Reading in Rwanda

RA2 really does love her alliterative little blog titles, and apologizes to all who, justly, find this habit immensely irritating.

Deprived (sometimes quite happily) of movie theaters, TV, general mindless consumerism, and most entertainment, really, besides each other, 600RWF Primus, and Ian’s Guitar-Playing Remera Bar Sing-Alongs, the volunteers generally and the RAs in particular have spent a great deal of time reading. Books are prohibitively expensive here, so we have traded two dozen or so between us all. Below is our Rwandan Reading Review. At least one RA read every book on this list, but in general, what with the trading and the time to kill, we both read almost all of them.

Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie

Rushdie’s grasp of the English language is, to understate the matter, exceptional. Take as an example this line, not even from the book itself, but from the introduction to the 25th anniversary edition: "then all at once I understood that there was no contest, that Children of Midnight was a banal title and Midnight's Children a good one." The book follows a group of children born at the midnight hour of the independent state of India’s birth, endowed by their magical nation with a special set of widely varying powers, talents and traits. The narrator writes the book while rapidly falling apart, physically and emotionally, and the book itself follows the same pace as his deterioration, beginning strong and slow, ending quickly and frantically, spiraling all the while and taking the reader with it.

Say You’re One of Them by Uwem Akpan

This collection of short stories explores various conflicts in different African countries through the eyes of children living through them. They include a brother and sister unaware they are being prepared by their uncle for a life of slavery, a Muslim boy fleeing with Christians from conflict and two girls finding a friendship around religious strife. The title piece, “Say You’re One of Them”, is about a family of Hutus and Tutsis being brutally ripped apart by the Rwandan genocide. It does an excellent job giving at least an idea of this country’s pain and was, to say the least, particularly poignant to read while here.

A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson

RA2's mother sent this in a care package after she mentioned a weird desire to read it that came to her upon her arrival. There must have been something to it, because reading the author's account of his months spent hiking the Appalachian Trail with his ill-equipped childhood friend were strangely reminiscent of our time in Kigali. Like the RAs, Bryson traversed an unknown landscape for the sake of adventure that he came to feel, at long last, a certain mastery of, which he retains a clear fondness for, and which he would very much like to return to, and probably will throughout his life. Like Kigali, the AT had its own language to be learned and geography to be navigated. Like the RAs, Bryson spent a lot of time dreaming of Oreos and a long, hot shower, as well as sleeping on weirdly uncomfortable surfaces. The book is wickedly funny throughout and has made RA2 draw up plans for hiking when she gets home, because God forbid she spend any time in one place.

Avalon by (apologies - RA2 cannot find the author online and needs to just post this already, as she has been drafting it for what seems like eternity)

A very nice, interesting break from our usual reading material (thanks Mama Stipp!), the book follows two people who can’t get their act together through court intrigue from Britain to Iceland in the 16th century.

The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

Being in Rwanda gave interesting perspective to this story about the African-American experience in a rural Ohio town. It is painfully sad and simply told, following two young sisters as they watch their friend undergo experiences they cannot begin to comprehend. It depicts endless internalized racism and self-hatred, something everyone who works with children, as we have done here, is concerned about.

Baking Cakes in Kigali by Gaile Parkin

More than anything else RA2 has ever read, this book captures the feeling, the daily idiosyncracies and the intimate ins-and-outs of life in Kigali. Written by a woman born and raised in Zambia, it holds the flavor of life in Rwanda in a way a book about the country's history never could - partially because Rwanda is, in every sense, a startlingly young nation. Angel, a "professional somebody", cake-maker, grandmother and amateur matchmaker, meets a series of customers and reveals intimate details of Rwandan life as she learns their stories. This book covered some of the most fascinatingly mundane aspects of the culture here, including most countries' tendency to claim that AIDS is everywhere except within their borders, the population's deep belief in voodoo and witch doctors despite their devout Christianity, the common occurence of men taking two wives and what that means for Rwandan women, and the way genocide survivors live in a country that took their families.

The End of Mr. Y by Scarlett Thomas

Our fellow volunteer Ian traded this to RA2, jailhouse style, for a pack of cigarettes and information about the outside (probably not true). A book-within-a-book, the not terribly strong plot becomes completely brilliant when the author uses the story as an opportunity to explore a series of odd, scientific, meta-physical ideas that one gets the idea had been kicking around in her head for awhile, looking for any flimsy opportunity to be expressed. At least half of the book was fascinating enough to be worth reading the whole thing.

What is the What by Dave Eggers

Thank you Emily Mowery! This was RA1's Christmas present and it was truly an amazing read. It tells the story of Achak Deng, one of the "Lost Boys" in the Sudan's civil war, almost entirely as he related it to novelist Dace Eggers. The two men depict Deng's life from IDP camps to barely-legal immigrant in the United States with heartbreaking honesty, and the tragedies contained bring the story of a refugee in to crystal clear perspective.

You've Come a Long Way, Maybe by Leslie Sanchez

A personal gift from the author to RA1, the book looks at the somewhat disparate question of what the media's sexism towards Sarah Palin, Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama means for women in politics. It was nice to bring a piece of DC with us to the bush.

It by Stephen King

As RA2 wrote home to her loved ones, this book found its way into her possession at a perfect time, in a perfect way, with the usual ka of all things King-related. As we mentioned, books are rare and expensive here. On our way to Gisinye for the last week we would spend there, we stopped at Nakumat (Rwandan Walmart, ish) and she wandered away to gaze longingly at the books, most of which were slim "beach book" romantic-comedy paperbacks costing an average of 30 unjustifiable USD. On that particular day, though, she noticed a stack of Stephen King books. The only one she hadn't read but wanted to was It. She checked; they had it. As it was the length of a Bible, she knew she couldn't afford it, but she flipped it over anyway. At 9USD, it was the cheapest book there, and probably cheaper than she could even buy it used at home. She purchased it IMMEDIATELY. When we arrived at Gisinye we were not led to our usual room attached to the dining hall building, or to one of the rooms on the main building, or even to one of the buildings a stone's throw from the other two. Instead, we were led down a volcanic-rock lined path (unlit, naturally) down 4 steps that probably led directly to an as-yet-unknown circle of hell (Dante never visited Africa, that we know of) and to a virtually abandoned set of rooms from which we could not see the main set of buildings, nor could anyone see us. Nor, for that matter, would anyone hear us if we screamed as we were being hacked to pieces in the night - and did we mention we were in a technology-free northern Rwandan town bordering the Congo? it was the perfect setting to read one of the most terrifying books ever written about childhood nightmares and things that live in sewers, drains, basements and dark places. When RA2 did manage to sleep that week, she was afraid to put any appendage over the side of the bed, and kept imagining she saw faces in the window. THIS EXPERIENCE COMES HIGHLY RECOMMENDED, JUST FYI.

The #1 Ladies Detective Agency by Alex McCall

In reviews, this book draws frequent comparisons to the aforementioned Baking Cakes in Kigali, leading one to wonder if reviewers bothered to actually read the two books. While both books take place in African countries (Ladies is set in Botswana) and feature female main characters who learn about their customers' lives through their work, Ladies is by far the sharper, more interesting and better written of the two. While Baking Cakes is, ultimately, about Rwanda, Ladies is about a strong, fascinating, independent woman and her extremely interesting neighbors, and happens to be set in Botswana. Also, Ladies is now an awesome show on HBO, which the RAs love (Baking Cakes has yet to achieve this fame), thus proving once and for all its superiority. Baking Cakes is an excellent book in its own right, but if idiotic people insist on comparing the two, no one shall call them equal, the end. Richard, thank you for the loan!

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey

This book about crazy people and a man slowly driving himself insane seemingly for the fun of it is written in such a way that reading it feels in and of itself slightly schizophrenic.

Flapper by Joshua Zeitz

We ended up reading a surprising amount of non-fiction here, and this was a great example of a fascinatingly rendered, historically accurate account. Using the Fitzgeralds as an anchor, the book traces the music, theater, literature and movies, as well as the more prominent personalities, that were touchstones of the jazz age. The direct-source quotes from writers like Fitgerald's (increasingly insane) wife Zelda and Lois Long are particularly interesting and often encompass whole pages.

In the Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz by Michela Wrong

Drawing occasionally from the themes and and passages of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness and written by a journalist who actually lived in Congo while the AFDL was moving in to liberate the country from an ailing Mobutu, this book was a strangely eerie one to read while living in Rwanda. It is one of the best examples of the frequent attempts by visitors to Africa to encapsulate and render widely relevant their time on this continent. Wrong traces Mobutu's corrupt history, her personal experiences during the changeover, the history of colonization and its impact on the independent state of Zaire's psyche, and the West's gigantic and hugely whitewashed responsibility for Mobutu's reign and the economic fall-out, while managing to tie the narrative together - no small feat for a book that seems determined to do a lot in 300 pages. Some of the book is based on her interviews with infamous Zairean players, including one of Mobutu's sons. Her observations are pointed and her prose is excellent. It was cool and strange to recognize places she named as places we ourselves had been, to realize the enormous and awful history that had been under our feet, and to get a clearer sense of Rwanda's and the genocide's part in undoing the already unstable country.RA2 has never been particularly interested in Africa's history outside of Rwanda, but recognizing now that the borders between countries are a product of very recent colonization and based on arbitrary interests in minerals and resources, she would very much like to read every book like this that she can get her hands on when she returns home. Richard, thank you for the loan!

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon

Recommended by Dad (Mr. Soligan), this was one of RA2’s favorite books of the trip – one of her favorite books, really, of all time. Set during the Golden Age of comics, the story follows two cousins, one a native New Yorker, one barely escaped from Nazi-occupied eastern Europe, as they create one of the biggest super heroes in comic book history. Engaging, funny, and brilliantly sharp, this book will break your heart in astoundingly creative ways roughly every dozen pages.

and

The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon

After hearing how much the Manolos enjoyed Kavalier and Clay, Papa Soli sent this one along in a care package with the caveat that, "like Kavalier, this may require a certain Jewish sensibility to enjoy." He then pointed out that the time the book spent on the NYT best-sellers list just went to show how many Jewish readers buy books (or, yes, also, how many Jews live in NYC). Based on the never-realized concept of a Jewish settlement in Sitka, Alaska, the book takes place in a world in which Israel never survived the 6-day war. A crime story that takes place in 2008 but recalls hard-bitten detective stories of the 1920's, the books best thread (of many) is the realistic yet gorgeous love story. When the narrator describes his ex-wife as a Jewish woman who lives out of her handbag, the kind of woman who will be the continuation of the race and religion, you know just which woman he means, and just why he'll never stop loving her.