Hujambo!

I’m resisting writing about the USA’s presidential election because I fear it will turn into a lengthy rant, and I know you guys don’t care what I think. In lieu of that I figured I’d write something that was a little more interesting. I just finished Skeletons on the Zahara by Dean King. This is another book recommended and given to me by a fellow VSO volunteer, which means I paid nothing for it. It also means: if you’re a volunteer in Kenya (even non VSO) I will give it to you for free!

This was a fascinating story of an American trade ship that crashed on the West coast of Africa in 1815. The crew ends up being robbed and enslaved by the locals, which sounds like it was more common than you might think in the nineteenth century. I wonder if would have steered clear of the merchant marine line of work if I lived during those times. Anyways, the men experience the harshness of life on the desert, constantly shifting to find clean water and shrubs for their owners’ camels.
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I’ve been reading The Autobiography of Malcolm X and I came across a few interesting quotes. It’s surprisingly readable; I guess I was expecting it to be really intellectual. I respect Malcolm X but he’s got some funny views on a few issues. It could be the zeitgeist, but for some reason I expect more from someone who traveled the world as a champion of human rights. This one, for example, was pretty shocking to read:

“All women, by their nature, are fragile and weak: they are attracted to the male in whom they see strength.” Pg. 93

This other one made me wonder if anything has changed, and if so, for better or for worse?

“Right now, in every big city ghetto, tens of thousands or yesterday’s and today’s school drop-outs are keeping body and soul together by some form of hustling in the same way I did.” Pg. 108

And this next one, which took place during a riot in the 1940s, was just too funny:

“… we laughed about the scared little Chinese whose restaurant didn’t have a hand laid on it, because the rioters just about convulsed laughing when they saw the sign the Chinese had hastily stuck on his front door: Me Colored Too.” Pg. 114

So you can see there’s something for everyone in here. I am only about halfway through the book, so maybe some of his viewpoints will change. I know he at least stops hating white people, so there’s hope! Hah, goodnight!

I just read Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations and I really enjoyed it! For some reason I never picked up Dickens because I figured it was only for literature snobs or English majors. A friend at work recommended that I check out this book after I had been recently enjoying Twain’s hilarious accounts of Tom and Huck’s adventures in nineteenth century America. If you search the Internet you’ll see plenty of comparisons between the two authors, and rightly so; they were contemporaries and they both wrote about every day life in their respective societies.
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I just read Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri.  I didn’t realize it until I had finished the first chapter, but the book is actually a collection of short stories.  At first I was upset because I had grown, in such a short amount of pages, to really feel the emotions being developed in the narrative.  I remember putting the book down to go make some tea, excited to pick up where I left off, only to find a new story being introduced.  I feel like an idiot now because on the cover of the book it says “stories by Jhumpa Lahiri.”  Haha!  The book was enjoyable nonetheless.
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I borrowed this book from another volunteer and sped through it during my travels through Tanzania, Rwanda, and Uganda a few weeks ago. I’ve seen tons of books in this genre since I’ve been in Kenya. If you have been to a bookstore recently you know the type: it’s kinda like a “new age” travel writing, but instead of martinis and beach resorts you get rebel militias, cow dung, and grass huts. Last year I read Paul Theroux’s Dark Star Safari, where he spent a few months traveling by land from Egypt to South Africa (and every country in between). During Kenya’s post-election violence earlier this year I read Emma’s War, about a VSO volunteer in Sudan who married a rebel warlord and lived in the bush with him and his militia. Sara read one about a white European woman who ended up marrying a Maasai warrior and living in the bush with him (The White Maasai). There’s no shortage of this stuff, and I bet they are selling like hot cakes in western book shops!

Having said that, if you’re looking for a foray into this genre, I will recommend Aidan Hartley’s The Zanzibar Chest. It’s a great mix of politics, history, and travel (in a weird sort of way). The author is a white Kenyan, the son of a long line of colonial British officers, who writes about his experiences tramping around Africa as a war correspondent for various news wire agencies. He’s a great writer and he has a decent sense of humor. Not the “Knock knock, who’s there?” type, but more like the way he perceives things and his matter-of-fact presentation of some pretty far-out situations. For example, he was walking through a remote village in Somalia and he sees an old man strolling into the market with a swarm of bees following him. His guide tells him that the old man had hid the queen bee in his turban so the entire colony was following him; a great trick to get your bees to the market for sale!
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