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Resources for moving forward - 2010-06-17
The African Soul, American Heart Foundation is moving into a new phase of looking for partners and resources to help us move our building project forward.
UN Habitat has an urban focus, but Duk Payuel might be considered urban if it keeps growing. The village would benefit from some urban planning. It also has a Youth Fund that a youth group in Duk P. might be able to apply for.
The Auroville Earth Institute seems to be the world leader in eathen construction techniques. They show a list of classes for 2008, but I suspect they are still offering classes.
Overcoming Compassion Fatigue - 2010-03-19
Compassion Fatigue : How the Media Sell Disease, Famine, War and Death by Susan D Moeller
Susan D. Moeller concludes Compassion Fatigue with an antidote that affirms the importance of stories like Joseph's personal story, and the importance of having him speak in schools, churches, to service groups--anywhere people are willing to hear and learn from him.
"We need to be put in as close contact as possible with people at risk. We need nuanced and in-depth coverage of crises and we need to hear and see the human side too. The former without the later is boring, the latter without the former is sensationalized. To get it right, the media need to think of both the short term and the logn term. They need to think of both their own interests and the 'public interest.'" (321)
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Tayeb Salih: Season of Migration to the North - 2010-03-17
Season of Migration to the North by Tayeb Salih
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Salih's unnamed narrator returns to Sudan during the year of its independence, 1956, poised to apply his British PhD in English poetry to the post-colonial independence of his village and country, only to find himself caught between tradition and modernization. The narrator considers suicide in the final scene of the novel, but instead calls for "Help!" as he floats in the middle of Nile. This call, which I read to be a literal call to the reading world, to the host cultures that embraced his novel, was never seriously answered; the ending is perhaps even more powerful and emphatically literal today.
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Jamal Mahjoub: Navigation of a Rainmaker - 2010-03-17
Navigation of a Rainmaker by Jamal Mahjoub
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Mahjoub's first three novels, Caroline A Mohsen points out, "emulate the turmoil and uncertainty of Sudan" (541). In Navigation of a Rainmaker, the main character, Tanner, is a lost soul, part Arab Sudanese, part British, who finally asserts himself by killing a mercenary-type American who has come to Sudan in the early 1980s to stimulate instability, rather than work towards peace. The American's moment of revelation is a powerful statement of neo-colonial goals in Africa: "I am here to instill confusion, to sow the seeds of discontent" (168). He taunts Tanner, "you're not the type to act" (169). Faced with roughly the same challenge as the narrator of Season—to act or not to act—Tanner kills the American but is wounded in the skirmish. His last thoughts before dying turn to his sense of purpose—he wants to know if he made a difference, if anyone noticed (183-84). But the novel makes it clear that Tanner's actions were too late, and that the cycles of violence will continue. The novel is prophetically dark, written during the first few years of what would become a 22-year civil war.
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Dave Eggers: What is the What - 2010-03-17
What Is the What by Dave Eggers
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Eggers weaves together three dominant plots, engaging readers in the present and the past, in the historical-political and the personal. The first plot consists of two days of Deng's life in Atlanta, starting with an assault on him by three petty thieves, a 14-hour visit to an Atlanta hospital, and his first shift back at work after the assault. Eggers uses this plot to provide commentary on the resettlement process and life in America. Eggers also has Deng tell his life story (silently) to the seemingly uninterested characters he meets, addressing Michael the crook, Julian the hospital worker, and the members of the Century Club where Deng works. Readers see and feel Deng's 800 mile walk from Marial Bai, Sudan to Pinyudo, Ethiopia. They learn the history and politics of Sudan on this walk and a second walk three years later, from Ethiopia to Kakuma, Kenya, another 300 miles, and they see the epic journey completed as Deng prepares for and resettles in Atlanta. Embedded within this public tale, reasonably well known and covered by American media, is Deng's personal story, most notably his love for a young Sudanese woman who was killed after resettlement by another Sudanese refugee. This structure gives the novel a powerful ending point: Deng coming to the realization, after being beaten and ignored, that he must share his story with everyone he meets, as a way to exert his existence, and close "the collapsible space between us" (475).
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