Just kidding, there are no winners. Although I have been asked to share the top five books I've read this year (from July 2009 to July 2010). This proved to be a very difficult choice, as I've read quite a few (see list in side-bar), so I decided to split it into fiction and nonfiction. So in no particular order and without further ado:
Top 5 Nonfiction Books
- Amazing Grace by Jonathan Kozol. Fantastic and incredibly thought provoking. It makes you want to do something, right now, about urban poverty in America. Living in Mali, I live with very poor people (in money, not in spirit). Having volunteered with urban poverty organizations and studied poverty in cities in college, I know it's bad. I would rather live in Mali then be poor in any city in America. People here are poor, but they don't have daily shootouts and drug dealers down the streets. Something needs to be done, I'm not sure what but I'm a fan of people actually being aware of what their actions cause. And environmental justice and non-racist city planning. And social services that actually work.
- The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan. I'm a little late to reading Pollan's books, but they are so well-written and provide thoughtful analyses of our food system. Eat local.
- Madam Secretary by Madeline Albright. Perfect book for someone who gets geeked out by foreign policy and politics. Very long, but I could have read more.
- Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond. Epic book. I've tried to read it four times, and finally succeeded in Mali.
- America's Women by Gail Collins. Such a fun book! I love the stories of the many different women she shares in this history of America.
Top 5 Fiction Books
- Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver. I love Kingsolver, and have read all of her books except for the newest one since I came to Mali. This is one of my favorites. Great story that weaves in the importance of the environment and ecology with the power of family.
- Persuasion by Jane Austen. Pride & Prejudice is actually my favorite Austen, but I felt the need to put up something I hadn't read before Mali. Love her.
- The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway. I didn't like Hemingway before I read this book. Now he is one of my favorites.
- Catch-22 by Joseph Heller. Laugh out loud funny. I was reading this in my compound and kept on getting weird glances from my neighbors because I kept on laughing.
- A Passage to India by E.M. Forster. Great book about colonialism in India.
Thursday, October 21, 2010
I'm Back!
Well, after a wonderful and much too short break in America, I am back in Mali! First of all, thank you to the so many people who made my stay in America so fabulous. I loved being home with family and seeing the friends who made the time to visit. And of course, Sam and Nate's wedding was absolutely wonderful! It was great to catch up with friends and spend time with family. THANK YOU!
Now, to Mali: The first couple weeks back in country are always rough. It's really hot, there's no good food, massive caffeine headaches keep on happening, and family and friends are thousands of miles away. Ugh, you think. Why I am here? And then you wait. You sit and sweat through hot afternoons. You try to read War and Peace, and end up reading People instead. You venture out and fumble your way through remembering Fulfulde. And it's absolutely horrible for about a day. And then you see your peeps in village, and it all comes back. Drinking tea, shooting the breeze, shooing children away, speaking Fulfulde, and laughing a lot. Emphasis on a lot. You fall back into the routine, and everything seems to be okay. At least until that unlucky nth person of the day asks you for money. Then it's all over, everyone duck and cover. ;)
All the women in my village have been badgering me for a while now about doing another project: digging another well in the garden and getting a pump installed in both the new well and the well we already have. Another well in the garden is really important because having only one well makes it very difficult to water an entire hectare of vegetables. Children as young as five stay home from school in order to help pull the water and carry it across the garden in order to keep their family's plot alive. This can take up to four hours a day, two hours in the morning and two in the evening. The pumps would help alleviate this problem as well, as it would take a lot of the back-breaking labor out of watering the garden. This project is still in the early stages, but I hope it comes to fruition during my service.
I tried helping to water one evening, and they gave me a small child-size bucket. It was hard work! I was struggling carrying my one teensy-tiny bucket across the garden, while thirteen-year-old girls beside me were carrying buckets three times the size of mine on their heads. If nothing else, at least I provide comic relief.
I've established a new inside joke with my host family, which cracks me up every single time. Every night by five-year-old little host brother, Ngara, comes into the compound and pretends to be absolutely exhausted by falling onto our mat. I ask him a question about America, like, 'Is there millet in America?' And he says, 'Oh, I was there today. I did not see any millet.' I then ask him if he say my family, and he responds yes. He has named my mom Fatomata and my dad Hamadoun, after himself (Ngara is a nickname for Hamadoun). This charade continues on through the rest of dinner until I leave. I always tell him to greet my family the next day when he goes to America. We have quite a lot of fun with it, and he enjoys being the new 'America expert' in the family.
Now, to Mali: The first couple weeks back in country are always rough. It's really hot, there's no good food, massive caffeine headaches keep on happening, and family and friends are thousands of miles away. Ugh, you think. Why I am here? And then you wait. You sit and sweat through hot afternoons. You try to read War and Peace, and end up reading People instead. You venture out and fumble your way through remembering Fulfulde. And it's absolutely horrible for about a day. And then you see your peeps in village, and it all comes back. Drinking tea, shooting the breeze, shooing children away, speaking Fulfulde, and laughing a lot. Emphasis on a lot. You fall back into the routine, and everything seems to be okay. At least until that unlucky nth person of the day asks you for money. Then it's all over, everyone duck and cover. ;)
All the women in my village have been badgering me for a while now about doing another project: digging another well in the garden and getting a pump installed in both the new well and the well we already have. Another well in the garden is really important because having only one well makes it very difficult to water an entire hectare of vegetables. Children as young as five stay home from school in order to help pull the water and carry it across the garden in order to keep their family's plot alive. This can take up to four hours a day, two hours in the morning and two in the evening. The pumps would help alleviate this problem as well, as it would take a lot of the back-breaking labor out of watering the garden. This project is still in the early stages, but I hope it comes to fruition during my service.
I tried helping to water one evening, and they gave me a small child-size bucket. It was hard work! I was struggling carrying my one teensy-tiny bucket across the garden, while thirteen-year-old girls beside me were carrying buckets three times the size of mine on their heads. If nothing else, at least I provide comic relief.
I've established a new inside joke with my host family, which cracks me up every single time. Every night by five-year-old little host brother, Ngara, comes into the compound and pretends to be absolutely exhausted by falling onto our mat. I ask him a question about America, like, 'Is there millet in America?' And he says, 'Oh, I was there today. I did not see any millet.' I then ask him if he say my family, and he responds yes. He has named my mom Fatomata and my dad Hamadoun, after himself (Ngara is a nickname for Hamadoun). This charade continues on through the rest of dinner until I leave. I always tell him to greet my family the next day when he goes to America. We have quite a lot of fun with it, and he enjoys being the new 'America expert' in the family.
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