photographed when they were dead.  We learn of the atrocities he witnessed and documented. He decides it is time to show the reality of what he has seen now that he is dead. To do this, Maali makes pacts with The Crow Man, a medium, to give information to Jaki, his best friend, to find his photos. You also meet DD, Jaki’s brother and Maali’s lover, and their father, a minister in the government. Other players are leaders of waring factions across the spectrum: Army, Tamil, LTTE, arms dealers from Israel, CIA and CNTRE from Canada and Europe. Everyone has a hidden agenda, and if you get in someone’s way you end up dead. We follow those sent to get rid of the bodies, too.

In the end, Maali must come to a decision – what did his life stand for and how does he want to move forward. You need to read to the end to see if he goes to the light or not, and to discover what he finds his role is in this life. I can tell you, however, that people end up where they are supposed to be. 

Very well written. I was surprised how much this story captured me. Going back and forth from the in between and life, as well as to memory, worked seamlessly. You felt the confusion, and the despair, and the absurdity, as well as the relief when things are finished, even if they didn’t work out the way it was hoped. There is always time to do better. Not an easy story, but I am glad I read it.  

African Experience, book-review, books, read around the world, reading

Hate has too many places to live: Abyssinian Chronicles / Uganda

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Written as a novel, this is a semi-autobiographical tale of a family’s existence in Uganda in the 20th century. The racial, religious, gender and economic strife is all here. The story begins in a confusing way, setting the stage to meet the main character. At approximately 100 pages in I finally figured out when and who we were supposed to be focusing on. The historical information on the family, however, was needed to make the next 300 pages make sense.

Set in Uganda, we are introduced to the deep-rooted Catholic church’s influence, as well as the Muslim and Pagan traditions. These traditions tend to mix together, with some being incorporated into others. The influences of the outside cultures, Catholic and Muslim, is due to the evangelical history of Ethiopia (formerly Abyssinia) and the traders from the Middle East that came with the British. This becomes important when the reign of Idi Amin begins.  

Having an understanding of the history of Uganda would have helped, but this was covered in the first 100 pages through how the family members were impacted. The politics were not the focus, but the impact on the family. Information on what was happening was not central to living lives in the villages at that time. Early in the 20th century the tsetse fly spread a “sleeping sickness” pandemic, killing approximately 300,000. 1962 brought independence from Britain, the first election bringing Dr Milton Obote to power. 1967 brought a new constitution, giving more power to the Prime Minister, Obote. In 1971 Idi Ami overthrew the government and began a reign of terror – killing anyone that did not agree with him. Then the war with Tanzania, which Amin lost, and Obote returned to run a country that was decimated economically and ecologically. A new “plague”, HIV/AIDS then swept the African country.

The story starts in the time of independence, with the beginning being like the sleeping sickness – slow but gotten through. The family is a macrocosm of the country. Serenity (the son of a clan elder that had no interest in leading) and Padlock (a woman that was too brutal with her charges as a nun that led her to be thrown out of the nunnery) were the first despots that we encounter. Padlock required complete obedience from her children, and was brutal in enforcing her rule, while Serenity allowed this to happen as long as he was not impacted.   Mugezi, their eldest son, was never liked by Padlock and took the brunt of her hatred. He learned early on how to survive, instigate, and infuriate those in power. Padlock gets her way to send Mugezi to become a priest. Within the church walls, however, the next set of despots is found, with upperclassmen terrorizing the new students as the priests look the other way, or the controlling nature of the priest to have feasts of good food while the students watched and received mealy porridge.   

Through all of these tests, Mugezi learns how to survive, profit and exact revenge. These skills are what will allow him to survive the ongoing tragedy he is living through. To the very end, Mugezi relies upon his understanding of human nature and his ability to leverage this while not being too greedy.

This story is not easy to read. Awash with violence, the value of human life is cheap. The outright bigotry, of whites against blacks, blacks against Indians, Catholic versus Muslim, is prominent – the white Priest calling the black ministry students monkeys, the glee of the blacks when the Indians were deported, the smugness of the Catholics that only sinners got the “slimming” sickness (AIDS) – are all in the open. The hatred for each of the “others” is breathtaking in strokes, and the root of the cause of so much destruction. I kept looking for hope at the end, but I am not sure I found it.

While this book was well written, you need to be able to handle the horrors that are brought forth. I read this book at a time when I am personally struggling with the ongoing exposure of the deep hatred that remains in the Unites States. The fact that this has never gone away, or truly lessened for those that believe and teach this hatred is overwhelmingly depressing for me. In a world that has become so connected, how does this hatred of others still exist? As with Uganda, the answers are tied in not only racial issues, but are complicated by economic, religious and gender constraints also. These are all entangled and cannot be separated. We need brave souls to stand together to work toward a total solution that is based in respect for human life and beliefs. In 2022 they say there is much to look forward to for Uganda. I hope that is true there, and everywhere else in this world.

African Experience, book-review, books, Family Drama, read around the world, reading

Baking Cakes and Burying Hoopies

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Baking Cakes in Kigali / Rwanda & When Hoopies go to heaven / Swaziland

Baking Cake in Kigali is in a similar vein as the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency. Meet Angel. She makes the most wonderful cakes. She has started this business while her husband Pius is a special consulting in Rwanda, rebuild the country after the genocide. They are not from Rwanda, they are Tanzanian. Angel and Pius are raising their five grandchildren. Three are their late son Joseph’s children. He had tested positive, but he was shot in a robbery. The other two are their daughter Vinas’ who died “from blood pressure.”  Pius and Angel are working so hard to provide for this second family, as so many grandparents across the African continent are doing.

Angel, who prides herself on being a professional person, faces the realities of life with grace and humility. The family lives on a compound for the many volunteers that have come to rebuild after the war. She takes people under her wing, and cares for them. Her main concern is to make people happy. We learn through Angel the difficulties that people face everyday. The status of women – the number of men being so scarce – pit them against each other as they look for partners. The unavailability of work leaving no choice but to sell their bodies in order to feed their families. Undercurrents through the country are the knowledge that you may have survived, but you are not sure if the person next to you was part of the massacre, or is somehow related to someone that was. Then there is the ever-present HIV.

This book takes on these difficult topics, such as the HIV crisis that has left so many grandparents raising children and the genocide with skill. While ever present, it is not maudlin or gratuitous. You see though different characters what it is like to be a child of a collaborator, to be the only survivor of a family, and the pain that remains as people try to move on with life.

All of this while you watch Angel go to HIV positive women that are being taught how to sew to keep them from selling themselves on the streets, buying fabric from women that are making their own patterns to survive, and standing in for a mother in jail for collaboration at a wedding. The wedding itself shows how the country is trying to heal – step by step learning to live together in the present with people from all over Africa, and the world, coming together – even the different groups that had been at war in Rwanda.

Through this empathy and openness to learning something new, Angel helps to heal hearts and make differences, both large and small for the whole community. There is hope for the country in what Angel is able to accomplish, which leads you to believe there is hope for the country in real life. Well worth the read.

I actively search for more stories with Angel and found When Hoopies Go to Heaven. The family has left Rwanda and moved to Swaziland. This installment is told from the point of view of the middle child of Joseph, Benedict.  Benedict is fascinated with all animals. Through his attempts to do the right thing, what he felt Angel or Pius would do, similar connections are made between different groups. While the changed POV was not as compelling as the first book, the same humanity and wonderful writing is found. I will continue to look for more books by Gaile Parkin for the pure delight in reading, and the added bonus of learning about different cultures. 

African Experience, Black Experience, book-review, literature, read around the world

Stories from Africa

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As I begin reading through my list of books to be read, I check out Say You’re One of Them by Uwem Akpan. As I turn to start the book, I am met by a map of Africa. I see the following countries highlighted for me: Sierra Leone, Liberia, Benin, Gabon, Nigeria, Niger, Ethiopia, Kenya, and Rwanda. There are so many countries on this continent – and yet all of these are part of this book. I start to think about my arm chair travelling.

Without fully comprehending until the first story has finished, I begin to realize the richness of the collection that is before me. With as many religions as languages throughout Africa, this is an extremely complex and confusing place. A continent that had been under siege, either by force or not, the contradictions that the people bring on to themselves is so sad, especially in the context of the children’s eyes we are looking through. Africa is a story of stolen children’s lives.

Each story begins with innocence, and ends in terror, or death. The capacity for hatred, and for adjusting to survive, are just a hairs breath away from each other. We have heard of the terrors on tv, but these stories, told from a child’s point of view, kick you harder. Where innocence should be, there is nothing but wariness and fear. There is no way this will not impact the future generations and how they relate to each other and themselves.