NICARAGUA

READ

The Inhabited Woman, written by Gioconda Belli and translated by Kathleen March, tells the story of Lavinia Alarcón, a well-off, educated young woman living in the fictional city of Faguas. She lives alone in the house left to her by her beloved Aunt Inés, and in the opening chapter, she is about to start work at the first job she’s ever had, working as an architect in a local firm.

Lavinia’s family is near the top of the social hierarchy, a group of aristocrats known as the “Greens.” While the Greens are envied and deferred to, control of the country appears to rest in the hands of the “Blues,” who are considered to be low-class, uneducated, and nouveau riche. The dictator who rules the country, whom people refer to as the Great General, is a Blue. And then there are the people who are just trying to live their lives – the workers. They are not happy with the brutality and corruption of the Great General and his followers, and a revolution is brewing.

Although Lavinia belongs to the upper class, she is not without sympathy for those who don’t have her advantages. Her first assignment at the architectural firm is to visit the site of a proposed shopping center for which her firm has drafted the blueprints. She discovers that the shopping center will require the demolition of a low-income barrio and that troubles her. When she returns to the office, she confronts her co-worker, Felipe, about the situation, but he says nothing can be done.

Before long, Lavinia finds herself in a relationship with Felipe, but she can tell he’s hiding something. When he arrives at her house in the middle of the night with a man who has been shot, she discovers that Felipe is a member of a rebel group called the National Liberation Movement. Shortly thereafter, Lavinia becomes a member of the group too.

Interwoven throughout the book are thoughts emanating from the orange tree outside Lavinia’s window. The tree apparently possesses the spirit of Itzá, a young woman warrior who helped battle the Spaniards hundreds of years previously. She understands and empathizes with the inner turmoil that Lavinia experiences as she transforms from a privileged, relatively sheltered young woman into a soldier for justice.

It should be noted that the author herself came from a wealthy background in Managua, Nicaragua. While working as an account executive in an advertising agency, she got involved in the struggle to overthrow the Somoza dictatorship. Belli became the press liaison for the Sandinista National Liberation Front, and later she was named director of State Communications. She is no longer a member of the Sandinistas, and has become critical of the government that she helped put in power. As a result, she now lives in exile in Spain.

COOK

Most of the food references in The Inhabited Woman aren’t very interesting. But after Lavinia joins the movement, she goes for military training in the hills over the course of a weekend with people whose backgrounds differ from hers.

“Their lunch consisted of a tortilla with rice and beans and a cup of coffee. Lorenzo, René, and even Felipe ate skillfully, using their hands without being squeamish. Lavinia tried to hide her discomfort, the difficulty she had in eating rice and beans neatly, without silverware, with just the tortilla to help her, unable to help spilling the purple and white grains.”

I found a simple recipe on the Casablanca Cooks website for gallo pinto – Nicaraguan rice and beans. The ingredients were very basic: small red beans, white rice, onion, vegetable oil, and salt. Served with corn tortillas, this was a very satisfying meal. And no, I did not eat it with just the tortilla – I cheated and used a fork.

 

GIVE

GlobalGiving had several projects on their website that I would have been happy to support, but the one that caught my eye was the one teaching children how to be nature stewards. According to the project description: “Climate change is already impacting lives and livelihoods, especially in the tropics. Nicaragua’s climate problems are exacerbated by widespread exploitation of ecosystems, land, and wildlife. To restore its natural resilience, forest and local biodiversity need protection and care. Nearly one-third of Nicaragua’s population is under the age of 15. This rising generation is the key to change.”

The plan is to created a junior ranger program for children between the ages of 8 and 13. They will learn about the forests and beaches near where they live, and they will be given opportunities to plant trees, do beach cleanups, and take part in sea turtle releases. It is hoped that the children will become nature stewards and will share their knowledge with friends and family.

More information about this project is available at Nicaragua's Nature Stewards: The Junior Rangers - GlobalGiving.

NEXT STOP: NIGER

NEW ZEALAND

 

READ

Oh, my. I don’t even know where to begin with the book I read for New Zealand. The Bone People, by Maori author Keri Hulme, took a lot out of me. It’s a book about broken people and shattered families; heart-melting tenderness and unspeakable brutality; hitting rock bottom and seeking redemption.

The book centers around three people: a woman named Kerewin Holmes, who is mostly European but a little bit Maori; a man named Joe Gillayley, who is mostly Maori but a little bit European; and a young boy named Simon Gillayley, Joe’s foster son, who is all European. They form a bond so tight that each one feels incomplete without the other two. At one point, Kerewin, an artist who has been struggling with her ability to create, sculpts a tricephalos with the back of each of their heads melded together, their faces turned outward. When Joe sneaks a look at it, he thinks, “She saw us as a whole, as a set.”

There is so much darkness and pain within each of them, though. Kerewin is wealthy, at least by local standards, and has built a tower with a spiral staircase for her residence. But she is estranged from her family, has no friends, and is struggling with her inability to make art the way she used to do. She comes home one day and discovers Simon in her tower, and her life takes a completely different turn.

Simon is very young – probably somewhere between six and eight years old. He was aboard a ship that was wrecked, killing everyone onboard but tossing him toward the shore, where Joe found him. Joe brought him home, and Joe and his wife Hana became his foster parents. Simon doesn’t speak, although there doesn’t seem to be any physical reason why he can’t. Things go well until Joe loses both Hana and their infant Timote to the flu.

Joe and Kerewin meet when he goes to her tower after she finds Simon there. Simon is precocious and finds ways to communicate without speaking. He is not a docile child, and frequently does things he’s not supposed to do – skipping out on school, stealing, lashing out, and going places he shouldn’t. And this brings me to the biggest problem I had in reading the book: child abuse that ranged from horrific to sickening.

At one point, it was so bad that I almost gave up. I thought I’d start over with a different book from New Zealand instead. But I stuck with it. After all, the author won a Booker Prize for this novel, as well as the Pegasus Prize for Literature. The cover of the book has a quote by Pulitzer-prize-winning author Alice Walker that says, “This book is just amazingly, wondrously great.” The New York Times called it “unforgettably rich and pungent,” and the Washington Post said it was “an original, overwhelming, near-great work of literature.”

So, what was great about it? For starters, the three main characters are multidimensional and mostly sympathetic. There are things to love about each of them, but they also have some truly deplorable traits. When one suffers, they all suffer, even in the cases where one or two of them are responsible for the suffering of another. The plot is rich with Maori language, culture, and mythology. The last few chapters, especially, draw on Maori folklore to help bring a hopeful resolution to what would otherwise be an untenable situation for all concerned. I’m glad I didn’t stop reading at the worst part or I wouldn’t have had the satisfaction of knowing how everything turned out.

But am I glad I read the book at all? I don’t know. I’m sure The Bone People will haunt me for a long time.

COOK

There were many food references in The Bone People, but none that were helpful for purposes of this blog. I did a little web surfing and found a recipe for New Zealand Kiwi Bread on the Food.com website. And yes, it’s called that because the main ingredient is chopped kiwis, not because Kiwi is a nickname for people from New Zealand. The only substitution I needed in order to make it vegan was to use JUST Egg in place of the egg. It was very easy to make, and it had a nice tang, both from the kiwis in the bread and the lemon juice in the icing.

GIVE

A project from an organization called WAI Wānaka caught my eye on the GlobalGiving website. This organization is focused on protecting local waterways to ensure that the water stays healthy for both humans and the ecosystem. According to the project description, donations will be used to “increase our community’s capability and capacity to deliver on the ground environmental action by co-ordinating our own volunteer activities with local environmental groups to expand the effectiveness of volunteer efforts in our region.” More information about this project is available at: Help 50 volunteers take environmental action in NZ - GlobalGiving.

 

NEXT STOP: NICARAGUA

 

THE NETHERLANDS

 

READ

The book I selected for the Netherlands, The Following Story, written by Cees Nooteboom and translated by Ina Rilke, was something of a departure from the types of books I usually read. It is the story of a man who went to bed in Amsterdam, and woke up the next morning in a hotel room in Lisbon, Portugal.

How could that be? The man in question, Herman Mussert, doesn’t understand how it happened either. “I had waked up with the ridiculous feeling that I might be dead, but whether I was actually dead, or had been dead, or vice versa, I could not ascertain.” As he takes in his surroundings, he realizes that he has been in this room before. In fact, he has been in this very bed before with the wife of another man.

Mussert is a bachelor living in Amsterdam, and a writer of travel guides under the pseudonym Dr. Strabo. He is a classical scholar, working on a translation of Ovid’s Metamorphoses in his spare time. But the book takes the reader back twenty years, to a time when Mussert teaches Latin and Greek in a Lisbon school. He is a popular teacher, nicknamed Socrates, and is happy in his work.

There is a student in the school, Lisa d’India, who is everyone’s favorite. Not only is she beautiful, but she is good in every subject. According to Mussert, he is the only person in the entire school who is not in love with Lisa, although he cherishes her as a student. Things begin to unravel for Mussert when one of the teachers, Arend Herfst, who is married to another teacher at the school, Maria Zeinstra, begins an affair with Lisa.

Mostly to spite her husband, Maria Zeinstra decides to have an affair with Mussert. She is the only woman whom Mussert will ever love, but things end badly for everyone.

At one point, Mussert muses that maybe he’s back in Lisbon on a sort of pilgrimage and must visit “all the stations where the past had a face.” He finds himself aboard a ship with an interesting assortment of passengers, including a priest who always hated hearing confession (“And they kept coming back, and one kept being forced to forgive them.”)

Being of a more literal bent, I had a hard time figuring out what was going on during this voyage, or, for that matter, in many parts of the book. The plot occupies a sort of twilight zone between life and death, with Mussert as the hapless soul trying to make sense of his metamorphosis.

COOK

I didn’t get any help coming up with food ideas from The Following Story. Mussert’s style of eating is “opening a can of beans.” So I went to the Internet and found a recipe for a vegan version of a traditional Dutch dish called stamppot, which consists of mashed potatoes, cabbage, and sausage. The recipe I found on the My Green Passion website called for seasoned tempeh instead of sausage. Since I’m not a fan of tempeh, I decided to use Beyond Sausage Brats. It turned out well – I even had seconds! Good thing, since the recipe made a huge batch, and I’ll be eating it for days.

GIVE

I didn’t find any climate-related projects that interested me on the GlobalGiving website, so I turned to Google instead and found Milieudefensie, a Friends of the Earth organization located in Amsterdam. According to their website: “Our mission is a good life for all people on earth and for generations to come. For this mission, a safe and healthy environment is needed, a just distribution of and access to the natural wealth of the earth, respect for nature and a voice for people on how to manage these. We choose just solutions – solutions without adverse effects for the Global South or for generations to come, and which can involve more people in our own country and create jobs and opportunities for everyone.” They have been very active in campaigns and lawsuits against Shell, and in creating pressure against other large polluting companies.

More information about Milieudefensie is available at A good life for all people on earth and for generations to come — Milieudefensie.

NEXT STOP: NEW ZEALAND

NEPAL

 

READ

Buddha’s Orphans, by Samrat Upadhyay, tells the story of a baby who is abandoned by his desperate mother in a public area in Kathmandu. His mother then goes and drowns herself in a nearby pond. The baby is found by an old homeless man, who takes him to a poor corn seller he knows, a woman named Kaki. They name the baby Raja, and Kaki takes it upon herself to raise him.

Buddha’s Orphans also tells the story of Nilu, a girl about the same age as Raja, who lives nearby with her widowed mother. Nilu grows up privileged and well-to-do, but her mother is a heavy drinker who eventually moves her young lover into the house and takes up other vices.

Raja and Nilu meet as young children when Kaki goes to work in Nilu’s mother’s house. They form a bond that lasts even during the times that circumstances keep them apart, such as when Raja is stolen away from Kaki and raised by another couple. Eventually, Raja and Nilu marry, against the wishes of both their families.

A baby boy is born to Nilu and Raja, and they name him Maitreya. Their marriage is happy, with Nilu working as a teacher and Raja eventually finding a job as a writer for a travel magazine. Tragedy strikes, however, causing them to separate. When they finally get back together, they have another baby, a girl named Ranjana. She gives them great joy, but her life takes an unexpected turn.

The book’s timeline spans decades, during which time the political situation in Nepal is volatile. Raja becomes involved in protests against the monarchy, and is jailed briefly during one of the protests. Over the years, the demonstrations intensify, especially after the fall of the Berlin Wall, which reminds the people in Nepal that change is possible. Finally, the King gives up his power and becomes merely a ceremonial figure.

Throughout the book, Raja is never able to come to terms with the fact that he was abandoned by his mother at birth. The narrator explains the circumstances towards the end of the book, but that only satisfies the curiosity of the book’s readers, not Raja himself, who never knows why his mother left him.

I found Buddha’s Orphans to be interesting and easy to read. Both Raja and Nilu were likeable characters making their way on their own, rather than asking for help from the families who had often failed them. This was the type of book I had hoped for when I first began this reading-the-world project, one that tells a compelling story, while also providing a glimpse into the culture of the country.

COOK

Raja spends many of his childhood years in the home of Ganga Da, a government worker, and his wife Jamuna, who is afflicted with a mental illness. Jamuna becomes very attached to Raja, and at one point in the book, Jamuna asks the servant to cook Raja some kheer. I googled to find out what kheer is, and discovered that it’s a rice pudding. I found a recipe for a vegan version on the VegNews website, and I’ve been eating it for breakfast the past couple of mornings. It’s quite good, especially served cold, and it's made with coconut milk, rice, brown sugar, coconut, dates, almonds, cloves, and cardamom.

GIVE

GlobalGiving’s website lists dozens of projects in Nepal, so I searched through the list until I found one with a sustainability focus. Many areas of Nepal have no electricity because of the difficulty of building an electric grid in such a mountainous region. For this reason, people often rely on kerosene lamps for lighting. This is a problem for many reasons: “Fumes from the kerosene lamps affect eyes and lungs and contribute to global warming with the release of greenhouse gases. The quality of light is inferior and there is a high risk of accidental fire.”

This project would “provide solar powered lamps as a sustainable substitute.” In addition, village youth and students would be given an orientation on renewable energy, and would be trained in maintenance and repair. Multiple charging stations would be installed in schools.

More information on this project is available at: A Clean Solar Alternative to Kerosene Lamps, Nepal - GlobalGiving.

 

NEXT STOP: THE NETHERLANDS

NAURU

READ

Nauru is a tiny island in the South Pacific with a population of fewer than 13,000 people. It’s no wonder, then, that finding a book to read for this country was challenging. When I was fortunate enough to find a copy of Stories from Nauru, by Ben Bam Solomon et al, in 2016, I bought it right away, and I’m glad I did. I’m convinced it was the last copy of the book available for sale anywhere on the planet.

Stories of Nauru was the result of a workshop sponsored by the University of the South Pacific in October of 1990. According to the book’s foreword: “It was organized so that a conscious effort would be made to encourage Nauruans to write and to record their folklore in the attempt to build a Nauruan literature.”

The eight stories in this short collection cover a variety of topics. There’s a creation story, accounts of personal challenges, and retellings of old legends. And inevitably, there are the stories of what Nauru was like before the arrival of the Europeans.

“Egade” is about an old woman who used to teach the people of the island about their culture – their traditions, laws, songs, and clothing. Because of her, the “people knew their identity and were proud of their rich cultural heritage.” But then the white people arrived, giving the people of Nauru trinkets and potions in exchange for their natural resources. Before long, the Nauruan people had forsaken their traditional way of life.

Another story, “Nauru: The Way It Used To Be,” says that “Nauru means Utopia.” The author chronicles the changes in culture, laws, and religion that came about when missionaries and foreign governments came to Nauru. Before the arrival of the Europeans, there was no religion and no marriage. There was no formal system of education either. Young people learned everything they needed to know by watching their parents and other elders. After the Europeans came, education became compulsory and children walked miles to school.

Stories of Nauru offers a quick glimpse into life on an island that is probably unknown to most people in the United States. Kudos to the University of the South Pacific for encouraging people to share their stories.

COOK

The story “Egade” tells of the wonderful things the Europeans brought the people on the island of Nauru. One of those things was “tasty food, in little tin cans, that would keep for days without going bad.” One tasty food in a can, which would not have been available at the time the original Europeans arrived but which has certainly become a staple since then, is Spam.

The last time I made a Spam recipe for this blog it was a Spam casserole from the island of Kiribati. At that time, there was no vegan Spam substitute commercially available, so I had to make one out of tofu. It tasted nothing like Spam. Since then, however, OmniFoods has developed a vegan Spam that is very much like the real thing. It doesn’t come in a can, though – I buy it in the frozen food section at Sprouts. And it’s perfect for the dish I made for Nauru – Spam-fried rice. I found the recipe on the Marty Made It website. It was very easy to veganize by substituting OmniPork Luncheon and JUSTEgg folded plant eggs for the Spam and eggs, and leaving out the fish sauce. It turned out great, and I’m sure I’ll make it again in the future. Vegan Spam – who’d have thought?

 

GIVE

Nauru faces a daunting future due to climate change, but I couldn’t find a single nonprofit organization working to address this issue in Nauru. GlobalGiving didn’t have any projects in Nauru, and I couldn’t even find a suitable GoFundMe campaign. Finally, I found an organization called Hope for Nauru, which helps refugees.

The refugees helped by Hope for Nauru aren’t seeking asylum in Nauru, however. They are seeking asylum in Australia. Rather than allowing these refugees to stay in Australia while they pursue their asylum claims, Australia has contracted to ship them to Nauru, where they are kept in detention indefinitely, often in squalid conditions.

Hope for Nauru puts together care packages for refugees, consisting of items such as clothes, hygiene products, vitamins, dried fruit, and nuts. According to their website: “We believe that a care package can help give a detainee comfort and hopefully some dignity. It also shows each refugee that they are remembered and cared about, and that many Australians are against immigration detention both on and offshore. For as long as there are innocent people detained on Nauru (as well as Manus Island), we will continue our mission.”

Information about Hope for Nauru is available at HOPE FOR NAURU.

 

NEXT STOP: NEPAL

 

NAMIBIA

 

READ

For Namibia, a country in southern Africa, I read The Purple Violet of Oshaantu, by Neshani Andreas. The title character, Meme Kauna, is a once-beautiful woman who lives with her husband, Tate Shange, and children in the village of Oshaantu. When she first arrived in the village, the townspeople “called her the purple violet of Oshaantu. She was so delicate and she came when these flowers were in bloom.”

The book is narrated by her best friend and neighbor, Mee Ali, a happily married woman with children. The husbands of both women work some distance away, which means they are rarely home and the women do all the farming and other work around the house. Mee Ali’s husband, Tate Michael, is good and kind, treating her as an equal, but Meme Kauna’s husband is a louse who beats her and cheats on her.

Mee Ali hears screaming coming from Meme Kauna’s home and runs over to see what the problem is. She finds Tate Shange dead, and Meme Kauna telling everyone that he had only arrived home half an hour previously and he had not eaten any of her food. She is afraid people will think she has poisoned him.

Throughout the rest of the book, Tate Shange’s relatives arrive and the funeral is planned. Much like in the book I read for Mozambique, Paulina Chiziane’s The First Wife, Tate Shange’s family immediately begins to quarrel over which of his livestock and other possessions they’re going to take. It doesn’t matter that Meme Kauna was the one who took care of the farm and the animals – her husband’s family lays claim to everything that was his.

There is also much gossip among the family and the villagers because Meme Kauna has not shed a single tear over her husband’s death. She even refuses to designate anyone to speak on her behalf at his funeral. Throughout her ordeal, her friend Mee Ali is with her and does her best to help in any way she can.

The Purple Violet of Oshaantu is a sad commentary on the treatment of women, and I can only hope that things have started to change in Namibia since this book was published in 2001. 

COOK

I finished reading this book a couple of weeks ago, but I had a terrible time finding a recipe I wanted to make. I could have veganized a beef and carrot dish or buttered black-eyed peas, but those both sounded mundane. I finally found a recipe for Guava Squares at Namibia (Namibian Recipes) (narod.ru). The recipe looked straightforward enough, but I ended up having to make several adjustments. For starters, I visited three grocery stores, and there was not a guava to be found. Instead, I used guava jelly. I made my usual veganizing substitutions – JUSTEgg and Miyoko’s cultured vegan butter. Many of the measurements were in grams, so I converted those, but I ended up with a crumbly mixture that clearly needed more liquid to hold it altogether. So I poured in more JUSTEgg until I had a batter that stuck together and could be scraped into the baking dish. Fortunately, the final product was pretty good, although I couldn’t even taste the guava flavor.

GIVE

The GlobalGiving website had several climate-related projects to choose from. I decided I wanted to help protect lions. According to the project description: “Wild lion numbers in Namibia are under threat due to factors such as loss of habitat, lack of natural prey and revenge killings from human-wildlife conflict. When there is a lack of available natural prey, the local farmers’ livestock are targeted as they present an easy option – especially when they are not herded and protected at night. Due to frustration from farmers, and a lack of alternative solutions, these lion populations are hunted down in retaliation to prevent further livestock loss.”

This project will help to reduce this conflict by “collaring lions and training locals to become lion guards.” Predator-proof shelters will be built for the livestock, and deterrents will be set up to keep the lions away. It is hoped that these measures will help stabilize the wild lion population.

More information about this project is available at Protect lions in Namibia from retaliatory killings - GlobalGiving.

NEXT STOP: NAURU

MYANMAR

 

READ

The book I chose for Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, was a feast for the senses. Smile as They Bow, written by Ni Ni Yu and translated by Alfred Birnbaum and Thi Thi Aye, is filled with the sights, sounds, tastes, smells, and feelings of Myanmar’s Taungbyon Festival, which is held for a week each year in a small village near Mandalay. A raucous crowd of tourists and pilgrims from all over the country pour into the village to honor two brothers who had been killed during the reign of King Anawrahta in the eleventh century, and to seek favors from the nats – god-like spirits who are represented on earth by natkadaws, their spirit wives in human form.

Historically, natkadaws were women, and the position was often passed from mother to daughter. Over the past several decades, however, the position of natkadaw has been increasingly taken on by gay men, known as meinmasha. Smile as They Bow follows one such natkadaw, U Ba Si, who goes by the name of Daisy Bond. Sixty years old, he has collected many faithful followers, who pay him to appeal to the nats on their behalf. They ask for things like riches or success, or punishment for a wayward spouse. For the right amount of cash, Daisy promises that all their wishes will be fulfilled.

Daisy has a much younger lover, Min Min, whom he bought from Min Min’s mother. Over the years, Min Min has also taken on the role of Daisy’s manager, making sure that his extravagant costumes are ready for his processions and consultations, handling his schedule, and trying to keep him in check when he becomes too outrageous (the language in the book is R-rated, to say the least).

Daisy is a jealous lover, always convinced that Min Min is going to leave him for a woman. And when it appears that Min Min is starting to fall for a beggar girl who has been singing outside their house, Daisy fights to hang onto him.

Smile as They Bow is a fascinating portrayal of the Taungbyon Festival, which was banned during the reign of King Mindon in the nineteenth century. It was brought back as a distraction by the British shortly thereafter when they seized control of the country. I don’t know the current status of the festival, or whether Smile as They Bow is available to read in Myanmar or not. According to the book’s dust jacket, it “was suppressed for over a decade by the Burmese military government.” It's definitely one of the more memorable books I’ve read for this project!

COOK

Have you ever heard of tofu made from anything other than soybeans? I certainly hadn’t until I started searching for recipes for this post and discovered that chickpea tofu is popular in Myanmar. The process for making it is much simpler than making tofu from soybeans; chickpea flour and water are mixed together and boiled, while stirring constantly, until it reaches the right consistency. I followed a recipe from the Vegan on Board website to make the tofu, then fried it and ate it with a garlic, ginger, and chili sauce. It wasn’t bad, but I think I’ll stick with ready-made soybean tofu.

GIVE

Of all the projects for Myanmar listed on the GlobalGiving website, the one that most appealed to me provides technical training in solar power and regenerative agriculture. According to the project description: “Solar PV systems are now widely used in Burma, but homeowners have no access to accurate information on purchase, maintenance and repair of their systems. Rural electrification is set to expand quickly, but there are few trained technicians available. Synthetic fertilizers and pesticides are widely used by farmers, but they are unaware of the negative consequences. Organic farming techniques need to be revived to improve food quality and safety, and to address soil degradation and soil erosion.”

The hope is that this project will bring renewable energy into people’s homes, reducing their reliance on fossil fuels, and that transitioning to organic agriculture will lead to more healthy soil, safer and better quality food, and improved water quality due to decreased nitrogen run-off. More information about this project is available at Solar Power and Regenerative Agriculture in Burma - GlobalGiving.

NEXT STOP: NAMIBIA