KENYA

 

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Dust, by Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor, opens with the shooting death of a young man on the streets of Nairobi. He is killed by the police after stealing back the car that was stolen from him. The young man’s name is Moses Ebewesit Odidi Oganda (Odidi), and his death shatters his family: his estranged father Nyipir, his erratic mother Akai, his beloved sister Arabel Ajany (Ajany), and his pregnant fiancée Justina.

A police officer who knows Nyipir calls to notify him of his son’s death, and Nyipir, in turn, calls Ajany, who is living in Brazil. She flies to Nairobi to meet her father, and together they take Odidi’s body back to the family home, a crumbling, coral-colored edifice called Wuoth Ogik, which means “Journey’s End.” When they reach Akai and she learns that her son is dead, she breaks down, berating Nyipir and disdaining Ajany. After a time, Akai takes the car and flees.

In the meantime, a man has arrived in Kenya from England and is heading for Wuoth Ogik. His name is Isaiah William Bolton, and he has been in correspondence with Odidi. Isaiah is looking for his father Hugh, whom he has never met, and he believes Wuoth Ogik belongs to him. Hugh had settled in Kenya with his wife Selene when it was still a British colony. He was happy there, but Selene was not, and she eventually left him and went back to England, where Isaiah was born. There are dozens of books and other papers with Hugh’s name on them at the house. Odidi and Ajany have never known who Hugh Bolton is, but it has always been clear that Nyipir and Akai know.

Isaiah eventually arrives at Wuoth Ogik, much to Nyipir’s distress. Ajany talks to him and he shows her one of his father’s old books that Odidi had sent him. He also shows her a bookmark that his father had painted, depicting a naked pregnant woman. Ajany immediately recognizes the woman as her mother, but doesn’t tell Isaiah that.

Ajany goes to Nairobi to find out what she can about her brother’s life and death there. He had had a promising career as an engineer, but had been betrayed by people he trusted. She discovers that he had a fiancée, Justina, who is now pregnant with his child. Isaiah, who has been unable to get any answers from Nyipir, follows Ajany to Nairobi.

In addition to all the family secrets and intrigue, the bloody political history of Kenya is woven throughout the novel. After Kenya gained independence from England, there was still considerable unrest from rival political factions. The people and events mentioned in the book are probably familiar to anyone from Kenya who reads Dust, but I found myself having to Google or refer to Wikipedia from time to time in order to understand what was happening. 

The author did a good job telling this story, and I found myself wanting to keep reading in order to find out how the lives of Nyipir and Akai intersected with that of Hugh Bolton. I appreciate the way she tied up most of the loose ends, making for a satisfying conclusion.

COOK

When Ajany goes to Nairobi looking for clues about Odidi's life, a man near the place where Odidi died tells her to go see Justina. She doesn't know who Justina is, but a woman in the beauty shop nearby tells her where to go. She discovers that Justina is a lap dancer whom Odidi had met at a local club. He had moved in with her, and Justina is pregnant with Odidi's baby. While they're talking, they drink "endless cups of ginger tea" and eat mandazi, which is basically fried dough, similar to a donut but triangular in shape. I found a recipe for mandazi on the "Tasty" website. I only needed to substitute egg replacer for the egg in order to veganize the recipe. These little snacks turned out to be pretty good!

GIVE

As Isaiah walks from Wuoth Ogik to Nairobi, he sees a sign that says, "Reading Is Knowledge." The explanation? "The Kenya National Library Services Camel caravan pitching camp for the night." Apparently, this camel caravan is a real thing, and I really wanted my donation to go to the camels taking books to readers in rural Kenya. Alas, I couldn't find any way to do that. So I searched GlobalGiving's website to see if there were other projects involving books and found an organization raising money to provide a thousand story books to children to promote literacy in Kenya. According to the project description: "Quality education transforms students' opportunities, and gives them a pathway out of poverty! For many children in marginalized communities, access to story books is simply a luxury. We want to change this by providing a much needed supply of story books to students to promote literacy, and connect them to a world of stories. This project will enable us to start mini library boxes in schools so that children can have access to engaging materials to enhance their learning experience." More information about this project is available at 

Gift 1000 Story Books to Promote Literacy in Kenya - GlobalGiving.

NEXT STOP: KIRIBATI

KAZAKHSTAN

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The Aral Sea in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan used to be the fourth largest lake in the world, with fishermen from small villages all around its edges depending on it for their livelihood. In the 1960s, the Soviet Union determined that the water from the rivers that fed the Aral Sea were needed to irrigate farmland, to grow crops such as cotton. The diversion of river water caused the Aral Sea to begin shrinking, resulting in an environmental and economic disaster. To make matters worse, the land that was left behind once the water was gone was toxic due to salinity, pesticide and fertilizer runoff, and chemicals left behind from weapons testing.

The shrinking Aral Sea is the backdrop for the book I read for Kazakhstan, Final Respects, by Abdi-Jamil Nurpeisov. The novel’s protagonist, Jadiger, is chairman of the fishing collective in his village on the Aral coast. He frequently goes out to wherever the fishermen are working to see how things are going, leaving his wife of thirteen years, Bakizat, and their two children at home. This causes problems in the marriage, which was never on particularly firm footing to begin with. They had gone to university together, along with another man, Azim, with whom Bakizat had been in a relationship. When Azim broke up with her, she took up with Jadiger and they married, but she has never gotten over Azim.

The shortage of fish in the receding sea is extremely concerning for Jadiger and the fisherman in his collective. One large clan is moving out of the area because they can no longer make a living. Azim, who has a respected position as an academician, favors draining even more water from the sea, convinced that there is fertile soil in the seabed where cotton can be farmed. He has also managed to persuade many people that there is a large underground freshwater lake that will provide all necessary water. He seems to be unaware or unbothered by the fact that changing the local ecosystem by shrinking the sea is causing the environment to become more and more degraded. As one critic argued at one of Azim’s meetings, “Many possibly don’t realize, and some have already long ago understood that…if we don’t radically review our relationship to nature, then humankind will inevitably come to its annihilation.”

Jadiger and Azim clash over their conflicting views about the future of the Aral Sea, and shortly thereafter, Bakizat finally leaves Jadiger for Azim. Jadiger strikes out for the sea, and Azim and Bakizat leave the village together in a sleigh. Fate brings the three of them together, however, in circumstances that will put them all to the test.

This book was often difficult to follow, as I think it’s the only novel I’ve ever read that was written mostly in the second person point of view. So instead of “I did this” or “she did that,” it was always “you did this” or “you did that.” The “you” was Jadiger for the first part of the book, so it seemed as though he were talking to himself. The “you” shifted to other characters later in the book, adding to the confusion. 

While the way the book was written may have made it challenging to read, the environmental warnings came through loud and clear. As his world begins to crumble around him, Jadiger wonders, “If in such a short time, the sea could grow shallow and so many lakes and rivers dry up…if the earth could grow scant and the air be poisoned…then perhaps in reality, not long remained before the very end of the earth?”

COOK

Not many particular dishes were mentioned in Final Respects, and even fewer that could be veganized. So I googled Kazakhstani recipes and found one on the Fandom Recipes Wiki website for Chrov Plav, which is basically a rice pilaf with almonds and dried fruits. I substituted Earth Balance for the butter, and agave nectar for the honey to make it vegan. My grocery store didn’t have currants, so I threw in some goji berries instead. This was a good side dish with the Beyond Sausage I had for dinner, but the leftovers will be even better for breakfast the next few days.

GIVE

In Final Respects, Jadiger’s son was born with disabilities. It appears that, between the environmental problems caused by the receding sea and the toxic chemicals left behind after nearby weapons testing, many children in the village were born disabled. So when I found a project on the GlobalGiving website helping children with cerebral palsy in Kazakhstan, that’s the one I chose for my donation. According to the project description, more than 26,000 families in Kazakhstan have a child with cerebral palsy. More than 75 percent of those families have no access to free and qualified rehabilitation services. This project would provide free services to over 1,500 children with cerebral palsy who come from low-income families or who live in orphanages. With these services, it is hoped that the children can learn every-day skills, such as walking, sitting, eating, etc. More information about this project is available at Support 26 000 children with palsy in Kazakhstan - GlobalGiving.

 

NEXT STOP: KENYA

JORDAN

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My Name is Salma, by Fadia Faqir, follows the life of Salma Ibrahim El-Musa, a Bedouin shepherdess in a small village somewhere in the Levant, an area that encompasses several countries in the Middle East, including Jordan. Salma’s life is simple, but happy, until she falls in love with a local man and becomes pregnant. She knows that if her father and brother find out, they will kill her, so she seeks help from her schoolteacher. Miss Nailah tells her that her best option is to turn herself over to the police so they can keep her in protective custody where her father and brother can’t reach her. Salma gives birth to her daughter Layla in prison, and Layla is immediately taken from her and sent to live at a home for illegitimate children.

Salma spends eight years living in the prison, afraid of the consequences if she tries to leave. One night, though, a nun smuggles her out of the prison and out of the country. She eventually ends up in Exeter, England, where her name is given as Sally Asher. She finds work as a seamstress and rents a room from an alcoholic widow whose reality alternates between the present day and her youth, which was spent in India. Salma has two close friends in Exeter, an elderly woman named Gwen and a Pakistani refugee named Parvin. Her evenings are filled with studying, as she works to obtain a degree in English literature, and her second job collecting and washing the glasses at a local bar.

Although she seems to have settled into a normal life, fear and self-loathing are with her everywhere she goes. She imagines her brother is around every corner, just waiting to shoot her between the eyes. And despite the fact that she fled her village in order to escape that fate, she feels as though it’s what she deserves, both for becoming pregnant in the first place and for leaving her daughter behind.

After several years in England, Salma finally meets and marries a kind man. But she becomes increasingly obsessed with returning to her home country and reuniting with her daughter, who would be sixteen years old by then. Will the passage of time have softened her family’s anger?

My Name is Salma was a compelling story, although it felt disjointed, with the author hopscotching between multiple times and places so frequently that it was often hard to keep track of what was happening in Salma’s life. Still, it was a good portrayal of the determination of one woman to keep moving forward, even though all the odds seemed to be stacked against her.

COOK

The olive groves in Salma’s village in the Levant figure prominently in her memories of her childhood. On the very first page of the novel, there is this description as Salma looks at the English countryside but yearns for her village: “It was a new day, but the dewy greenness of the hills, the whiteness of the sheep, the greyness of the skies carried me to my distant past, to a small mud village tucked away between the deserted hills, to Hima, to silver-green olive groves gleaming in the morning light.”

So when I started looking for a Jordanian dish to prepare, it seemed fitting to find a recipe for MaazatZaytoon, a green olive dip, at the International Vegetarian Union’s website. It seemed like it would be easy enough to make – just throw all the ingredients in the blender – but there were too few liquids and too many solids for the ingredients to blend properly. I ended up chopping the olives into smaller pieces and using considerably more liquids than the recipe called for – olive oil, lemon juice, and some brine from the jar of olives – before everything reached the right consistency for a blender. The final result was very good, though, served on wedges of Mediterranean flatbread.

GIVE

The GlobalGiving website listed several projects in Jordan, but because of Salma’s studies in English literature, the one I chose to donate to was the “We Love Reading” program, which is designed to “create a generation of change makers by fostering a love for reading among children aged 2-10 throughout Jordan.”

According to the project description, “We Love Reading is an innovative model that provides a practical, cost efficient, sustainable, grassroots approach to create changemakers through reading. WLR supports the activism of local volunteers to increase reading levels among children by focusing on the readaloud experience to instill the love of reading. The program constitutes training local volunteer women, men and youth to hold readaloud sessions in public spaces in their neighborhoods where books are routinely read aloud to children.” More information about this project is available at https://www.globalgiving.org/projects/we-love-reading-ambassador-training/

NEXT STOP: KAZAKHSTAN