GEORGIA

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Georgia is one of the countries making up the Caucasus, a region nestled between Asia and Europe. It was once part of the Soviet Union, and Sacred Darkness, by Levan Berdzenishvili, is a portrayal of life as a political prisoner in the Soviet gulag.

Having read Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s grim chronicle, The Gulag Archipelago, many years ago, I wasn’t sure I wanted to read another book about the gulag. But Sacred Darkness was different. For starters, it’s fiction, even though it’s based on the author’s real-life experiences as a political prisoner in a Soviet prison camp. As a work of fiction, it’s very entertaining, although the description on the book’s cover is something of an overstatement: “The only book on the Soviet gulags that’s impossible to read without laughing.”

Each chapter is about a different inhabitant of the camp. There’s a mentally-challenged young man who relives all of his late brother’s war heroics as if they were his own. There’s a prisoner who’s obsessed with calculations and numbers, and another who’s a philologist, always ready to debate the fine points of the various Caucasian alphabets. Political prisoners in the camp include an electrician, taxi driver, movie projectionist, inventor, former military officer, psychologist, and members of many other professions. My favorite chapter is about Butov, a theoretical physicist who was arrested for maintaining an underground library of anti-Soviet literature. When the authorities finally found the library, they burned everything in it in a fire that lasted a week. Unbeknownst to them, Butov had microfilmed most of the collection, so the vast majority of the library's materials survived, even though the hard copies were destroyed.

Interwoven with the characters’ individual stories are details of life in the camp. The work the prisoners are expected to do is to sew heavy-duty work mitts. When their work is done, they pass the time by playing games, reading the books that make it past the censor, and having Socratic debates about any number of topics, with one prisoner or another playing the role of Socrates. Their food supplies are meager, and they drink as much tea and smoke as many cigarettes as their finances allow. The narrator also introduces the reader to the cats who live in the camp: “… the very old cat Vasika, the fine young cat Gipsy, and the sweet gentle Ada.”

Although there is much in this book that fits in with our expectations of what one might find in prison literature, such as conflicts with prison officials and arguments between prisoners of different nationalities, the fact that the inmates are political prisoners gives the book a whole different feeling. In this prison, no one is worried about getting shanked by another inmate. Everyone is there for crimes of political activism against the Soviet Union, not acts of violence.

What surprised me was that the leader of the Soviet Union during the period covered by this book was Mikhail Gorbachev, and the real-life people on whom the characters are based were imprisoned during the era of glasnost and perestroika. Knowing that the Soviet Union fell under Gorbachev’s leadership, I was not expecting to read that so much political repression was still taking place while he was president.

I enjoyed Sacred Darkness much more than I expected to, and I’m glad that the author has gone on to have a fulfilling life after his experiences in the gulag.

COOK

During one of the Socratic debates that occurred between prisoners in Sacred Darkness, the topic discussed was food. The narrator played the role of Socrates, and another prisoner took on the character of Anaxogoras, a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher. After a lengthy debate about the fine points of various international culinary specialties, the narrator, as Socrates, forced an admission from the prisoner playing Anaxogoras that a Georgian dish called satsivi was the best dish in the world. How, then, could I not choose satsivi to make for this blog post?

The problem is that satsivi is made with turkey. Fortunately, I was able to find a recipe on the “Georgian Journal” website for a vegan version that uses mushrooms in place of the turkey. With this recipe, I encountered a new problem: where on earth to find the spice blend the recipe called for. It’s called khmeli suneli, and my local spice shop didn’t have it. I drove to an international market in a nearby city, and searched spice jars and packets in languages I can’t read until I finally found what I was looking for. This packet of khmeli suneli (or, as the packet says in fine print on the back, hmeli-suneli) is a blend of salt, coriander seeds, fenugreek, sweet paprika, basil, bay leaf, red hot pepper, turmeric, mint, and marjoram.

The satsivi was pretty good, served over a bed of white rice. I was a little underwhelmed with my first bite, so I sprinkled on a little salt and that made a big difference. After all the trouble I went to in searching for the khmeli suneli, I was shocked to realize that the recipe called for only a third of a teaspoon, so the flavor was virtually imperceptible when added to four cups of mushrooms. At this rate, I’ll have to make this dish many more times in order to use up the whole packet of khmeli suneli! If you decide to try out this recipe, be generous with the pomegranate seed garnish, which gives the dish a nice little zing.

GIVE

GlobalGiving.com listed three projects in Georgia. All seemed worthy, so I chose the one that had received the fewest donations, an effort to raise funds to buy an adapted minivan to transport children with disabilities to a daycare center in order to provide them with “a personal development plan and consultations with psychologists, doctors and occupational therapists.”

According to the project description, “Families living in rural areas of Georgia have limited access to public transportation services. In addition, available buses, largely from the Soviet period, are not safe or adapted for people in wheelchairs. In order to provide our services, the organization currently pays for the private transportation of children with disabilities. The cost of this service is very expensive and does not provide the safest method of transportation, as the private cars [they currently use] are also not adapted for wheelchairs.”

More information about this project is available at https://www.globalgiving.org/projects/van-for-transporting-children-with-disabilities/.

NEXT STOP: GERMANY

THE GAMBIA

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Dayo Forster’s Reading the Ceiling opens with a young woman named Ayodele lying in bed on her eighteenth birthday and deciding that this is the day she will lose her virginity. Having been warned by her mother for years that men only want one thing, Ayodele thinks, “I want to get this sex thing over and done with so my life can move on.” She doesn’t have a boyfriend, so the question becomes who she will find to do the deed with. She thinks about her choices – Reuben, a guy who likes her but whom she doesn’t particularly fancy; Yuan, a classmate that she likes, and who likes her, but their relationship hasn’t yet taken on a romantic aspect; Frederick, the father of one of her friends, who seems like he’d be willing; and Osman, her mother’s servant, as a last resort.

Ayodele goes to a party at a disco that night, and she does indeed lose her virginity. The next third of the book tells the story of her life after that incident. But just when I started wondering how there could possibly be enough left to say to carry the plot through the remaining two-thirds of the book, the author shifts the narrative. She starts over again, telling the story from the perspective of Ayodele’s life if she had lost her virginity to one of the other men. That fills the next third of the book, and then she begins again, offering yet another scenario in the last third of the book. It’s kind of a choose-your-own-adventure book, built on Ayodele’s decision to lose her virginity when she turned eighteen.

I found it interesting that, regardless of which scenario was in play, the one constant was that Ayodele was successful in whatever work she ended up doing. Her circumstances may have changed from story to story, but she was strong and generally able to call the shots, no matter what life threw at her. Her relationship with her no-nonsense mother was a key factor throughout the book. Ayodele grew up in a female-only household, her father having deserted her mother many years earlier. He came back for a short time, but then died. In addition to Ayodele and her mother, Ayodele’s younger twin sisters also live in the home. The book is filled with strong women, and those relationships offset, or even eclipse, the relationships Ayodele has with men in each of the different scenarios.

Near the end of Reading the Ceiling, Ayodele thinks back to a story that her mother’s friend, Aunt K, used to tell her and her sisters. It’s about a mermaid who has to make a decision about where to live, but she procrastinates and the decision is taken out of her hands. She gets caught in a fisherman’s net, and then the fisherman and the mermaid both have to make choices. According to Ayodele, “The story did not always end the same way.” Likewise, the author gives the reader three different endings about Ayodele’s life following her eighteenth birthday. I found it gratifying that in each scenario, Ayodele took responsibility for her actions and never let life keep her down for very long.

COOK

A dish that’s mentioned several times in Reading the Ceiling is benachin, a word that means “one pot.” It’s a vegetable and rice dish that usually contains meat or fish, and in the book, it seemed to be a staple of family gatherings. I found a recipe for a vegetarian version on the “Around the world in 80 vegetarian recipes” blog. For the Maggi cube, I substituted a vegetable bouillon cube. This was a healthy and hearty dish. If I had it to do over again, I'd cook the vegetables and rice (separately) a little longer.

GIVE

I found only one project listed for The Gambia on the GlobalGiving.com website, but it sounded like a good one, helping street children in Basori Village. The plan is “to re-integrate fifty (50) street children in to homes, prevent those at risk of entering the street, provide them with health care, reliable and relevant education, and enhance their participation in community and national development.” The project is expected to go from September 2018 to August 2023. More information is available at https://www.globalgiving.org/projects/basori-village-gambia-west-africa-children-empo/.

NEXT STOP: GEORGIA

GABON

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As you might expect from the title, Angèle Rawiri’s The Fury and Cries of Women deals with the adversities women face in a male-dominated society. In the case of the novel’s protagonist, Emilienne, the frustration comes from being unable to bear children for her husband Joseph, other than one daughter that was born to them early in their marriage. At least in part because of this situation, Joseph has taken a mistress, spending more nights with her than with his wife. Emilienne, then, is left with her mother-in-law who hates her and her husband’s two young nephews, who live in the house with them.

Multiple miscarriages and her husband’s infidelity have taken a toll on Emilienne. In the fictional city of Kampana, Emilienne has a very good job, making more money than her husband, and they live in an expensive house provided by her company. But none of that appears to matter in a country where women are prized for their ability to bear children. Emilienne is reminded of an observation from an article she read in a women’s magazine:

               “A woman is never completely satisfied. Whereas some enjoy professional

               success, other build a solid marriage based on love, and then there are those

               who have children to feel fulfilled. No woman, however, manages to enjoy

               all three.”

Having it all is apparently as much of a challenge for women in Gabon as it is for women in the United States.

Emilienne’s professional success is small comfort to her as she is assailed on all sides by people who blame her for what they see as her fertility problem. Even her mother seems to think that it wouldn’t be wrong for Joseph to take a mistress if Emilienne can’t give him children.

The plot takes many twists and turns, including murder, machinations against Emilienne by Joseph’s mother and his mistress, and a brief period during which Emilienne enters into a lesbian relationship. She explores different options for fertility treatments, from conventional medical consultation to hypnotism to sorcery. Her own feelings about herself run the gamut throughout the book too, as she is self-confident at some times, but self-loathing at others.

The book’s author, Angèle Rawiri, was Gabon’s first woman novelist, and she paved the way for the women writers in Gabon who came after her. The Fury and Cries of Women, which was published in 1989, was considered to be a feminist novel, with both the praise and the baggage that word evokes. A lengthy afterword by author Cheryl Toman goes into depth concerning Rawiri’s influence on women writers throughout Africa.

In the end, Emilienne is bent but not broken by the experiences she endures. She may not ever enjoy all three types of success discussed in the women’s magazine article, but she finally takes control of her own destiny.

COOK

Gabon is a former French colony, so most of the food mentioned in The Fury and Cries of Women is food we associate with France -- croissants, French cheeses, fancy meat and fish dishes. But there are also mentions of various fruits and vegetables, with bananas making an appearance in the novel more than once. So it was no surprise to find several baked banana recipes when I searched Gabonese cuisine online. The one I chose was from a website called International Cuisine, and the dish was called akwadu. It was simple to make, and easy to veganize by substituting Earth Balance for the butter and agave nectar for the honey. This dish was good served hot, but the leftovers were also good cold. I thought there was too much liquid for the number of bananas called for in the recipe, so if I were to make it again, I’d probably add in an extra banana or two.

GIVE

There were no projects for Gabon on the GlobalGiving.com website, so I searched the Internet to see what I could find. I discovered that the Nature Conservancy is working to preserve the health of Gabon’s rivers, which could be in jeopardy due to government efforts to create more hydropower plants. These plants may require more water than can safely be taken from the rivers, so the Nature Conservancy is working to gather accurate data about water flows.  By installing river gauge stations, the Nature Conservancy hopes to provide Gabonese authorities with the sound science they need to sustainably develop their natural resources. More information about this project is available at https://www.nature.org/en-us/about-us/where-we-work/africa/stories-in-africa/bringing-gabon-s-rivers-into-the-21st-century/.

NEXT STOP: THE GAMBIA