READ
First off,
let me just say that I loved the protagonist in Unity Dow’s book, The Heavens May Fall. She’s a young,
smart, fierce lawyer working for a nonprofit organization that helps women and
children in Mochudi, Botswana. It’s hard for me to not love a character whose
inner musings on the first page of the book go like this:
“Why can’t I
watch the news of rapes by military men in the DRC, babies with distended
bellies and flies eating at their eyes in the Sudan, and go back to my coffee?
Why does an old woman waiting in a queue for service by a rude and incompetent
clerk make me feel personally responsible? Why must I enter the fray, always,
even if it just means dashing off a letter of complaint? Is there a busybody
gene, and if so, why do I have to
have it?”
If you are
one of those people with a busybody gene, someone who feels the need to try to
right every wrong, you’ll love Naledi Chaba too. As the attorney for the
Bana-Bantle Children’s Agency, she handles cases for battered women, young rape
victims, and those facing other heartbreaking situations. She fights against a
system that lets a rapist go free because his young victim is mute and
therefore unable to testify against him. She displays tact and sensitivity in
dealing with a client who blames her marital problems on witchcraft. And she is
relentless on behalf of a young girl who was raped by her grandparents’ tenant,
even though her fight for justice puts her on a collision course with the judge
hearing the case.
In between
cases, the author shows the reader other sides of Naledi. She and her cousin
and best friend Mmidi, a doctor, fret about standards of beauty and fashion, as
well as society’s expectation that women will marry and have children. Naledi
tries to balance the time spent on her professional responsibilities with her
desire to build a relationship with the new man in her life, a rugby player on
the Botswana national team. She laments the indignity of having to beg for funding all the time when working for a
nonprofit organization. And she
makes time every week to go see her widowed father, whom she adores.
The Heavens May Fall
seems very authentic, possibly because the author herself began her career as a
lawyer who championed women’s rights. She went on to become Botswana’s first
female High Court judge, and she currently serves her country as the Minister
of Education and Skill Development. I’m glad she found time to write this wonderful
book in the midst of all her other work!
COOK
Early in the
book, Naledi’s cousin Mmidi is talking with envy about a widow named Lesika,
who seems to have everything. She has a pretty face and a full figure, speaks multiple
languages, and never lets things get her down. Naledi knows Lesika. “She sold
homemade bread door-to-door in the evenings and at weekends and was rather good
at persuading me to buy yet another batch of diphaphatha, even before I had run out of the last.”
I looked up
diphaphatha and found that it’s similar to a biscuit, although somewhat flatter
and harder. I found a recipe on a blog called “Sapodilla Brown,” and gave it a
try. I thought the bread was pretty tasty, especially with a little margarine
and jam. Apparently, diphaphatha is usually cooked on a cast iron skillet over
an open flame, so I was happy to find a recipe that used an oven instead. Also,
some recipes use yeast as the leavening agent instead of baking powder, which
would probably make for a lighter roll.
GIVE
I looked online without success for the equivalent of Naledi’s Bana-Bantle Children’s Agency. I would have loved to donate to such an organization. Since I couldn’t find anything like that, I went back to GlobalGiving and found a project in Botswana that offers science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education to vulnerable girls, ages 12 to 25. According to Stepping Stones International, many vulnerable young girls “become caregivers which increases the likelihood that they obtain inadequate health care, are not protected from sexual exploitation and lose focus on education."
The “Girls
Getting Geeky” program provides after-school education that helps girls develop
design process skill, which they apply to different engineering challenges. It
is hoped that this program will lead to an increase in the number of girls who
complete secondary school and then either go on to college or find employment.
More
information about the “Girls Getting Geeky” program is available at https://www.globalgiving.org/projects/stem-education-in-botswana-girls-getting-geeky/.
NEXT STOP:
BRAZIL
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