As I’m packing and preparing the Simbolei Community Library for shipment from Michigan to Kenya, one of the greatest challenges for me is the temptation to continue to purchase new books. I am trying to cut back on purchases so that I can get the books we already have ready for shipment and I can turn my attention to other moving related tasks that need to be done.

Having gotten that off my chest, I want to follow up on last week’s post about A Rope from the Sky, a recent history of South Sudan, with another Sudan related book in an entirely different genre.

Morning in Serra Mattu : A Nubian Ode is a collection of interrelated verse stories that describe the culture, environment and people of Nubia, an ancient civilization and now a region in the country of Sudan. This is a beautiful and intriguing book, the poetry full of delicate and intimate details while overall the poems weave the story of historical and environmental change.

Over 100,000 Nubian people in Egypt and Sudan were displaced upon completion of Egypt’s Aswan High Dam in 1960 and this event is one of the tragic themes of the stories. But, the history in this book reaches much farther back into the distant past as well as into the present.

Here is an excerpt from the poem With Alawiyya -

Alawiyya was your sister
one year older
with whom you loved to set out to explore
and together you knew all the roads
and hidden paths and complex secret passageways
of all those neighborhoods

sometimes climbing on roofs of garages
from which height you reached out with a wire
you bent with a hook to pull
tamarinds down toward you
taking in your hands the fruit

and the British were quite crazy with such sun
to grow every kind of citrus that they could

to water with each moon
they flooded the gardens from the Nile
the orchard then became a lake

from With Alawiyya in Morning in Serra Mattu

With books we can travel the world, finding our common feelings with people from other times and places but also learning to see the world through another person’s experiences. As we prepare to move the Simbolei Community Library into its new home , I find books to be both soothing and inspiring. I’ll continue to share treasures for adults and children, both books specifically related to Africa and books related to topics such as development and education so that you can share the journey of discovery with us.

Happy reading!

— Andrea

Posted on February 16, 2019

February is Black History Month in the US, so I thought it would be a good time to share some books about Africa and Black history that I have found interesting. Today, I’ll cover two very recent books, one for adults and one for younger readers that cover important aspects of Black history.

The first book is A Rope from the Sky : The Making and Unmaking of the World’s Newest State by Zach Vertin, which came out in January 2019. South Sudan, Kenya’s neighbor to the north, is one of the world’s newest countries, having separated from Sudan in 2011 and began to disintegrate in civil disputes in 2013. Vertin follows the major figures in the formation and eventual disruption of South Sudan as they achieve the impossible, separating from the country governed from Khartoum created by the British and setting up a new country. But, fighting for independence and governing a modern state are two different tasks requiring different strengths.

The picture of South Sudan’s struggles with corruption and the toxic manipulation of ethnic rivalries illustrates the struggles common to many African nations to one degree or another. The book is rather long but quite readable and helped me understand South Sudan and its impact on East Africa much better. Simbolei’s late friend and patron, Lazarus Sumbeiywo makes a brief appearance in the peace negotiation process.

For younger readers, Black History Month is a great time to learn about some stellar figures in science. One beautiful new picture book — The Vast Wonder of the World — tells the story of African American scientist, Ernest Everett Just, a pioneer in the study of cell biology. The pictures in this book are gorgeous and the text describes Just’s life and work in a way that will spark the interest of readers ages 6-11 in cell biology while also discussing the racial discrimination Just faced in his career. The book’s author is Melina Mangal and Luisa Uribe did the beautiful illustrations.

Over the years, many of you have asked me what types of books the Simbolei library will include. Others have asked what books might give good information about East Africa. As I pack up my own library and prepare to ship the books, I will be posting brief descriptions of some favorites here. Happy reading!

— Andrea

Posted on February 16, 2019