KUWAIT

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My book selection for Kuwait was Motorbikes and Camels, by Nejoud Al-Yagout. This is the author’s debut novel, and I thought the format was particularly interesting. The book consists of stories about thirteen different people, all of whose lives are intertwined with the lives of one or more other people in the book. While the plot doesn’t feel like a continuous story with a beginning, middle, and end, the reappearance of the same characters in the different stories gives the book some cohesion.

The first story is about Salma, who is struggling to understand why her interactions with men never work out the way she wants them to. Two men in her life have their own stories, as do other women they’re involved with. We learn about the manipulative Aisha, whose life touches on those of several other characters in the book. The man Aisha marries, Hussam, is gay and has been trying to repress the fact ever since his father discovered him with a man. There is a chapter about Salma’s uncle, Mohammed, a bigamist whose favorite thing about his religion seems to be the liberties he is permitted as a man. His story is followed by those of his two wives, who have started to resent his sexism. Another chapter revolves around Mike, a foreigner who has converted to Islam and who seems to have a thing for Kuwaiti women. 

The stories all feature discussions about love or sex, as well as various interpretations of Islamic law and beliefs. There was a lot more alcohol-drinking and sex outside of marriage than I would have expected, and quite a bit of back-and-forth about whether women should or should not wear a veil, which is apparently not required by law in Kuwait.

While each of the stories were entertaining, I found the epilogue to be confusing and not of a piece with the rest of the book. It involves Salma going to a spiritual retreat in India, where a guru answers people’s questions about love and sex. I don’t know what the author’s purpose was in adding such a disconnected piece to the end of her book. All in all, however, I thought Motorbikes and Camels provided an interesting glimpse into Kuwaiti culture.

COOK

The only mentions of food in Motorbikes and Camels were about dishes that aren’t Kuwaiti cuisine – avocado toast and coconut and pumpkin curry, for example. Salma becomes vegan during the course of her story, but no vegan Kuwaiti dishes make an appearance. In looking online for recipes, most of the ones I found were very meat-centric. So I was happy when I found a recipe for Kuwaiti lentil soup on the “Recipes Wiki” website. It was different than other lentil soups I’ve made because the lentils were puréed after they were cooked, and then potatoes and dried lemons were added to the soup. The potatoes made it a more hearty dish, and the dried lemons gave it a little tang. The only change I had to make to the recipe was to replace the ghee with Earth Balance spread.

GIVE

Since Kuwait is a wealthy country, I wasn’t surprised that GlobalGiving didn’t have any projects listed in that country. I found a few nonprofit organizations when I searched online, but the websites were in Arabic and there didn’t seem to be an easy way to make a donation. Finally, I found a link to a GoFundMe campaign to help raise money for Touch of Hope, an animal rescue effort in Kuwait dedicated to helping injured, abused, and abandoned animals. The women who run this shelter were recently evicted from their farm, so money raised by the GoFundMe campaign will help them to relocate. More information about Touch of Hope is available here.

NEXT STOP: KYRGYZSTAN 

 

KIRIBATI

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First things first – where is Kiribati? Kiribati is an island nation in the central Pacific Ocean, generally in the vicinity of Samoa. It is comprised of thirty-two atolls, with the capital and the most populous area being on the atoll of Tarawa.

As you might imagine, it wasn’t easy finding a book in English by an author born in Kiribati, but I managed to track down a copy of the only such book that I’m aware of – Waa in Storms, by Teweiariki Teaero. This book is a collection of poems, short prose pieces, and art works by the author.

“Waa” means canoe in the Kiribatese language, so the book’s title evokes the image of a small craft battered by a tempest. The material in the book is divided into three types of storms, followed by a section honoring the calm that follows the storm.

“First Wave: Pond Storms” contains poems about problems that affect the author, his family, or other individuals. In one poem, he agonizes over his young daughter’s hospitalization after she is hit by a drunk driver. A couple of other poems help him grieve for his father, who has lost his battle with cancer. There is a poem lamenting the death of a friend, and one that anticipates the author’s loneliness as he watches his wife leave for work for several months:

             “never does a plane look so ugly

               as when it is about to whisk half of me away

               beyond easy reach behind concealing clouds

               for many long months again”

The poems and writings in “Second Wave: Lagoon Storms” are about problems affecting Kiribati. Teaero rages about a series of child rapes that had just taken place, and about all the children hit by speeding buses. He honors the country’s Vice President, who had died suddenly, while also poking fun at other political leaders.

“Third Wave: Ocean Storms” is concerned with problems that impact the region or the world. There are poems decrying environmental degradation, an homage for the death of an elder, and a lament called “What is…” that lists things that are rising (global warming, cost of living, blood pressure, etc.) and things that are falling (natural resources, respect for elders, earning power, and so forth). Poignantly, the author asks:

             “What remains static?

                 i can’t see

                   i can’t feel

                     i can’t hear

                       i don’t know”

With “Fourth Wave: Calm Again” the author attempts to close on a more positive note. He includes a poem honoring his father-in-law; a love poem, presumably for his wife; and a poem about artists called “Seeing” that I particularly liked. It opens with the words:

             “anybody

               can look

               but artists

               ‘see’”

Several of the poems in the book are written in the Kiribatese language, so I obviously couldn’t read those. According to the author, “To me, the most important concern is to express an idea as vividly as possible. If this comes through the use of English, Kiribatese, visual image or any combination of the three, then I have not hesitated in pursuing that mode of expression.” I liked his colorful artwork, which appeared throughout the book. An appendix includes explanations about each work of art.

Although Waa in Storms isn’t the type of book I normally read for this blog, I really enjoyed reading poetry and looking at art for a change. 

COOK

It never occurred to me when I started this blog that I would one day have to figure out a way to make vegan SPAM, but that’s exactly what happened when I started looking for a recipe for a Kiribatese dish. The “196 flavors” website had a recipe for a dish called Te Bua Toro Ni Baukin, which is basically a casserole consisting primarily of pumpkin, cabbage, and SPAM. Fortunately, I found a vegan SPAM recipe on the “Cheap Lazy Vegan” website. I ended up taking a lot of liberties with this dish. Besides making a SPAM substitute out of tofu, I used coconut milk powder instead of cow’s milk powder; used kabocha squash instead of pumpkin; and since I didn’t have a lemon in the house, I used a lime instead. I really didn’t have high hopes, but it was tasty enough.

 

GIVE

 The GlobalGiving website had two projects that mentioned Kiribati. Since some of Teaero’s poems expressed his concerns about the environmental mess we’ve made and continue to make, I chose the one that addresses the coral bleaching crisis in Kiribati, Fiji, and Tuvalu. According to the project description: “Communities and resorts are being empowered to save the lives of thousands of corals that are resistant to warm water bleaching, but that can not survive the onslaught of over-abundant coral predators without help. Patches of heat-adapted corals are restored to reefs, planted as second-generation fragments trimmed from the nurseries. Five villages in Fiji, four villages in Kiribati, and four villages in Tuvalu are impacted, and ‘Coral Gardener’ has been created as a new profession for resorts.”

More information about this project is available at Emergency Response to Massive Coral Bleaching - GlobalGiving.

NEXT STOP: KUWAIT