GUYANA

READ

The book I chose to read for the South American country of Guyana was Frangipani House, by Beryl Gilroy. It’s the story of Mama King, an elderly woman whose family has moved away from her and from Guyana. Since they are not there to take care of her, they put her in a nursing home for women called Frangipani House.

Mama King is not happy there. She dislikes Olga Trask – Matron – who runs Frangipani House. Matron is described as “a comely, honey-brown predator of a woman.” After having been a strong, independent woman all her life, Mama King feels that “now, time and life, her daughters and the matron had all conspired to deprive her of her faithful friends, work and hardship.”

During her time at Frangipani House, Mama King is often lost in dreams and reminiscences. She dreams about her husband Danny, who disappeared when she was pregnant with their second child. She thinks of her two daughters, who now live in the United States, and worries about whether she was so caught up in working to keep them housed, clothed, and fed that she neglected to show them enough love. She has happy memories of her grandchildren, whom she helped raise so their mothers could work, but bitter memories about having those same grandchildren taken away from her care when their mothers no longer needed her help.

Eventually, Mama King decides she’s had enough of Frangipani House and makes a plan to escape. Her children and grandchildren must then come together to decide what to do. Ultimately, however, Mama King decides her own destiny.

COOK

Yams are a staple of Guyanese cuisine, and they play a part in one of Mama King’s happier reminiscences: “She used to walk with Danny and then run fast across the field. He could never catch her. Life was good in those days. Laughing was easy. Tilley came in the yard with her six and in next to no time, they would build a fire and roast yam and potatoes and corn. Then Ben would banjo and the children would dance for pennies.”

I looked online for Guyanese recipes featuring sweet potatoes or yams and found one for sweet potato cakes on the Guyana Outpost website. The only change that needed to be done to veganize the recipe was to use an egg replacer instead of the egg. The sweet potato cakes were delicious, and I would definitely make them again.

GIVE

The GlobalGiving website listed four projects for Guyana. In honor of Mama King, I would have liked to donate to a project helping Guyanese seniors, but that wasn’t one of the options. Instead, I chose an organization that provides free air ambulance services to remote areas of Guyana. According to the project description: “Since 2001, Remote Area Medical (RAM) has provided a free air ambulance to thousands of Amerindian villagers in remote Guyana. In this isolated region, RAM's air ambulance is often a person's only access to medical care, making the difference between life and death. RAM flies its Cessna 206 into 28 different airfields to transport villagers to facilities for vital care.” More information about this project is available at https://www.globalgiving.org/projects/support-free-air-ambulance-in-remote-guyana/.

NEXT STOP: HAITI

GUINEA-BISSAU

READ

I knew when I picked up a book called The Ultimate Tragedy that I was not going to be writing a very uplifting blog post about the West African country of Guinea-Bissau. This book, by Abdulai Sila, tells the story of Ndani, a young Bissau-Guinean woman who leaves her village to look for work in the city. She wants to leave the village not only for better opportunities, but because the local djambakus, a religious leader, has declared that Ndani has a wicked spirit in her and that she will live a life full of tragedy. Since that time, no one in the village has wanted anything to do with her except for her stepmother, who is her friend and confidant.

Ndani finds work in the home of a Portuguese couple. The wife isn’t happy to have her there at first, but that changes when she decides that it’s her duty to convert Ndani to Christianity. The husband’s intentions are considerably less spiritual, and Ndani ends up having to leave the household.

She goes back to her stepmother’s house and stays there until the Régulo (village chief) decides that, since Ndani is educated and has lived in a white household, he wants her to be his wife and take care of the big house he’s having built to upstage the Portuguese Chief of Post who has insulted him. That doesn’t work out the way the Régulo had intended it to, and he moves out, leaving Ndani in the big house. Soon, the local schoolteacher fills that void, and he and Ndani have a son together.

Circumstances permit Ndani and the teacher to build a life together, and they move to a different town with the hope of starting over. However, tragedy follows Ndani once again.

The Ultimate Tragedy is a classic tale of man (or, in this case, woman) against fate. Ndani has done nothing to warrant her tragic destiny, and no matter how she tries to outrun it, things never end up going well for her. The teacher, who was educated by Catholic priests, believes the prophecy by the djambakus is just a superstitious belief and that evil spirits don’t exist, but he suffers because of his relationship with Ndani too. The ultimate tragedy appears to be that Ndani cannot escape her destiny, and neither can the people closest to her.

COOK

I found a vegan recipe from Guinea-Bissau on the allrecipes.com website. It was posted by a woman who had been a Peace Corps worker there. The dish is Guinean peanut sauce with butternut squash, and it was very easy to make. Stewed chunks of butternut squash are simmered in a sauce made of peanut butter and tomato. It sounds like an odd combination, but it was actually quite good.

GIVE

There was only one project for Guinea-Bissau listed on the GlobalGiving website, so that’s the one I chose. Fortunately, it sounds like a great project helping rural communities in one of the poorest areas of the country. According to the website: “The project will install clean water wells, build latrines, establish market gardens and train young people and women on how to maintain these resources and take ownership of their community's development” in five remote villages. This is immensely important in a region where people have to walk for hours every day just to find water. More information about this project is available at https://www.globalgiving.org/projects/water-health-and-womens-empowerment-guinea-bissau/.

NEXT STOP: GUYANA