Books 3.0

Hmmmm, I kinda moved to lighter reading...

*** Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight by Alexandra Fuller. The book is an account of growing up as a white colonial family in British colonies during the era of independence. She is able to relate her experiences watching Rhodesia become Zimbabwe as well as the state of affairs in independent Malawi (formerly Nyasaland) describing the totalitarianism through the eyes of an adolescent. The book does very well in its tone, narrated through the eyes of one growing up with these expereinces. For much of the book, the racism is unapologetic, which makes it more genuine. My biggest complaint was that it seemed like she skipped over large swathes of her childhood that were not related to her family life, but I think that they would have provided better context for some of the episodes she narrated. I may be way off on this interpretation, but the chronology made it a bit hard to follow at times.

**** - Running a Biogas Program by David Fulford. I am really glad that I took this book from the Peace Corps library before I came to site. With the importance of livestock in my community, biogas is a very interesting possibility. The book was organised and clear, and I hope to work on this possibility in the future. The one thing that I thought was underemphasized was the need for water, which is definitely going to be the limiting factor for my work here. However, since the book based a lot of its research on work in India, Nepal and China, they certainly had other constraints to consider.

***** - Renewable Energy in Kenya by Mark Hankins (when I first saw the author, I thought it was the 8.03 demo guy). The book looked at wind, solar, biogas, hydro-power (very little mention of bio-diesel, sadly) as well as current practices involving non-renewable resources. The book clearly and effectively describes the energy situation here and gave me some good ideas for work that I can do within my community. He presented his data clearly and convincingly and tried to consider the challenges from many angles. Like most of the books that I got from the Peace Corps library, the book is about 20 years old, and I am interested in finding resources that are a bit more current.

*** - An Enemy of the People by Henrik Ibsen. The national exam in English for students finishing secondary school here involves some analysis of the play, so while I was proctoring exams, I decided to borrow from a student. I wound up having a hard time putting it down. The play is very politically charged, and certainly paints a grim picture of society as the antagonist (though the protagonist is not the most sympathetic character). I found myself envisioning the play in the LT (maybe Mr. Noble for the director). Anyway, I found it interesting that the play heavily emphasizes the need to question and challenge authority and popular opinion, while that attitude is not very common in some schools here.