Book Commentary about Africa
The Poisonwood Bible By Barbara Kingsolver - Set in the Republic of Congo
Our mother went laying out in the spare bedroom all the worldly things she thought we’d need in the Congo just to scrape by. In addition to Betty Crooker cake mixes, Underwood deviled ham… a good pair of scissors, a dozen number-2 pencils, a world of Band-Aids, Absorbine Jr.; and a fever Thermometer. (For the McLeans, Kraft Dinner and Sugar-free gum, and pancake mix were small items).
But no one here stays under a roof. It is in the front yards- all the world’s a stage of hard red dirt under barefoot-where tired thin women in every thinkable state of dress and disrepair poke sticks into their fires and cook. Clumps of children stone throwing outflowing rush upon terrified small goats, scattering them across the road so that the goats may tiptoe back and be chased again. Men sit on buckets and stare at whatever passes by.
The first task was to pull out all the mosquito netting and stitch it into our tents to cover our four identical cots and my parent’s larger one. Malaria is our enemy number one. Every Sunday we swallow quinine tablets so bitter your tongue wants to turn itself inside out like a salted slug. (For the McLeans, this was an extreme worry; however, we have stopped our Malaria medication and may start again once the weather changes to the raining season due to an increased number of mosquitoes).
What the people do is stare at us – especially … as the hair color is blonde like a white rabbit. Everywhere she goes out, whole bunches of little Congo children run after her on the road a-reaching and a-yanking on her long white hair to see if it will come off. Sometimes even the grownups do too. (This has been our experience in terms of younger children staring at our children – the mzungu (white – skin as well as hair color).
Maharagee is a stable food consisting of maize flour, beans and tomatoes. Any other thing a person might eat- a banana, an egg, beans, or a piece of meat – that was just the opposite, and its consumption was seen as a remarkable, possibly uncalled-for-occasion.
But a Congolese life is like the useless Congolese bill, which you can pile by the fistful or the bucketful into a merchant’s hand, and still not purchase a single banana. It’s dawning on me that I live among men and women who’ve simple always understood their whole existence is worth less than a banana to most white people. I see it in their eyes when they glance up at me.
The Congolese are used to it and have developed a thousand shorcuts. They sum up prospects by studying each other’s clothing and disposition, and the bargaining process is well under way before they open their mouths to speak. I have heard foreign visitors complain that the people are greedy, naïve, and inefficient. They have no idea. The Congolese are skilled at survival and perceptive beyond belief.
Over population has deforested three-quarters of Africa, yielding drought, famine, and the probable extinction of all animals most beloved by children and zoos. The competition for resources intensifies. For every life saved by vaccination or food relief, one is lost to starvation or war. Poor Africa. No other continent has endured such an unspeakably bizarre combination of foreign thievery and foreign goodwill.
Our mother went laying out in the spare bedroom all the worldly things she thought we’d need in the Congo just to scrape by. In addition to Betty Crooker cake mixes, Underwood deviled ham… a good pair of scissors, a dozen number-2 pencils, a world of Band-Aids, Absorbine Jr.; and a fever Thermometer. (For the McLeans, Kraft Dinner and Sugar-free gum, and pancake mix were small items).
But no one here stays under a roof. It is in the front yards- all the world’s a stage of hard red dirt under barefoot-where tired thin women in every thinkable state of dress and disrepair poke sticks into their fires and cook. Clumps of children stone throwing outflowing rush upon terrified small goats, scattering them across the road so that the goats may tiptoe back and be chased again. Men sit on buckets and stare at whatever passes by.
The first task was to pull out all the mosquito netting and stitch it into our tents to cover our four identical cots and my parent’s larger one. Malaria is our enemy number one. Every Sunday we swallow quinine tablets so bitter your tongue wants to turn itself inside out like a salted slug. (For the McLeans, this was an extreme worry; however, we have stopped our Malaria medication and may start again once the weather changes to the raining season due to an increased number of mosquitoes).
What the people do is stare at us – especially … as the hair color is blonde like a white rabbit. Everywhere she goes out, whole bunches of little Congo children run after her on the road a-reaching and a-yanking on her long white hair to see if it will come off. Sometimes even the grownups do too. (This has been our experience in terms of younger children staring at our children – the mzungu (white – skin as well as hair color).
Maharagee is a stable food consisting of maize flour, beans and tomatoes. Any other thing a person might eat- a banana, an egg, beans, or a piece of meat – that was just the opposite, and its consumption was seen as a remarkable, possibly uncalled-for-occasion.
But a Congolese life is like the useless Congolese bill, which you can pile by the fistful or the bucketful into a merchant’s hand, and still not purchase a single banana. It’s dawning on me that I live among men and women who’ve simple always understood their whole existence is worth less than a banana to most white people. I see it in their eyes when they glance up at me.
The Congolese are used to it and have developed a thousand shorcuts. They sum up prospects by studying each other’s clothing and disposition, and the bargaining process is well under way before they open their mouths to speak. I have heard foreign visitors complain that the people are greedy, naïve, and inefficient. They have no idea. The Congolese are skilled at survival and perceptive beyond belief.
Over population has deforested three-quarters of Africa, yielding drought, famine, and the probable extinction of all animals most beloved by children and zoos. The competition for resources intensifies. For every life saved by vaccination or food relief, one is lost to starvation or war. Poor Africa. No other continent has endured such an unspeakably bizarre combination of foreign thievery and foreign goodwill.
posted by McLeanstoAfrica | 10:34 PM
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