Cambodia: The Disappeared

The Disappeared

by Kim Echlin

I'm writing this from my hotel room in Sardinia, an incredibly lush and beautiful island off the western coast of Italy in the Mediterranean Sea.  Apparently, this is where many European elite take their holidays.  The beauty is all around ... the sea is alternately deep royal blue and turquoise, majestic hills of rock stretch against a cerulean sky, bright purple flowers crawl up the sides of every building.  You cannot help but feel pampered and special here, whether or not you've actually done something to deserve it.  We are here for a business trip with my husband's employer, and I feel lucky to be riding on the coat tails of good fortune as I soak up this lovely space and the opportunity to relax, laugh, play. 

More than once, I have wondered ... what did I do to deserve this experience, and more broadly, this life that allows me to have good things, see the world, enjoy my days, and think about what I want as often as about what I need ... when so many others do not have even a carefree moment unencumbered by worry and fear?  I know the answer.  Nothing.  I have done nothing to earn this other than to be born in a certain country at a certain time to certain parents who had hopes and dreams for me that they were lucky enough to be able to pursue on my behalf.  But I am no more deserving than any other human being from any other place in the world ... the refugees fleeing war-torn countries, the migrants risking everything to cross the border, the mothers and fathers who selflessly do whatever they must to protect their children so they may have a chance to earn enough money to feed, clothe, and educate them.  Or those who don't leave their countries but remain there and struggle each day to survive.  Any one of us could easily be walking in their shoes if not for events that have nothing to do with how good or deserving we are.  I am humbled and grateful and perplexed.

Kim Echlin's mesmerizing novel, The Disappeared, depicts the stark contrast between a life lived comfortably and a life lived with nothing but uncertainty.  The story  begins in Montreal, Canada with hazy scenes in smoky bars, where 17-year old Anne falls in love with Serey, an older college student from mysterious, far away Cambodia.  Despite her father's quiet but persistent objections, Anne and Serey spend all of their time together, mostly alone, trying to plan a future together.  But Serey is not free to fully contemplate the future.  His mind and heart are in Cambodia, which, under the dictatorship of Pol Pot, had closed its borders and shut out all communication with the outside world just months after Serey arrived in Canada on a student visa.  Serey has heard nothing from or about his family in several years.  His suffering and guilt are tangible.  Anne knows this but cannot fathom the power these feelings hold over Serey until suddenly the border reopens, and he disappears into Cambodia, determined to find his family.

Twenty years later, Anne has failed to truly move on, and when she thinks she sees Serey on televised coverage of protests in Cambodia, she gives up her easy, comfortable life and goes in search of him.  With little to go on, she arrives in Phnom Penh and miraculously, finds him in yet another smoky bar, much like the one in Canada where their love story began.  Their passion rekindled, Anne settles into a life in Cambodia, one that is in sharp contrast to the comforts and ease she had known at home.  Not deterred in the slightest, however, Anne is simply happy that they are together and accepts without question the little mysteries surrounding Serey's work, where he spends his time, and what his life was like before their reunion.  Eventually, through her friendship with an American journalist, she begins to understand what happened in Cambodia, both during Serey's time in Canada and since his return.  As she gains insight about Cambodia's political strife and its people's suffering, she also becomes aware that the life she has built with Serey may not be as simple as she imagined. 

This is a love story about a man and a woman, a man and his family, a man and his country, and ultimately, humankind and the dream of a good, safe life that does not cost more than one actually has to offer.  It is a long and beautiful elegy for what has been lost and can never be regained.  And it will remind you to be grateful for everything.

Burundi: The True Sources of the Nile

The True Sources of the Nile

by Sarah Stone

I don't often read books more than once, but this one I have now read three times.  Most recently to include it as my selection for Burundi.  I first read it not long after returning from my first overseas assignment with the Foreign Service.  I recall greedily devouring the aspects of the story that resonated with my own experiences ... especially the feeling of being energized and alive by the challenges of living in a developing nation, then overwhelmed and dismayed by the ease and abundance of life back home in the United States.  This is something not easily understood by anyone without a similar life experience.  That first foray into a U.S. grocery store is complete sensory overload ... row after row of bright, colorful produce; dozens of freezer cases with frozen, fully-cooked convenience meals; anything you want whether it's in season or out of season; 25 different kinds of toothpaste instead of the two or maybe three that were available where you'd just come from.  The excess, not previously even noticed, was shocking and unappealing for a long time after re-entry.

The second time I read it, I had been back home for a while, and the reading was poignant and bittersweet.  It made me wish to be overseas again, to be among those with sharply different lifestyles and to be keenly aware of things we often take easily for granted in the United States.  This recent time, the third reading, my Foreign Service years are pretty far back in the rearview mirror, and perhaps it is only now that I have actually absorbed the plot of this remarkable story. 

Anne, our protagonist, is an American who goes to Burundi during a peaceful time, first to work on public health and later, on human rights.  She is aware of the great divide between the rich and poor, the long history of violence and resentment between the Hutu and Tutsi tribes, and the significance of that particular moment in Burundi's politics, when democracy was bubbling up with fair elections that resulted in a Tutsi coming to power for the first time.  There is much she does not know, however, about the real implications of these things.  She naively falls deeply in love with Jean-Pierre, a Burundian government employee who does something with the Ministry of the Interior, ... something he never defines and about which she never inquires.  Their romance is intense and passionate, and Anne is prepared to fully embrace Burundian society and culture in order to marry and stay with Jean-Pierre.  Just as Jean-Pierre overcomes his hesitation about announcing their plans to his very traditional family, the unimaginable happens and nothing can be the same again.  Anne is returning from a work trip to a remote area in Burundi's countryside, and finds herself in the aftermath of the Hutus' brutal massacre of Tutsis through the country.  Fearing for their own lives, she and her co-workers race through village after village, witnessing the horrors of what is later characterized as a genocide, not understanding and not able to help anyone.  A brief few days later, Anne is whisked to safety by the U.S. Embassy, returning home to her family in California to process the trauma and the guilt of surviving such horror. 

Jean-Pierre comes later, but he is deeply changed.  He has lost many family members and is despondent, grieving, and unfocused.  Anne, too, is deeply changed.  Struggling to settle back into ordinary life near her family and with the comforts and safety that the American suburbs provide, she nonetheless cannot fathom returning to Burundi and wants him to stay with her in California.  But Jean-Pierre feels more responsible and committed to his country than ever before.  As they work to resolve this question of geography, Anne learns that Jean-Pierre has many secrets ... about his work, his past, and most importantly, his ideological beliefs about his country and the great divide between the Burundian people.  The True Sources of the Nile is about our human inability to truly escape where we come from and our equally human tendencies to seek the safety and comfort of home, no matter how good or less good we may assess home to be in other moment of our lives.  

Bulgaria: The Shadow Land

The Shadow Land
by Elizabeth Kostova

Bulgaria is the only former Soviet Republic country that I've visited.  I can't honestly say that I truly experienced the country since I was traveling for work, mostly saw the inside of government buildings, and did not venture outside of the capital of Sofia.  I did, however, meet some wonderful people, dine in some excellent restaurants, and enjoy drinking rakiya, which is Bulgaria's signature alcoholic beverage ... a very potent one, so be cautious if you decide to partake! 

What I loved about this novel was it's theme of the motherland and the characters' passion for their beloved country, which had been terribly abused by the Germans during World War II and subsequently the Russians.  The author, Elizabeth Kostova is American but very immersed in Bulgaria, primarily through her marriage to a Bulgarian but also through her work as co-founder of the Elizabeth Kostova Foundation.  According to her website, the Foundation "provides competitive opportunities for Bulgarian writers and translators, as well as opportunities for native-English writers to travel to Bulgaria."  How cool is that??? 

The Shadow Land is exactly the kind of story I wanted to explore, country by country, when I set out to write this blog ... stories about Americans who find themselves in a new place, a new culture, surrounded by new people, and about how they are ultimately shaped and changed by those experiences. In Kostova's novel, we explore Bulgaria through the eyes of Alexandra, a young American woman who has just arrived in Sofia, and before she even checks into a hotel, finds herself accidentally in possession of the cremated remains of a stranger.  Determined to return the ashes to the grieving family, she befriends a local taxi driver, Bobby, and together they set out to solve the mystery of the ashes, which are only identified by the name Stoyan Lazarov inscribed on the urn.  As Alexandra and Bobby string together bits of information, they travel across Bulgaria and learn not only about Lazarov's family and personal life, but also about the dark secrets of Bulgaria's history while under Russian rule.  As they uncover more details about Lazarov's traumatic past, the novel's historical intrigue merges with the present when a powerful political figure tries to stop them from discovering the truth.

In the backdrop are multiple poignant themes of loss and regret.  Alexandra has come to Bulgaria as a way to honor her brother, who disappeared years before after a family argument, never to be heard from again or found.  His unexplained, somewhat random fascination with Bulgaria drew Alexandra there ... externally, to teach English, but internally, to try to feel a connection to her brother and to reconcile his painful absence from her life.  In parallel, Bobby stoically grieves his own losses ... of family, of his career, and most importantly, of his idealistic hopes for what his country might become as it emerges from Communism.  And of course, there is the more obvious loss of Lazarov's life, which we learn had happened not in one final moment, but rather slowly, for decades, as a result of the ugly power struggle and violence within Bulgaria during and after the war.

Having lived overseas and traveled extensively outside of the United States, I have always felt inspired and moved by the shared human trait of passion for a geographical place.  For some, like Lazarov and Bobby, it is where you were born.  For others, like Kostova and ultimately Alexandra, it is a place to which you are inexplicably drawn and where you may find a sense of belonging that you'd never experienced before.  This concept resonates throughout this novel, which I thoroughly enjoyed and heartily recommend.

Burkina Faso: Proverbs and Tales

Proverbs and Tales from Burkina Faso

by Luc Zio

Oh, Burkina Faso ... there just isn't much literature to work with.  I checked out so many lists and did so many Google searches, to little avail.  One list included a novel called Henderson's Spear, which I bought and started to read, but quickly realized that it was set in Tahiti and in England.  I'm not entirely sure why it was on a Burkina Faso list or whether there actually a Burkinabe component.  I did not finish the book.  Then I found one called Exchange is Not Robbery: More Stories of an African Bar Girl, which looked really intriguing but ... get this ... would cost more than $30 to purchase, even on the Kindle version.  Give me a break.  I moved on.  Or at least tried to.  I considered The Parachute Drop, which seems to have been popular among other literary circumnavigators, but thought maybe I'd try something different in order to put a little variety out there into the blog world.

Enter Proverbs and Tales from Burkina Faso, by Luc Zio.  By this point, I had realized that I inadvertently skipped over Bulgaria, a country for which I have already selected a book ... that is enticingly waiting for me on my shelf!  But I'd spent so much time on Burkina Faso, I decided to press on and worry later about my apparent problem with alphabetical order.

I thought this slim little volume would give me a glimpse of Burkinabe life.  The introduction was satisfying in that regard in that it discusses the importance of recording these bits of wisdom that primarily reside in the minds of village elders.  It goes on to discuss how in the rural parts of Burkina Faso, children grow up hearing these stories and develop, as they grow and mature, an innate sense of what these proverbs mean and when or where to use them.  There is a lovely, sort of stereotypical description of Burkinabe families, with people of all ages, gathered around an outdoor fire, sharing these stories as a way to preserve their culture and explain their lives.  The author laments that, by contrast, the children growing up in cities do not have access to these experiences and that this lack makes them less mature.  Interesting perspective.

Following the introduction, there is a little collection of proverbs that features the proverb itself, followed by an explanation of what it means.  Most of them make good sense and aren't especially difficult to understand.  Here is my favorite:

                                         Life is like a chicken butt; sometimes it drops eggs and 

                                         sometimes it makes some droppings.

                                        What does it mean?  It means that life has ups and downs; 

                                        sometimes things are good and sometimes they aren't so good.

You gotta admit, that's pretty darn funny!  Another favorite, more serious this time:

                                        A woman's mouth is her quiver.

                                       What does it mean?  In Burkina Faso, it is believed that while 

                                       men fight with fists, guns, and knives, women use their mouths 

                                       as a weapon to fight back and defend themselves.  Sometimes 

                                       words can be more powerful than actions.

The last section of the book are the tales ... little stories featuring animals explain some aspect of the world, much like myths did for the Greeks and the Romans.  The story of The Hyena and the Goat, for example, explains why goats don't have tails ... it's because a naughty little goat once disobeyed his parents and went for a walk in the woods alone, only to be chased home by a hyena that bit off his tail just as the little goat reached the safety of home.  Then there's the story of The Blind Old Man ... which tells how a blind man's youngest child helped him to regain his sight by bribing a sparrow-hawk though the offering of a chicken.  At the end of the story, we learn that this is why sparrow-hawks like to hunt chicken and, most importantly, why the youngest child is always the most loved in the family.

In the end, this was an amusing little foray into Burkina Faso's old culture.  I usually love books set in Africa so am sorry to have missed a chance to have a more modern glimpse of real life in this tiny West African country ... but I'm equally glad to have expanded my horizons by spending a little time with this unusual genre.  

Brunei: Written in Black

 

 

Written in Black

by K.H. Lim

 

 

 

Since there's not too much out there that's set in Brunei, so it's no wonder that my new blogger friend and I chose the same book for this tiny little country that is situated on the island of Borneo, surrounded by the South China Sea on one side and by Malaysia on all other sides.  Written in Black is about a small boy, Jonathan, who is adrift in the chaos of his family's dysfunction, left too often to his own devices as he struggles to understand why his mother has left, his eldest brother has run away, and his father has disengaged.  When his grandfather dies and the family gathers, Jonathan and his needs are only further pushed aside.  After learning that his cousin has been in touch with the elder brother, who in turn is in regular contact with their mother ... Jonathan decides to take matters into his own hands.  He hides in the back of the coffin delivery truck, and sets out to solve the problem of his missing family members.

 

What struck me most about this story was both how heartbreakingly alone Jonathan felt among the people who were supposed to love him best.  Desperately missing his mother and not understanding what happened to cause her to leave, he is devastated to learn she calls when he's not at home and that he is the only one who hasn't been able to talk to her.  As children often do, he internalizes this in a very personal way, and it was difficult to read his pain, which the author conveyed very clearly.

 

The novel was somewhat entertaining but not really worthy of high marks.  Jonathan's journey is billed as a coming of age tale, a label that fits in how the novel is structured ... more internal dialogue than action.  The fact that Jonathan is reading Huckleberry Finn as the story gets underway serves as a little foreshadowing.  Overall, I have to say I didn't get what I'd hoped for from the book ... no real insight about Brunei or even about Jonathan himself.  Another episode in the Few Books Set In Small Countries drama ...

 

 



Botswana: White Dog Fell from the Sky

 

White Dog Fell from the Sky

by Eleanor Morse

 

 

 

 



So I had a really rough day today.  I'm feeling overloaded at work and disorganized in how I'm working, which of course makes the overload worse.  I'm also feeling pulled in too many directions.  My kids are all young adults and fairly independent, but it's summer and they are around a lot ... and I want to see them and spend time with them ... but see my previous comment about overload.  It's hard to focus on one thing for any extended period of time, and as the day goes on, I can feel my stress ... and blood pressure ... creeping up and up.  On days like this, I am so grateful to escape into the world of books.  Not just the one that I'm reading, but the whole darn world of them.

I soothed myself this evening with a good hour surfing Goodreads and Amazon, thinking about what's coming up soon in my literary trip around the world.  I wrapped up with ordering three new books ... for Bulgaria, Cameroon, and Canada!  Oh, and I sent my very nice son David out to bring home ice cream for dinner.  Feeling much better now!

But let's get back to the line-up ... Botswana!  I read White Dog Fell from the Sky, by Eleanor Morse.  I can't recall where I picked this up, but it's been on my shelf for a while now, just waiting for Botswana to get to the top of the list.  When the time came, I picked it up, read ten pages, and put it back down.  In the opening scene, there was a coffin, a desperate man escaping from something, and a mysterious white dog that appeared out of nowhere and began to follow our protagonist everywhere he went.  I thought, at first, that White Dog was a spirit of some kind, and I didn't think I was going to like the story line.  Thank goodness I picked it back up because this was seriously an outstanding story, well written and engaging, and so compelling in how it addressed apartheid, isolation, and escape.  No spirits were involved.  Just genuine human beings, flawed and frantic to make the best life possible, crossing all kinds of border and boundaries in the name of friendship and decency.  The dog was just a plain old white dog ... symbolic perhaps of the unexplainable connection and loyalty that sometimes grows between two beings and becomes something we cannot imagine being without. 

In the middle of apartheid South Africa, a young black medical student, Isaac, flees for his life, crossing the border (in an empty coffin) into Botswana, where he knows only one person and has nothing but the clothes on his back.  His friend, Amen, also left South Africa to escape the racial violence that plagued the country.  Unlike Amen, who channeled his anger into joining a revolutionary organization, Isaac wanted only peace and the opportunity to make a living.  He meets Alice, a lonely American woman who came to Botswana because of her husband's job, and he becomes her gardener despite not knowing the first thing about growing plants and flowers.  While trying to create a space of beauty and serenity outside of Alice's home, Isaac is in tune with what is happening inside the home ... namely that there is discord and unhappiness and the two rarely both spend the same night in the house.  Both Isaac and Alice are trying to identify and understand themselves during a time when nothing around them makes sense.  Dealing with painful things, like exile or marital strife, are made so much worse by the loss of everything familiar and known.

 

When Alice sets off on a business trip into Botswana's countryside, she leaves Isaac in charge of the house.  When she returns, she find the house empty, Isaac missing, and White Dog alone and starving.  During the few weeks Alice was gone, she had experienced a whirlwind romance and dashed hopes when tragedy struck unexpectedly.  Stinging from her own loss, she nonetheless endeavors to find out what happened to Isaac, who meanwhile, has found himself dealing with the aftermath of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

 

This is a brilliant novel about immigration, identity, second chances, and compassion.  It's about the human response to great love, great disappointment, and great turmoil.  I'm so glad I didn't give up on this one!

Next up for the blog is Brunei.  You may wonder about what happened to Brazil!  Well, back in 2016, when I was going out of order for a while, I read Snow Hunters by Paul Yoon, set in Brazil.  It was an okay story, but I didn't love the book so I thought about trying another book set in Brazil and picked up Ways to Disappear by Idra Novey.  Totally not my cup of tea ... so in the spirit of "so many books, so little time," I ditched it, gave myself credit for Brazil, and am moving on to the tiny country of Brunei. 



Bolivia: When Invisible Children Sing

When Invisible Children Sing

by Chi Cheng Huang

When I lived in the City of Falls Church in Virginia, the small town holiday parades always featured Bolivian dancers and musicians that filled the air with the festive sound of stomping feet, clapping hands, bells, whistles, and blaring folk music.  You couldn’t help but wish you could join the celebration.   It was a fine example of our immigrant neighbors bringing one element of their rich culture to their new home in the United States, offering it up to share with anyone who was interested and the least bit curious.  It also fueled my continued interest in Bolivia, which began back in 2003 when I first joined the Foreign Service and listed Bolivia’s capital, LaPaz, and my top choice of places I hoped to be assigned as a first-tour officer.  We ended up going to the Dominican Republic, which we loved, but I’ve remained interested in South America’s mountainous, land-locked Bolivia.  I hope I can visit someday.

Until then, I will settle for armchair travel, as I’ll have to do with many countries.  Once again, I struggled to find a book set in Bolivia.  I was just about to settle on A Matter of Desire, by Edmundo Paz Soldan, when a friend of a friend recommended When Invisible Children Sing, by Chi Cheng Huang.  Although I usually prefer fiction, I decided to read Huang’s memoir because I found the subject matter so compelling.  Huang was in the middle of his residency after medical school at Harvard University when he decided to take a one-year sabbatical to dedicate his time to serving others.  After considering a few options, he chose to travel to Bolivia, where he would work with street children.  Huang is pretty naïve when he sets out on this journey of goodwill.  He doesn’t know anything about Bolivia … or about street children … but he feels called to make a meaningful contribution, so he puts his faith in God and the people who helped him to arrange this situation, boards a plane, and finds himself immersed in a new culture and way of life. 

At first, he spends most of his time at an orphanage, working among Bolivians who have dedicated their lives to taking care of children in need, but he soon finds himself frustrated by the rules and limitations imposed on his efforts.  He begins to spend more and more time in the streets, often at night and usually at great risk to his own safety, looking for the children and seeking to understand the unique culture of homelessness and destitution that exists in this microcosm of Bolivian society.  All around him, he witnesses exploitation, abuse, and desperation.  But he also finds love, community, kindness, and hope. 

Huang walks us through his experience by telling us a series of stories about the children.  They do not all have happy endings, and he does not make it nice and pretty for his readers.  It is bold and honest and real.  There is an undercurrent of Huang’s Christian faith running through the narrative, but it is very subtle:  present, but not overpowering; central, but not primary.  He acknowledges that he feels called to be there and is motivated by his faith to sacrifice his comfortable life in order to serve the children, but he is acutely aware that it is through his hands, feet, and heart that the work will need to be done.  Day by day, child by child, Huang not only tends to the children’s injuries and illnesses, but also to their hearts and minds.  He earns their trust by not swooping in to insist they change, no matter how much he wishes for their lives to improve, and he allows himself to become part of their lives and community instead of immediately pulling them into his.  In short, he accepts them as they are, for who they are, and without judgment, and it is because of this that he is eventually able to inspire some of the children to come live in the safety of the orphanage, where they are fed, clothed, educated, and able to plan for some kind of future that does not include the streets. 

Throughout the story of the streets, Huang weaves his personal journey through his own childhood.  The son of Taiwanese immigrants to the United States, he grows up in safety and comfort but is aware that not everyone enjoys these things.  He is also aware that these things do not protect you from tragedy or pain, and he folds his readers gently into his story of loss through his young sister’s death and its impact on his life. 

The first time I encountered street children was in 1999, when my husband and I traveled to Vietnam to adopt our daughter.  Their presence on every corner was shocking to my inexperienced sensibilities, and I did not understand why no one did anything to help them.  I later read A Fine Balance, by Rohinton Mistry, a novel set in India that takes readers behind the scenes of the reasons children may be living on the streets and the adults who exploit them and manipulate the feelings of others in order to earn money through sympathy.  There were also plenty of children on the corners in the Dominican Republic.  Here in the United States, we may not find them on the streets, but children do live in deplorable conditions, far outside the standards of what we would consider to be appropriate care of our most vulnerable citizens. 

 

 

I’ve spent a lot of time trying to figure out what can be done to make a difference in the lives of children not fortunate enough to have loving parents and stable homes, and in my own way, I’ve tried to have an impact through personal decisions about how I live my life, where I donate my money, how I spend my volunteer hours.  It’s not enough … it will never be enough until every single child is safe and loved.  Huang realizes this, too, as the memoir draws to a close and a child to whom he has become attached decides to stay on the street with her mother instead of living in safety and comfort away from all she has known.  He doesn’t give up though on trying to change what he can.  Although he returns to the United States and to his career as a physician, he continues to visit Bolivia’s children and eventually finances the construction of several homes where the children can find safety and comfort with their loved ones, without having to give up all that they know.  What an incredible lesson for all of us.