LIBYA

READ

The Slave Yards, written by Najwa Bin Shatwan and translated by Nancy Roberts, tells the story of two women. Atiga is a happily married doctor’s assistant, the daughter of a slave and a slavemaster. Tawida is her long-dead mother. The book opens with a visit to Atiga from a man named Ali, who says he is her cousin, the nephew of her father. He has always known of her father’s love for her mother, and he has come to give Atiga her birth certificate, in which her father Muhammad claims paternity. Ali, who appears to have a terminal illness, is also working to obtain Atiga’s rightful inheritance for her.

The first part of the book recounts Atiga’s childhood growing up in the Slave Yards, an encampment near the city of Benghazi. Slaves in Libya had been brought by caravan “from the Niger River basin, the Sudan, Chad, Mali, and wherever they found black people who were hungry and destitute, victims of tribal wars and sultans’ insatiable greed.” Atiga lives with her Aunt Sabriya and Miftah, a white boy whose origin is unknown to everyone except Aunt Sabriya. By virtue of her parentage, Atiga is lighter-skinned than most of the people in the Yards, but it doesn’t seem to matter to the other inhabitants. She works alongside other children her age shifting sand at the seashore for construction workers. 

This section of the book is full of stories about life in the Slave Yards – the work people do to survive, the friendships that grow among the inhabitants, and the customs and rituals that are observed, such as the locking ceremony that is performed on girls to ensure that they won’t have sex until they’re married. It is said that “[t]he motto you had to live by in the Yards was: only trust in the bad things, since they’re the ones most likely to come true.”

Atiga is befriended by a young man named Yousef, who keeps an eye on her during her years in the Slave Yards. When tragedy strikes and Aunt Sabriya dies, Yousef takes Atiga to the Josephite Mission Center, where she is cared for and given an education. Later, she and Yousef marry.

The second part of the book tells the story of Atiga’s mother Tawida, who is a slave in the home of a wealthy merchant family. She catches the attention of Muhammad, the son of the slave owner, and he becomes obsessed with her to the point that he won’t even have sex with his wife anymore. While Muhammad’s family doesn’t care that he’s having sex with a slave, they are very concerned that he has developed such deep feelings for Tawida that he is neglecting his duty to his wife and daughters.

The growing consternation of Muhammad’s parents makes life much harder for Tawida, as they find ways to ensure that she aborts or miscarries every time she becomes pregnant. They try to marry her off to another slave and they try to sell her. They send Muhammad away on family business for longer and longer periods of time, but they are unable to end the relationship between the two.

At the end of the book, Ali talks to Atiga about how Italy colonized Libya early in the twentieth century, putting new laws into effect that basically ended Libya’s system of slavery. Atiga tells him: “I’m slavery’s final way station, where slave caravans stopped to rest for the last time, where ‘white’ and ‘black’ blood circulate and mingle in my veins. I was formed out of everything: out of slavery and freedom, water and salt, degradation and dignity, humiliation and honor, sun and soil, hunger and satiety.”

The Slave Yards was interesting and informative, with characters that will stay with me for a while. But the descriptions of the brutality endured by Tawida and other slaves made the book very hard to read at times. This book is a stark reminder that the purpose of literature isn’t only to entertain, but to occasionally take us outside of our comfort zone and force us to confront the harsh realities of life faced by other people in other places.

COOK

There were several dishes mentioned in The Slave Yards that were vegan or could have easily been made vegan, but none of them particularly appealed to me. So I searched the Internet and found a recipe for Libyan imbakbaka on the Fig & Olive Platter website. Imbakbaka is basically the Libyan version of minestrone soup, influenced by the Italian colonization of Libya between 1910 and 1947. Like Italian minestrone, this tomato-based soup is full of vegetables and pasta. However, the seasonings are different, with the recipe for imbakbaka calling for cinnamon, turmeric, chili powder, and paprika. It was actually quite good, and perfect for the cooler fall temperatures we’re experiencing in Northern California.

 

GIVE

There were two projects listed for Libya on the GlobalGiving website, and I decided to donate to both of them.

The first project will seek justice for migrants passing through Libya who “are routinely subjected to widespread human rights violations including torture, forced labour and sexual violence.” That’s right – slavery has returned to Libya. According to one news account, there are even slave markets periodically in Tripoli. The justice system in Libya is currently broken, making it difficult to hold the perpetrators of these human rights violations accountable. The group Lawyers for Justice in Libya hopes to “document the cases of migrants that have experienced violations in Libya, work to obtain justice using international human rights mechanisms such as the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights and the International Criminal Court, and facilitate psychological and medical rehabilitation for the victims.” More information about this project is available at Routes to Justice for Migrants in Libya - GlobalGiving.

The second project helps “develop and support young women, girls and youth in Libya by using sport as an active learning tool around issues of social cohesion, health and reconciliation.” These are self-awareness and assertiveness; communication and negotiation skills; confidence; appreciation of difference and respect; commitment to balancing personal liberties with social responsibility to others; and a sense of belonging to a group or polity.” More information about this project is available at Sports for All - GlobalGiving.

 

NEXT STOP: LIECHTENSTEIN

LIBERIA

READ

Heart Men, by Ophelia S. Lewis, is the story of the Douglas family. Senator Robert Jenkins Douglas II, his wife Katharine, and their adopted son Razaq live in Liberia’s capital, Monrovia, and their son RJ and daughter Mellody live in the United States. RJ is a successful lawyer, and Mellody is a doctor who spends her vacation and holidays volunteering at a hospital in Monrovia. Everything seems to be going well for all members of the family until Senator Douglas is arrested and charged with ritualistic murder.

Ritualistic murders have plagued Liberia for a long time, and they continue to this day. They involve murder in order to harvest body parts, mostly for occult purposes, or juju. The alleged role of Senator Douglas in this crime was to loan his car to a friend, who then used it to carry out the murder. The family gathers in Monrovia, and RJ joins with his father’s attorney to help with his defense.

The ritualistic murders aspect of the novel is the hook the author uses to draw readers in, but people’s interactions with one another on a daily basis are the main focus of the book. The sexual exploitation of women appears to be a major problem in Monrovian society. RJ is shocked to learn that his own father is in the habit of paying the school fees for young girls and then taking advantage of his power over them to force them to have sex with him. 

I didn’t find much to admire in Heart Men, but there were a couple of chapters that stood out for me. In the first instance, after the trial of Senator Douglas is concluded, RJ and his girlfriend Gia travel to a village outside Monrovia to meet the family of Johnny Bono, the man who was killed in the ritualistic murder. They offer their condolences, and ask Johnny’s father to tell them all about his son and what his hopes and dreams had been. After he has shared his memories of his son, RJ and Gia offer him money to help fulfill Johnny’s dreams for his family. While this could have been perceived as a payoff of some sort, the fact that RJ and Gia listened respectfully while Johnny’s father poured out his heart to them helped to take the taint away from the money they offered.

The other chapter I found meaningful is one in which Gia, who works as a psychologist in the United States, speaks at a gathering of women at the church the Douglas family attends. The women share their painful stories about how sexual crimes and exploitation have affected them. Gia listens to their horrifying experiences with empathy and tact, and responds with advice about loving themselves and finding meaning in their lives.

COOK

Since the Douglas family in Heart Men is both Liberian and American, the foods they eat tend to be a combination of the two cuisines. One Liberian dish that seems to grace the table at every one of their celebratory meals is jollof rice, a combination of rice and vegetables. It usually contains meat, but when I made jollof rice from the recipe I found on the Frank Theatre website, I left out the meat and the meat stock. It was a good, simple dish, and I can understand why the Douglas family liked it so much.

GIVE 

It was clear to me after reading Heart Men that the organization I would donate to for this blog post would be one that helps women or girls. On the GlobalGiving website, I found a project that makes it possible for girls from one of the largest slums in Liberia to receive a free quality education. According to the project description: “Quality education in Liberia is elusive for most children. Only 44% of children attend primary school, and many who complete primary school graduate unable to read a single sentence. For girls, rates of education are even worse, exacerbated by sexual abuse, harmful cultural practices, and early pregnancy.”

At Hilltop School, 260 girls from kindergarten through ninth grade are provided with “high quality education, two meals per day, medical care, extracurricular activities, psycho-social support, menstrual and sexual health education, and family planning.” More information about this project is available at Provide Safe School for Girls in Monrovia, Liberia - GlobalGiving.

 

NEXT STOP: LIBYA

 

LESOTHO

READ

Most of the books I read for this project are relatively contemporary, but that’s not always an option. For Lesotho, a country that is surrounded on all sides by South Africa, the only book I was able to find was Chaka, written by Thomas Mofolo and translated by Daniel P. Kunene. Chaka, which was published in 1925, is a fictionalized account of the life of Shaka, who founded the Zulu Empire and ruled from 1816 to 1828.

Chaka is conceived out of wedlock by Senzangakhona, King of Mazulu, and Nandi, a local beauty. They marry when they learn that Nandi is pregnant, but the fact that Nandi was pregnant before they got married would be a scandal, if word got out. Senzangakhona has three or four other wives, but none of them have produced a son, so Chaka and his mother are tolerated initially. However, when the other wives begin to bear sons, they threaten to expose the scandal surrounding Chaka’s birth unless Senzangakhona agrees to disinherit Chaka and expel him and Nandi from the royal home. Senzangakhona does as they ask.

As an outcast, Chaka endures a miserable childhood, getting attacked regularly by other children. That ends when his mother takes him to a medicine woman, who gives him potions that make him stronger and more aggressive than everyone else. When he begins to perform feats of strength and daring that none of the other men or boys in the village can do, the women all start to sing his praises. This upsets the men, of course, and they plot to kill him, so he flees the village. Disillusioned with how he is being made to pay for the sins of his parents, Chaka, who had been a pretty decent guy until that point, vows to be his own man and do whatever he wants to do from that point on.

After he leaves his village, he meets a healer, Isanusi, who gives him strengthening medicines to make him a great warrior and a great king. He leads him to the kingdom ruled by Dingiswayo, where Chaka’s talents are immediately put to use. Chaka’s new philosophy is: “I shall simply kill whomever I wish to kill, whether he is guilty or not, because that is the law of this world. I will never have mercy on a person simply because of his pleadings.” When Dingiswayo is killed in battle and Chaka becomes king, he continues to rule with that philosophy and kills people, both in his own kingdom and in others, at an alarming rate. He expands his territory by laying waste to village after village, burning the fields and killing most of the people except for the young men who are forced to join his army. In this way, he builds the great Zulu Empire until karma finally catches up with him.

As much as his childhood lays the groundwork for the man Chaka becomes, the medicine man, Isanusi, influences him greatly in the path he chooses to follow. Isanusi reminds him often that his power depends on continued bloodshed, and that he must sacrifice those he loves the most in order to be an even greater king than he can imagine. Greed, power, and bloodlust become the motivating factors in his life.

Chaka wasn’t a particularly enjoyable book to read, but it accomplished one of the purposes I had in mind when I started this blog – to help fill in some holes in my education and in my understanding of the world.

COOK

Chaka didn’t provide any help in figuring out a dish to cook for this post, so I went to the Internet. In an article about what to eat in Lesotho, I found a dessert called makoenva, which is basically deep-fried dough balls with raisins, rolled in cinnamon sugar. The International Cuisine website had a recipe that was vegan without needing any adjustments. The makoenva turned out really, really well. I mean, everyone likes fried dough with sugar, right?

 

GIVE

Reading about Chaka’s conquest of other kingdoms and the wreckage that he left in his wake made it sound like a big part of his legacy was creating an environmental wasteland. So when I looked at the two projects in Lesotho that were listed on the GlobalGiving website, I chose the one that looked like it would help the most people with the least environmental impact. Onepower Lesotho is working to manufacture affordable solar energy technology in rural areas of Lesotho to help power health clinics, schools, and businesses. This project will also create good job opportunities for people who might otherwise have to move to the cities to find work. More information about this project is available at: Solar Jobs & Energy - Village Minigrids in Lesotho - GlobalGiving.

NEXT STOP: LIBERIA

LEBANON

READ

Women of Sand and Myrrh, written by Hanan al-Shaykh and translated by Catherine Cobham, tells the stories of four women living in an unnamed Middle Eastern country. The country is one in which the laws regarding women are repressive – women don’t drive, they are generally supposed to cover themselves in public, working outside the home is frowned upon, and the men hold all the power.

The four women in these stories are loosely connected, mostly though Suha, a young woman from Lebanon whose family moved to this country because of her husband’s work. She had been educated at the American University of Beirut, and she’d had considerably more freedom in Lebanon. She feels stifled by life in this new country. Endless rounds of visits in the homes of other women, taking care of her family’s house, and other mundane activities are not enough for her. Suha works at a store for a short time, but is afraid of being found out, then she teaches at the Institute, a school for women, but quits when the Institute starts to receive unwanted attention from the authorities. With respect to her husband, Basem, who is working and going out in public without her, she discovers that their relationship “only existed inside the four walls of the house now; it didn’t even extend to the garden or the car or the street.” Life becomes more interesting when she meets Nur, a wealthy young woman whose husband never seems to be around, but it also becomes more dangerous.

The second story is about Tamr, a twice-divorced mother of a young boy. Tamr was one of Suha’s students at the Institute, where she went to learn to read and write. She is a native of this country, but at some point in her life, Tamr had gone to London and experienced freedom. She has longed to be independent ever since. What she wants now is to open her own dressmaking and hairdressing business, but she has to fight for her dream every step of the way. Tamr’s mother, Taj al-Arus, also figures prominently in this story. When she was a beautiful young woman, she was brought to this country from Turkey. She was led to believe she was marrying a Sultan, but she never achieved the fairytale ending she had hoped for.

Suha’s friend Suzanne is a forty-something woman from Texas, who moved to this country with her husband David when he was offered a job there by his company. They brought their young son with them, but put their three daughters in boarding school. Suzanne’s husband hasn’t shown any romantic interest in her for a long time, but in this new country, the fact that she’s blonde and foreign brings her a great deal of male attention. When it seems that David’s job may end and she may have to go back to Texas, she panics. “What does a woman in her forties do in a country swarming with others like her when she’s been used to being the one and only?”

The last story is about Nur, whose reckless lifestyle had finally alienated her from Suha. Nur is from a very wealthy family, and she is given everything she wants growing up. Her father builds her a house of her own on his property when she’s still in her teens, and she travels outside the country every chance she gets. Even so, she decides that if she were married, she would have even more freedom, so she marries Samer, who likes to party and shop and do all the same things that she does. She doesn’t give much thought to the fact that her husband’s friend Waleed is with them all the time, until Samer divorces her because he’s bisexual and wants to be with Waleed instead. She marries another man, Saleh, with whom she clashes from the very beginning. Saleh is a very serious man who wants to be a good citizen of their country, while Nur is self-indulgent and wants to do only those things that give her pleasure. In a country where men have the power, Nur becomes a bird in a gilded cage.

The four women in Women of Sand and Myrrh could not have been more different from each other, but the laws and mores governing them were one-size-fits-all. Except for Suzanne, they all came from wealthy families, which gave them more options than they would have had if they’d come from poor or working-class families. But a cage is a cage, whether gilded or not.

COOK 

No Lebanese dishes are mentioned in Women of Sand and Myrrh, so I looked for some options on the International Vegetarian Union website. There were several interesting choices, but what I really wanted was hummus. Everyone always tells me how easy it is to make, but I’m guessing those people all have food processors, while I just have a blender. At any rate, after hitting the “pulse” button on the blender dozens of times and adding boiling water in small increments, I finally managed to produce a pretty respectable hummus, served with pita bread triangles.

GIVE

With everything that’s going on in Afghanistan right now, it’s easy to overlook the tragedies that are happening elsewhere. In the case of Lebanon, there was a fuel tanker explosion in the district of Akkar earlier this month, and at least thirty-three people were killed. When I looked for projects on the GlobalGiving website, I found one that will provide emergency relief to those who were affected by the blast. Donations will help provide medical assistance and other aid to victims of the explosion and their families. More information about this project can be found at Together for Lebanon: Heal Akkar ! - GlobalGiving.

NEXT STOP: LESOTHO

LATVIA

 

READ

I have gotten used to novels that alternate between past and present, structuring the plot by toggling back and forth between time periods. That seems to be the style du jour, and it’s an easy enough structure to follow.

Nothing I have read, however, prepared me for Inga Ābele’s High Tide, translated by Kaija Straumanis, which begins at the end and ends at the beginning. The book opens with a young woman dreaming about living her life in reverse so she can give life back to her lover, who died young. She agrees without hesitation.

We then move into the book’s plot. The protagonist is a thirty-three-year-old woman, Ieva, who is a screenwriter and the mother of a teenage girl named Monta. Monta’s father, Andrejs, has recently been released from prison, where he was sent for killing Ieva’s lover, Aksels.

As the plot moves backward in time, the reader learns about the relationships between these characters – the struggles between the intellectual Ieva and the older ex-soldier Andrejs; the conflicts that arise between Ieva, a single mother, and Aksels, who has no responsibility for anyone but himself; and the shocking details of Aksels’ death at the hands of Andrejs.

I had a very difficult time dealing with the format of this book. Rather than reading about the characters’ actions and then learning what the ramifications are, this book starts with the ramifications and then details in reverse chronological order the actions that caused them. The blurb on the back cover explains it this way: “High Tide functions as a sort of psychological mystery, with the full scope of Ieva’s personal situation – and the relationship between the three main characters – only becoming clear at the end of the novel.” Fittingly, the very last chapter in the book tells the story of Ieva’s birth. 

Would I have liked the book better if the chronological format had been different? Possibly, although the plot was dark regardless of the structure. If nothing else, I admire the author’s willingness to push the boundaries in her writing.

COOK

Food didn’t play much of a role in High Tide, but there were references to a couple of food items, rye bread and lingonberries, that were central to the recipe I decided to make, rupjmaizes kārtojums. This is a layered dessert made with rye bread crumbs, lingonberry jam, and whipped topping. It sounds like an odd combination, but it was actually pretty good. I was fortunate to find a vegan recipe for this dessert at veganphysicist.com. The recipe includes instructions for making the whipped topping, but if I were to make this again, I’d save myself the trouble and buy a tub of So Delicious Cocowhip instead.

GIVE

It wasn’t easy to find a Latvian organization to donate to. GlobalGiving, my go-to donation platform for this blog, didn’t have any projects in Latvia listed on their website. However, a little time spent with Google turned up Giving for Latvia, which provides “aid to the children and parents in Latvia who have suffered from emotional and physical abuse, and to those disadvantaged by age, disability, financial problems or other hardships.” Among other things, Giving for Latvia has provided significant support to Latvia’s only food bank during the COVID-19 crisis. More information about Giving for Latvia can be found at Giving for Latvia · Helping Latvian children in need.

 

NEXT STOP: LEBANON

LAOS

READ

I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to find a suitable book to read for my post about Laos (officially, Lao People’s Democratic Republic). The only book I was aware of, Mother’s Beloved, by Outhine Bounyavong, was a short story collection, and I was hoping for a novel. So when I was browsing in a used bookstore one day, I was delighted to come across A Thousand Wings, the debut novel of T. C. Huo, who was born in Laos but now lives in Northern California.

A Thousand Wings tells the story of Fong Mun, a gay man who is a caterer and cookbook author living in San Francisco. He is giving a demonstration on the preparation and serving of egg rolls in the home of a client when he meets and becomes attracted to a young man named Raymond. They discover that they are both from Laos, although Raymond was so young when he left that he has no recollection of that country. Raymond asks Fong Mun for his egg roll recipe, and Fong Mun responds by offering to show him how to make them in person. Raymond goes to Fong Mun’s house, and at that point, the rest of the book is basically the story of Fong Mun’s life in Laos.

Fong Mun’s childhood was spent in Luang Prabang, which was at that time the royal capital of Laos. Fong Mun lived with his father, mother, and grandmother on property shared with other people, including a photographer and the K. family. Fong Mun’s father, Mr. Fong, worked in a darkroom developing the pictures taken by Mr. Woo, the photographer. Fong Mun was interested in food even then, planting a garden and fuming whenever the neighbors would help themselves to the fruits of his labor, or encroach on what he considered to be his space.

The year was 1975, however, and Fong Mun’s life was about to be turned upside down. First, his family heard on the radio that Saigon had fallen. Next, pro-Communist students began protesting in the streets of Luang Prabang, and a group called the Brothers came into the neighborhood to take inventory of all the trees and livestock each household had. Some food began to be rationed, the practice of Buddhism started to be repressed, and Communist indoctrination replaced regular instruction at Fong Mun’s school. Eventually, the principal led the students on a march to the royal palace, meeting up with other protesters along the way, and the king was forced to abdicate his throne.

Fong Mun stopped going to school after that, and his parents, fearing for his future, sent him to Bangkok with the K. family. They tried to keep a low profile because they had no legal right to live there, and eventually, they fled to the countryside to stay with friends. This transitory life was summed up by Uncle Hahn, a friend of Fong Mun’s father: “From China to Vietnam, running from the Japanese. Then from Vietnam to Laos, running from the Communists. And now running from the Communists again. Running all my life.”

Fong Mun finally met up with his family in a refugee camp in Thailand, and later settled in the United States, while other people he knew went to live in France, Australia, and Canada. Although San Francisco is now his home, Fong Mun tells Raymond, “We’re all guests.” Undoubtedly thinking of his garden in Luang Prabang, he says, “We moved from country to country, from garden to garden. We adopted different tongues, went by different names – picked up different recipes.”

A Thousand Wings captures the dichotomy of the immigrant experience: a longing for the familiarity and the cherished moments from one’s home country, combined with the resilience and determination to make the best of the opportunities available in the new country.

COOK

Since the first nine pages of A Thousand Wings are devoted to a discussion of egg rolls, it was clear to me early on that I would have to figure out how to make vegan egg rolls for this blog post. I found a recipe for Lao Style Fried Spring Rolls at SimplyLaddie.com that was not even remotely vegan, but I veganized it as well as I could. I found vegan egg roll wrappers, substituted diced tofu for the ground pork, used Just Egg in place of the eggs, and replaced the oyster sauce and the fish sauce with hoisin and soy sauce.

To serve the egg rolls, I adhered to Fong Mun’s admonition: “Salad is an integral part of eating egg roll. It provides a communal experience and lets you compose your own dish.” This meant wrapping the egg roll in red leaf lettuce, along with mint, cilantro, and a spoonful of noodles.

This was quite a process, but the egg rolls turned out pretty well. Whenever I eat egg rolls in a restaurant from now on, I’ll have new respect for all the work that went into making them.

 

GIVE

Four projects in Laos were listed on the GlobalGiving website, all education-related and all operated by the same nonprofit organization, Action Change. According to the description of the project I chose: “Laos is a country with education inequality, particularly affecting the poorer communities and young girls. Due to education in Laos only being compulsory for 5 years, the education they do receive is often poor quality and under-resourced. This project aims to tackle the education inequality in these areas by providing quality educational resources, teacher training and improved facilities to encourage children to continue their studies into higher education.”

More information about this project is available at Fund Educational Resources in Laos - GlobalGiving.

NEXT STOP: LATVIA

 

KYRGYZSTAN

READ

Jamilia, by Chingiz Aïtmatov, is a novella about a young woman living on a farm in a small village in Kyrgyzstan during World War II. Her husband Sadyk and his brother are fighting in the war, and Jamilia is living with Sadyk’s mother. The book is narrated by a teenage boy named Seit, who lives with his father, mother, and little sister in another part of the house where Jamilia and her mother-in-law live. Seit’s two older brothers are also fighting in the war.

The two families have an interesting relationship. When Sadyk’s mother was widowed, Seit’s father was married to her by his kinsfolk, since he was the closest relative of the deceased. The families live in harmony, and Seit refers to Sadyk’s mother as “younger mother.” 

With most of the able-bodied men away at war, the hard work of running the farm falls to the women and the boys. Seit and Jamilia are given the task of hauling sacks of grain to the train station every day in a horse-drawn cart, a round-trip journey that takes all day. Assigned to help them is a disabled soldier named Daniyar. He was originally from the village where Seit and his family live, but was orphaned at a young age and sent to live elsewhere. 

As might be imagined, long days together going to and from the train station give Daniyar and Jamilia a great deal of time to get to know each other. The power and passion of Daniyar’s singing on the way home from the station every day enthralls Jamilia, who is feeling slighted by her husband. Sadyk sends letters home from the war with greetings for all his family members, but for Jamilia, there’s just a postscript at the end of the letter – “… and give my regards to my wife Jamilia.” 

Seit is a keen observer of the bond that is growing between Daniyar and Jamilia, and being of an artistic bent, he sketches a picture of the two of them, which Jamilia takes from him. According to Seit: “Simultaneously she painfully wished and did not wish to admit to herself that she was in love, in the same way as I was keen and not keen for her to love Daniyar. After all, she was my family’s daughter-in-law, my brother’s wife.” 

I won’t say how the story ends, although the book’s back cover isn’t nearly as careful about avoiding spoilers. The French poet Louis Aragon called Jamilia “the most beautiful love story in the world.” I don’t know that I’d go that far, but it’s a captivating little book.

COOK

No regional dishes were mentioned in Jamilia, so I had to search the Internet for recipes from Kyrgyzstan. I found one for a dish called kuurdak on the “World Cuisine History and Recipes” website. Kuurdak is basically just braised meat and potatoes, making it one of the simplest dishes I’ve made for this blog. The only substitution I needed to make was for the meat, of course, so I used Gardein Home Style Beefless Tips. Not bad at all!

 

GIVE

GlobalGiving didn’t seem to have much going on in Kyrgyzstan, so I did a Google search to see what else I could find. I finally found an organization called Babushka Adoption, and how could I resist? According to the website, “Babushka Adoption aims to help elderly citizens who live under hard conditions, receive low pensions and lack close relatives who could care for them. The Foundation has established various projects with and for elderly people to improve the living conditions of elderly Kyrgyz citizens on both a local and regional level.” More information about Babushka Adoption is available at Babushka Adoption.

NEXT STOP: LAOS