Great books about Africa, Part 1 of 8 million

First, a technical note: I keep promising, and then not delivering, blog posts with pictures. The truth is that my internet connection is s o o o o s l o w and inconsistent that it’s almost physically painful to deal with uploading and then blogging photos. I have a million pictures just waiting to be blogged. Maybe I’ll get to them eventually.

Meanwhile, my friend K in CO asked me a glorious question: what are my favorite books set in Africa? Given my commitment to the Africa Reading Challenge, I’ve been thinking about this a lot. I have two categories in mind: books by Africans and books set in Africa. Of course there’s tremendous overlap, but I will also eventually highlight a few books written by non-Africans but set on the continent.

I should also note that despite my residence in Egypt, my reading has focused on sub-Saharan Africa and especially East Africa, an interest that began before my kids’ adoptions (and really was probably one of the reasons I became interested originally in Ethiopia).

So, here are a few great books set in Africa I read before I began the Africa Reading Challenge (and really these books are on my unofficial life list of best-stuff-I’ve-read):

What Is the What by Dave Eggers. A fictionalized autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng, a former “Lost Boy” of Sudan, now a college student in the US. This book will knock your socks off (right, K?). (And my copy is autographed by Deng! But that was actually after I read it.)

We Wish You to Inform You that Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families: Stories from Rwanda by Philip Gourevitch. Did I say the Eggers book would knock your socks off? Well, this one will knock your shirt off. This non-fiction book inspired the Don Cheadle film Hotel Rwanda (also highly recommended), both of which focus on the Rwandan genocide perpetrated against the minority but historically dominant Tutsi tribe by the Hutus. (And, no, I didn’t know the difference between Tutsis and Hutus before I read the book.) Based on the description, it might be hard to understand on how this book can be so good. But it is.

Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Adichie. Set in Nigeria during the Biafran-Nigerian War (the Nigerian Civil War) of the late 1960s, this novel focuses on the lives of three people, an upper class Igbo/Biafran woman professor; a white British expat who longs to be a true Biafran; and a young Igbo/Biafran man who works as a household servant. The writing is gorgeous and the story engrossing.

And now, a familiar promise: there is more to come.

Tag.

My friend Cindy tagged me, so here’s the post in response to her.

(And before I begin, here are the rules as they were passed to me:
*Post 10 random things about yourself
*Choose 5 people to tag and a reason you chose each person
*Leave them each a comment directing them to your blog so they know they are it
*You can’t tag the person who tagged you (you’ll have to make new friends)
*As a courtesy to the person who tagged you, please let them know when you have posted so they can have the sheer delight and extra work load of reading your answers)

1. I grew up in a house right on a lake. I thought it was really strange when we moved and we had a regular yard and no lake.

2. Sometimes I really love celebrity gossip. I’ve cut back lately.

3. My first real job was in a Hallmark store.

4. I used to be a whitewater kayak instructor. And before that, a raft guide. Because I’m not what you’d call an athletically inclined individual, being a decent paddling instructor pretty much ranks as one of my top life accomplishments.

5. I adore cream soda.

6. My nose is just like my (French Canadian) grandfather’s. And an awful lot like the noses on my dad and uncle.

7. I think almost every dog in the world looks like my old dog, Ms. Underfoot.

8. I lived in the south for a few years before I tried sweet tea, and then only at the behest of a very attractive young man. I tried a sip and thought, “Sweet tea, where have you been all my life?” When I worked at the whitewater company, I went through a couple of years where I sucked down super sweet tea like it was water. The past year or so I’ve been on a diet Coke kick. Very bad. But I’m pretty much off the diet Coke now, since I read this article in the New York Times. I’ve been off the sweet tea for a few years.

9. I’m always full of ideas but very rarely full of the energy required to implement them.

10. A few years ago I was accepted into, and almost began, a doctoral program in English Lit. Not attending turns out to have been an excellent decision.

Now, my tags:

Lulu’s Bay: I’ve just started following this blog of a fellow expat in Cairo, and I suspect Lulu isn’t the kind for this sort of silliness, but I’d be very interested in her responses.

Jenni at the Fugate Family: A great writer and sure to have something interesting to say.

Rock to Wind a String Around: ‘Cause she’s funny.

Lenore stops by a lot. I’d like to know some random things about her.

Cairogal is a new commenter ’round these parts.

Follow me on Twitter

So I’m on Twitter now, as msfour. And my Twitter updates (tweets) are feeding into this blog. If you look to your right, you’ll see a column that says “Ms. Four on Twitter.” Underneath, if Twitter is working, you’ll see my latest mini-updates. You can also see my latest tweets by visiting my profile on Twitter.

I’m on Twitter because often it’s easier to give a mini-update than a whole blog entry. And some things just don’t seem worthy of a whole blog entry. Like the other day, I was delighted to learn that the dry cleaning bill for my heavy wool pants and heavy wool sweater came to 8 LE, less than $2. Hardly worth a whole entry, but something, for whatever reason, I felt compelled to share.

I promise my tweets won’t always be about dry cleaning. And for folks who aren’t familiar with Twitter, take a look. Twittering is almost like a mini-blog with just text. So now you can know what I’m doing even when I’m not blogging.

Egypt internet problems

Apparently much of Egypt’s internet connections run through a cable under the Mediterranean to Italy. And somehow this cable was damaged. I’m amazed I’m even online right now… so here’s a quick update to say I don’t know when I’ll be back–maybe five minutes, maybe five days. This is a hassle for life, but even more so for actual work functions, if you can believe that.

I’ve heard much of the Middle East is offline now. Though of course websites from within the region are fine. I should check the news at Al Jazeera.

So that’s the latest from the land of the broken internets.

Here’s a question for you to mull while I’m gone (and please do comment with your answer):

Would you rather be without internet or without hot water for three days?

Wait, don’t leave!

Yes, you’re in the right place. I’m making a few changes around here, to make the blog a bit easier to read. I’m open to feedback!

Formatting problems

Sorry for this short bit of business, but WordPress seems to have done some upgrades (or maybe it’s because I just did an operating system upgrade), but, in any case, my posts are formatting differently and I’m trying to find an easy solution (ie not adding a break tag at the end of every line). Sorry for the ugliness of the Big Ben post. 

Edited to add: I think I’ve fixed it, at least in the short term.

And now back to our regularly scheduled blog.

Phew. I finished up NaNoWriMo: 50,000 words in (less than) one month. Man did it kick my behind. My poor kids barely recognize me, and Mr. Four was losing patience, too, even though he served as an excellent technical advisor and idea generator.

My novel (and I use that term lightly) is about a young woman who goes to work for an outdoor recreation company soon after college. It’s actually a lot less autobiographical than it might sound to folks who know me. For example, this young woman has red hair. (Har har.)

Right now I’m waiting for the little counting robots to count up my words and declare me a winner. I don’t feel like a winner. Mostly I feel tired. But, I am so glad I did this. I’ve had stories floating around in my head for years, and it’s great to write them, finally. And this is the kind of thing I’d usually start and then bale on, or think about and never do, so, wow, I guess I am proud of myself.

Eleanor Roosevelt said, “You must do the thing you think you cannot do.” Thanks to you Eleanor, and to my Scrabulous partners, who kept me awake late at night, I did what I thought I could not do.

And now I’m going to turn off the computer, go to bed, and sleep.

Slogging towards 16,000

The yellow icon to the right tells you what I’ve been reluctant to share because the idea of writing a novel seems awfully ambitious for a busy working mom in Cairo. (By the way, never before have I thought of myself as “busy working mom in Cairo,” a phrase that evokes, to me, a harried woman in a powersuit with a briefcase and a toddler on the front of some magazine. And maybe there’s a camel in the background.)

But I am writing. For NaNoWriMo, specifically, National Novel Writing Month. It was a whim, really. I learned about it on November 1, the first day of NaNoWriMo. I had recently realized how much time I have to write given all my time on this blog. And I’ve had stories swirling around in my head pretty much for my entire life. And, I’m wordy. So, I registered, not sure if I could stick with it, but determined at least to try.

The goal of NaNoWriMom, and the way you “win,” is to write 50,000 words by midnight, November 30. Not necessarily good words, and not necessarily a refined anything. And certainy not something to publish. But a possible first draft of something. (December is for editing.)

I’m a couple hundred words shy of 16,000 (though the yellow logo might not always be completely up-to-date), and it’s been great. A surprise, really. Slow and steady wins the race, the organizers say, and I’ve just about kept pace by writing approximately 1667 words per day, sometimes a few more, sometimes a few less. I’m staying up way too late most nights.

I won’t share my plot here (and I will say that my dreams of quitting my job for my book tour, culminating with an appearance on Oprah, rank right up there with the dream where Brad Pitt and I take our kids on a play date together. Ahem.).

Mr. Four had a guess. He said, “Does it have to do with kayaking?”

Bingo! And he’s become my technical advisor. He helps with the scenes with the rapids.

I was about to say that I used to have a much more exciting life. But then I realized I’m a busy working mom in Cairo and what could be more exciting than that. So, let me say this: I used to be younger. And that’s kinda fun to write about. (Not that this novel-in-progress in autobiographical! No way.)

Another piece of advice from the NaNoWriMo organizers was to tell people you’re doing it because it’s an extra motivator to finish. So, now you know.

Double tagged: my meme

Whoa, I’ve been double-tagged for a meme, first by Sarah and then by Cindy.

But first, at least one person asked me, so here’s the Wikipedia definition of an internet meme. In blog speak, I’ve seen it used to refer to a list of questions that a blogger answers and then tags another blogger to answer as well.

So here goes:

Job’s I’ve held:
1) Hallmark retail clerk
2) Elementary after school teacher
3) Raft guide
4) College writing instructor

Places I’ve lived:
This one is tough since I’m trying to be vaguely anonymous, and really I’ve only lived in four areas other than Cairo, but here are some generalities in chronological order:
1) New England
2) Upstate New York
3) A College Town in the South
4) The Southern Appalachians

Food I love:
1) Hot fudge sundaes
2) Dark chocolate
3) Guacamole
4) Tea

Places I would rather be:
1) Someplace rainy
2) Someplace green
3) Ethiopia
4) Pretty much I’m happy just where I am, so I don’t have a #4.

Movies I love:
1) Shakespeare in Love
2) Ten Things I Hate About You
3) Like Water for Chocolate
4) Chocolat

TV shows I watch (edited to say: have watched in the past or would watch if I could!):
1) Project Runway
2) Lost (this reveals I am an optimist because it always disappoints me)
3) The Sopranos (we still have to watch the last season, no spoilers please!)
4) Six Feet Under (best show ever)

Friends I am tagging:
1) Marc at the Ferenge Addis Blog
2) Supermom Erin
3) Superduper Ma
4) Dear old friend Robyn

The good news and the embarrassing news.

The good news is that the power cord isn’t broken! And the embarrassing news is that the power cord isn’t broken!

(This reflects, in my opinion, far worse on Mr. Four than on me, but perhaps I am being sexist. Or perhaps I have grown too accustomed to his usual ability to fix just about anything.)

We have a massive transformer/surge protector that we also use as a plug adaptor. Apparently it blew a fuse. Actually, we know it blew a fuse because we replaced the obviously burnt out fuse and the transformer again works. As Mr. Four noted, it did what it was supposed to do: it blew a fuse and protected the computer. Hurray!

We figured all this out because I gave the “broken” adaptor to an Apple technician guy here in Cairo. He called us with the good news. And that’s when we actually looked at the transformer.

I know this probably doesn’t make for very exciting blog reading. So now I’ll take a moment to tell you about the lessons I learned this weekend:

1. I get antsy when I can’t check email, facebook, this blog, etc. And then I feel really lame.
2. My poor kids are better off with a broken computer.

Now we just have to get the actual power cord back from the technician guy, and then this blog should resume its normal programming.