Ethiopia: Sweetness in the Belly

Sweetness in the Belly

by Camilla Gibb

Ethiopia

It's been a really long time since I've imposed my thoughts on whomever is actually reading this blog.  That does not mean, of course, that I haven't been reading though I admit my pace has slowed considerably in the past few months.  I've been distracted by life.  Our household is about to undergo a major transition as we send our youngest off to college.  I've been on quite a roller coaster ride about this, some days feeling sad and mopey, other days read for the next phase of my life's adventure, and still others just stunned that we've arrived here so quickly.  My girl is so ready for this, and honestly, I've been parenting now for more than 24 years.  And I'm tired.  And ready to focus on myself a little bit.  So while I will miss her, just as I missed my sons when they left home, I'm also looking forward to sitting back a little to watch her fly and to think about what's next for my life.  You can count on more books, and hopefully more blogging, being part of that equation.

I've heard from a few people that my posts have been missed.  I've always said that I write this for myself, but it's been nice to know that others may be deriving some enjoyment out of following along.  So let's get caught up.  I've read 16 books since I last wrote.  Five of the 16 were set in countries outside the United States.  You can follow all of my reading on Goodreads, if that interests you.  I think I actually miss reading the world in alphabetical order, and I may return to that.  If only I could find a good novel set in Bhutan.  I'm really stuck with that one.  Anyone have recommendations?

I read Sweetness in the Belly for my book club and found it to be incredibly timely.  With all that is going on in the world, and in our country, with respect to how we view and treat immigrants, especially those who are of the Islamic faith, this story of an orphaned British girl who grows up in a Muslim shrine in Morocco is very compelling for our time.  We meet Lilly at the end of her adolescence, as she is on a pilgrimage from Morocco to Ethiopia, a predominantly Christian country where tensions with the Muslim community are brewing and bubbling over.  In Ethiopia, Lilly immerses herself in the religion and culture of her faith, but she is white in a country of dark-skinned people, Muslim in a country of Christians, and orphaned in a country that prizes family above all else.  She cannot escape her personal story and is thus caught between cultures and identities, not sure where she fits in, if anywhere at all.

The novel is told in Lilly's own voice from a retrospective vantage point, many years after she left Ethiopia in 1974 to escape Haile Selassi's reign.  Dipping back in time, we experience Lilly's immersion into the holy city of Harar, the way of life of the women who cobble together their livelihood with whatever is available to them, her exposure to those rebelling against the political tides, and her all-encompassing, passionate affair with one of those rebels, a well-educated doctor with whom she knows she can never make a life.  After leaving Ethiopia, she returns to her "home" of England and again faces the dilemma of not feeling that she truly belongs. 

In London, she looks the part but does not feel connected to the world that threatens to subsume her.  In an effort to preserve her religion and the culture to which she feels she belongs, she befriends an Ethiopian immigrant, Amina, and together, they raise Amina's children and search exhaustively for the men they left behind in Ethiopia when they came to England as refugees.  Ultimately, Lilly recognizes that she must decide whether and how to let go of her assumptions and expectations for her life without abandoning the parts of herself most important to her identity.  Lilly's story is an incredible depiction of what it must be like to be a stranger in a strange land, to believe you know who you are but not to be accepted on your own terms, and to face the unimaginable choice of what parts of yourself to compromise.

This was a beautiful, poignant, and thought-provoking novel.