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

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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

KUWAIT

READ

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

READ

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

KENYA

 

READ

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