MALTA

 

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The setting for Children Come by Ship, written by Oliver Friggieri and translated by Marina Lowell, is a small, unnamed village on an unnamed island. The book’s editor quotes the author in an afternote saying that “[t]he general surroundings evolved from my efforts to recreate, on a literary level, the small world of family life during the Fifties in the Balzunetta neighbourhood of Floriana, where I grew up and lived for many years.”

The village in Children Come by Ship is very traditional, a place where things are always done a certain way and a person’s or family’s honor trumps all other considerations. It is a place where the “powerful Northwest wind itself was not strong enough to blow away even one old idea and replace it with a new one.”

This rigidity is on display in the opening chapter as a young woman named Susanna appears late at night on the doorstep of the kindly local priest, Fr. Grebjel. Susanna’s parents have discovered that she is pregnant and they have banished her from their home. Having nowhere else to go, Susanna begs for help from Fr. Grejbel. He invites her in and hears her story – a love affair with a young man who abandoned her as soon as he found out she was pregnant. For her part, Susanna says she really didn’t expect to become pregnant, as she didn’t know what was involved in conceiving a child. She explains, “I had never learnt anything about these things. My mother used to tell me that children come by ship…”.

Fr. Grebjel is the most caring, least judgmental of priests, and he helps Susanna in any way he can throughout the book. He allows her to spend the night in his spare bedroom, attempts to reconcile Susanna and her parents, and finds her a job in a neighboring village. He believes in the power of love to overcome any obstacle, although Susanna frequently tells him that he is naïve and too good for this world.

There are times throughout this book when it seems that everything will turn out well for Susanna, and times when it’s clear that they will not. There are also times when it seems impossible that Fr. Grebjel will be able to continue to minister to people who are scandalized by his inability to be offended by the same things that offend them.

The book did not have the ending I wanted, but I was interested to learn that the author wrote a sequel, Let Fair Weather Bring Me Home. I don’t know whether I’ll read it or not – I’m not sure I could take the disappointment of another sad ending.

COOK

Food was rarely mentioned in Children Come by Ship, but that was just as well since I’d already decided what Maltese dish I was going to make. I found a recipe online for froga tat-tarja, which is basically a pasta omelet. I found a couple of recipes for a vegan version, but they were complicated and had way too many ingredients, so I found a non-vegan recipe on the International Cuisine website and made the necessary substitutions: JUST Egg replaced the egg, and vegan Parmesan replaced the dairy-based Parmesan.

It took a little experimentation to get this recipe just right. The original recipe called for two eggs, which would be six tablespoons of JUST Egg. That wasn’t nearly enough, so I kept adding more until the mixture had the desired consistency. By the time I was done, I had added the entire bottle of JUST Egg, but it was totally worth it. I loved this dish, and will definitely make it again.

GIVE

In keeping with my desire to make donations to projects or organizations focused on climate change, I was delighted to discover that Malta has its own Friends of the Earth nonprofit organization. Among other things, they have been active in opposing “development on Malta’s pristine beaches and countryside.”

According to their website, Friends of the Earth Malta “creates and participates in vibrant campaigns, raises awareness on a number of pertinent national and international issues, and mobilises people to participate in decision making processes.”

Their Facebook page states that Friends of the Earth Malta also “develops creative solutions based on sound knowledge and information and promotes alternatives to environmentally harmful behaviours. The organisation lobbies, mobilises and influences the policy community towards a more just and sustainable society.

 

NEXT STOP: MARSHALL ISLANDS

MALI

 

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The Fortunes of Wangrin, written by Amadou Hampaté Bâ and translated by Aina Pavolini Taylor, tells the story of a hustler and a swindler. As a child in French-controlled Mali in the late nineteenth century, Wangrin attends the so-called school for hostages, a French learning establishment where the goal was to wean African children away from their culture so they would identify instead with the French colonizers. Wangrin uses his education to become an interpreter to the local French Commandant.

Wangrin is never content with his current circumstances, whatever they may be. He begins his career as a teacher, but when he discovers that being the Commandant’s interpreter is a better job, he schemes to take the job from the current interpreter. He then builds a network of informers, and finds ways to enrich himself and those closest to him. And so goes his career. He takes every opportunity to move up the ladder, without regard for anyone who may be harmed by his upward mobility. This tendency earns him some powerful enemies.

His conniving ways often result in legal difficulties for him, but he somehow manages to come through relatively unscathed. He’s also very superstitious, relying heavily on patron-gods, marabouts, geomancers, and other mystics and holy men to look into his future and advise him on how to proceed. Sometimes this works in his favor, and sometimes it doesn’t, especially if he doesn’t do exactly as he’s told.

The Fortunes of Wangrin is also a book about colonialism, and the uneasy relationship between the colonizers and the colonized. When Wangrin first begins working as a teacher, the French Commandant tells him that “… it is our mission to bring happiness to the Black peoples, if need be against their own wishes.” Apparently they mean to do that by substituting the French way of doing things for the Malian way of doing things. Being the trickster that he is, Wangrin is usually able to find a way around the French administrators, although he is not always trusted.

The author, who also attended the school for hostages, based the character of Wangrin on a man he met when he was a child. He used many of the stories told to him by that man to form the basis for this book. As a historian and a folklorist, Bâ was uniquely qualified to turn these oral stories into written literature.

The Fortunes of Wangrin occupies an important role in African literature, both for its portrayal of French colonization and its respect for oral literature. As Bâ himself was fond of saying, “Whenever an old man dies, it is as though a library were burning down.” With The Fortunes of Wangrin, he managed to preserve one such library after an old man’s death.

COOK

The Fortunes of Wangrin didn’t provide me with any inspiration for a Malian culinary creation, so I did an Internet search to see what I could find. There were a few options, but I decided to try the one that sounded most unusual and unlike anything else I’ve cooked for this blog: plantain and coconut stew. The recipe was on the Together Women Rise website, and it was attributed to The Soul of a New Cuisine: A Discovery of the Foods and Flavors of Africa, by Marcus Samuelson. The ingredient list didn’t mention chilies, but the instructions did, so I included one chopped jalapeño pepper.

Gotta say, this wasn’t one of my better culinary efforts. I’m not used to cooking with plantains, for starters, and the vinegar in the stew made it a little too sour. Maybe it will taste better tomorrow, after the flavors have melded, but I’m not holding out much hope.

GIVE

Mali is approximately two-thirds desert, and climate change has resulted in both extreme floods and devastating droughts. This makes it difficult for families to grow food, since they are never sure what the weather will bring, and some crops that grew well previously may not produce as much food now.

Climate change is especially hard on Malian women. According to Foune Coulibaly Wadidie, Minister for Advancement of Women, Children and Family of Mali, women “make up half of the country’s population of 20 million and contribute between 60 to 80 per cent of its food resources. However, climate change severely affects agricultural and related sectors, and economic constraints stemming from cultural norms mean that women’s livelihoods are dependent on the climate.”

I searched the projects at GlobalGiving to see if I could find one that might address this issue. I found a project organized by AGILE-International that would drill two wells for 186 women farmers in Mali. According to the description, this project provides “income-generation opportunities through agriculture, allows rural women to gain access to education, achieve economic autonomy, feed and shelter their families. AGILE will train women to drill wells, maintain them, and manage water resources.” More information about this project is available at: Drill 2 wells for 186 women farmers in Mali - GlobalGiving.

NEXT STOP: MALTA