Government by Magic Spell

In this story, a woman named Halima has tricked her entire town into thinking she is possessed by a jinni. She uses this "power" to make all of her local people think that she can control what the jinni does and also predict the future. This story reminded me a little bit of "The Crucible", where all of the young women pretend that they can see evil spirits. This would be a typical example of a child who discovers that she can twist the truth to her advantage. And so she does as she continues to grow up and amass more and more power. When Halima is summoned by the government (which is currently being run by her own clan), they place her in power because they know that people will be to frightened to question her decisions. She continues to abuse her power to gain money, build businesses, and restrict and control natural resources to her benefit. When the story ends it is apparent that at the expense of her native people, Halima has made sure that her own clan has benefited and stayed in power. I would say a revolution is in order.

A Night Out

I had a serious problem with the man named Mika in this story. He has sex with a prostitute and spends the night in her home. He is fully aware upon arrival at this woman's home that she has a gravely ill child. When he awakens the next morning while the mother is still asleep, he discovers that the young child has died in the night. The man makes a quick getaway, (but has some conversation with the mother) before the mother discovers her child has died. Now, I know that this woman has been paid to have sex with this man, and therefore "feelings" aren't supposed to be involved in this situation. But the fact of the matter is, that when this man left that home knowing that the child was dead and did not alert the mother to this fact, he really shows what a cowardly, low-level creep is capable of. Humanity in this man is nonexistent and it really saddened me to think that one human being could act so cruelly towards another. Almost as if this man, Mika, has no feelings whatsoever. Regardless of whether or not she was a prostitute, this woman is still a person. She is a single mother of a child and that child has now perished. Mika must have been a gutless person.

Cages

This story is about a shopkeeper named Hamid who seems to have lived a very sheltered life. He is single, never married, and keeps generally to himself. Until one day a young girl starts coming into his shop. He falls in love with her over the next multiple visits that she makes and it is at this point that I begin to feel sorry for Hamid. Hamid gives out little "extras' to the young women when she comes in and really seems to form a fascination about her. It was obvious to me right away that this young women was "working" Hamid. She knows that he is interested in her and she is going to use it to the best of her ability for personal gain. Sadly, Hamid sees her interactions as an indication that he may have a chance. Hamid continues to put this woman on a pedestal so to speak. Until finally the woman comes into the store one night and indicates that she knows Hamid wants to sleep with her, and that when she finally submits he will have to compensate her more than an extra bag of sugar. It is at this point that Hamid realizes he has totally built this woman up to be something that she is not and reality comes crashing down on him. Such a sad story! I felt so bad for Hamid.

The Man

"The Man" is a story surrounded in irony. A man assassinates the leader of his nation and flees without getting caught. The policemen spend days tracking and trapping him, refusing to give up until they find him! Finally the soldiers gather a mass of people people and randomly pull a man out of the crowd threatening to kill him unless someone reveals who the true killer is. This seemed like a dumb tactic to me anyway, I mean what are the odds that anyone in the crowd knows the actual name of the killer? If the killer acted alone then no one will be able to give up any information. So the police execute the man that they have randomly selected not realizing that they have just killed the actual murderer! The killer almost seems to be glee full as he is shot, in essence because he is getting what he wants, he is succeeding with getting away with the crime. Serves the police right! Here they are murdering an innocent man (at least they think he is innocent) as a threat. I also felt that this leader which he killed was probably a tyrant anyway. It seems like most leaders in these era in Africa were all blood thirsty killers.

The Rubbish Dump

This story, about a young boy who would much rather be at the local airport watching planes land and take off than in school, was a little bit gross. The young boy watches the workers come and go from the planes with their wheelbarrows full of discarded food and garbage from the planes. The childs fascination with the planes as they take off and land is easy to understand considering he lives in a part of the world with very little connection to everyday technology. He is in wondermeant of how a machine can fly in the air. The gross part was when the young boy reveals that the workers are actually spending time foraging for food in the garbage pit (after it has been discussed that the barf bags have also been tossed in the pit ew!) Although this again just shows what kind of impoverished area these people must live in. Also, it was very interesting that the workers thought of the planes as nothing more than a vehicle for the "fat white man" to be transported into their country in. Kind of a sign of the changing times I suppose.

The Prophetess

I really enjoyed "The Prophetess", so much so that I wrote my second essay on it! The young boy in this story is scared for his life when he approaches the mystical prophetesses house to retrieve holy water for his mother. All of his fears which have been fed by the rumors spread about town come to a culmination as he trembles outside of her door wondering if he should flee or continue on inside. It is finally when the young boy is inside the prophetesses house and he smells camphor oil, which his mother uses for her ailments, that the young boy realizes that the prophetess is human just like everyone else. His fear turns to slight comfort as he begins to see the prophetess in a motherly fashion. Finally when the young boy gets the holy water and begins his trek home I was filled with trepidation as he encountered obstacle after obstacle out on the streets. I knew before I read it that the bottle of holy water was going to be dropped and broken all over the street! But thank goodness it did because it helped the boy to understand that it is not necessarily the holy water which will heal his mother, but the love and devotion that mother and son have for each other. Good story!

Clocks Like Horses

"Clocks Like Horses" may have been in my top 3 least favorite stories of the semester. It was very difficult at times to understand exactly what was occurring in the story. Essentially there is a man who travels to a town to have a watch which he has inherited, from an original seamen, repaired by one of the only watch repairmen left who knows how to repair the watch. I did think that it was kind of cool that the watch repairman had clocks that track all of the different times throughout the world. Then there seemed to be a discussion about the Turkish war and sailors shipping horses for sale. And the saddest part of the whole story was when the man tells of the horses who drowned once the ship sank! The end of the story was the most confusing for me when the man arrives to his bedroom and observes another man already in his room? Overall this story just confused me!

Small Sun

I'm fairly certain that "Small Sun" is a type of Arabic "cautionary tale". When this man stumbles home in the dark of night, drunk, and comes across a djinn whom promises him gold, the man releases the djinn before collecting his money. Upon returning home safely to his wife, despite being completely obliterated, the man tell this story to his wife. They greedily lay in bed fantasizing about everything that they will purchase with the gold once the husband has caught the djinn again. Rather than waiting for day light, or just being happy to have arrived home unharmed, the husband stumbles back out into the night to look for the djinn again in order to collect the gold. In his greedy mind the money is the only thing that matters at this moment. The man runs into another drunkard who attacks him with a razor. As he lays on the ground bleeding to death, he hears the djinn talking about all the gold he would have gotten. The main theme here is simply. Greed is evil and will only bring about very bad things. Be happy for what you have and don't push your luck!

Flower Crazy

"Flower Crazy" is a very "descriptive" story about a young woman who is helping to earn income for her family by prostituting herself. The story itself wasn't really a story, it is more of a description of the life that this young woman is leading and about the area she lives in. Her father is crazy and spends all of his time giving out flowers that he purchases with his own mothers money (thus the nickname "Flower Crazy") so he does not contribute anything to the family. Her mother is a peddler of produce on the street so most likely does not bring home a lot of money either. Prostitution is, in this particular circumstance, probably the only way this young woman can afford to feed herself and her family. She very obviously lives in a severe sort of poverty as the author takes time to describe all of the hungry children which surround her and the lack of food in her own home. I also think that this young girl must be pregnant because the first thing she does upon waking up in the morning is get violently ill. All in all this story is a very depressing but entirely believable tail of what an impoverished family must go through to survive.

The Persian Carpet

In the beginning of this story I felt a strong sense of pity for this woman who had been forced into marriage, bore two daughters, and then was determined to make her way out of the marriage to marry a man she had been in love with before her forced union. How unimaginably difficult would it be to be forced to marry someone that you don't love and raise a family the entire time knowing that you are in love with someone else. And then on top of that to know that your children are going to be ripped away from you because of the divorce. I'm assuming that this woman had no rights to her children because of the country they live in? As the story progressed, however, my feelings did a complete 360 as one of this woman's daughters recognizes a Persian carpet in her mother's new home as a carpet that her mother had accused a family friend (who also happens to be blind) of stealing. This accusation had driven the family friend away and it was a hard loss to both of her daughters. At this point I really felt a strong revulsion for this woman and her lie. At the same time her lying about the loss of the rug was probably the only way that she would be able to retain some piece of property from her previous marriage.

Cairo is a Small City

In this story a man named Adil falls in love with a woman named Salma. Adil is an engineer who lives in the city and watches Salma for almost a year from his balcony as she herds her families sheep through the streets of Cairo with her mother. Adil encourages interaction with his beloved thru the gift of bread for her sheep. When Adil finally approaches Salma's family he realizes that they know of a man that he had murdered. Finally, Adil is killed by Salma's family as she is nearby. The title "Cairo is a Small City", had obvious significance in that Adil just happened to fall in love with a woman who's father knew of his killer past. You should never underestimate the chances of running into someone, whom you have wronged, in your future. The world is a very small place!

Another Evening at the Club

This story was disturbing. A man and wife accuse a servant of stealing a ring that they later on discover has simply fallen behind a piece of furniture. The young servant girl has been dragged off by the police and has been beaten regularly in an attempt to draw a false confession from her. Rather than doing the right thing and admitting to the discovery of the ring, this man and his wife choose to allow the torture of the young servant to continue and go on living their lives as if there is nothing wrong with their choice. This story is a perfect example of what might happen in a culture where the biggest concern is what your neighbors think of you. These people avoid telling the truth because the husband feels that revealing it will let people know that the wife had a beer before dropping the ring behind the furniture. Why does this man just assume that this is what people will think? Is it completely inconceivable that someone might misplace or lose a ring somewhere in their own home and draw an incorrect conclusion? Why didn't they just make up a story and say that they discovered a break in had occurred and that the young servant was innocent? I really wanted to slap these two hard across the face.

The Birds of God

The depression and desperation in this fathers story of his plight to feed his family is sad. Immediately it is easy to feel bad for this man who cannot feed his wife and children because the drought in his area is so bad that his crops will not grow and he is not able to catch any fish. A fisherman by trait, this man spends his time daydreaming about how much easier his life would be if he could fly away like a bird. When a bird lands on his boat on the river, the man thinks briefly about eating it, but instead seems to develop some type of worship for the bird. He takes the bird home and feeds it what little food he has to the dismay of his wife and family. Finally, it becomes apparent that his wife thinks he has lost his mind and she leaves him, taking the children with her. The worship that this man has heaped upon the bird has driven off his family. At the end of the story I'm pretty sure that the man has died as he is in the river and cannot be pulled free. I then came to the assumption that perhaps this bird was the angel of death.

A Wasted Land

I think the title of this story should be "A Wasted Life". The main character of this story is telling the tale of her uncle who has been leading a double life in England. He is mentally ill and suicidal when he arrives home back to Africa. Come to find out he is married with a family, not only in his native land, but also is married with a family in England. When he eventually commits suicide my cutting his wrists I was angry. Mental illness is a horrible thing, but this man has left nothing but a wake of destruction in his path. Not only do both of his wives have to live with what he has done by his betrayal but his children have to try to accept it. The main character also talks about how the war in her country has cost her family so much. Her father has died soon after her country has won its independence and the family has been left in ruins by the debt that they have incurred. It seems to me that even though this family wasn't directly involved in the fighting they have still suffered losses. The strain of debt seems to have sucked the life right out of this family in a way that disabled them so severely that they never recovered.

Wake...

I had almost no idea what was going on in this story. From what I could tell it was being told from a child's point of view? It seemed like their were some references to a war and a lot of killing surrounding Johannesburg which is a major city in Africa. Further into the story though I think the author was writing about displaced people? Maybe people who were forced away from their homes because of fighting in their area and were forced into the city as refugees. There were also references to "the regime" and a reference to the regime giving back the children? Overall I didn't really understand the story other than to gather that their was a lot of misery coming through the pages and that people had been killed and displaced. Perhaps there were children who were left behind because their parents were killed in fighting. Without more background into the history of this particular time in Africa it is just really hard to understand what exactly is going on.

Amnesty

In "Amnesty" the young mother in the story has a very strong love for her husband. She has stayed with him for almost a decade while only getting to see him a handful of times. Because her husband is an activist and is a supporter of unions at a time in Africa when this viewpoint could cost you your job and your freedom, this young woman must have been very brave. It saddened me to think that the best part of their lives, their younger years, was spent with the husband in prison (for his beliefsand actions) and this young woman was raising their only daughter without a husband to help and support her. The level of responsibility for this young mom to take care of herself and her family without any support from her husband must have been unreal. Nowadays women worry about whether or not they look good in their new outfit for Saturday night, but in this story this poor woman had to survive on her own while the man she loves is imprisoned. Kind of puts things into perspective!

The Home-Coming

"The Home-Coming" was a melancholy, sad story. A woman who seems to be somewhat elderly is coming home to her native land and is met at the bus station by her daughter. Her daughter has obviously grown into a young woman that this mother seems proud of, but her sadness is palpable as she reflects on the fact that she has missed out on so much of her daughters life while she has been away. It never becomes clear exactly why this woman has been forced to live away from her home and her family, even as she reflects on the fact that her "homecoming" is a bit less than a jubilant celebration. She does reveal that she has been working for a woman (I'm assuming a white woman) and her family, but she never states if this was imposed on her by force, or if this was the job she undertook in order to support her family. The end of the story does seem to be a bit more promising as the young woman's daughter says that their are people waiting to greet them at their intended destination. I wish the story would have continued on because I felt so sorry for this mom that I wanted to read about her having a little bit of joy at the end of her journey.

A Perfect Wife

"A Perfect Wife" starts out very suspenseful. I wondered what the big secret was that everyone was so intent upon keeping. When we finally read that it is a secret about war I was surprised. It seems to me that war is not something that people whisper about, as the author writes, but something that here in the U.S. anyway, is heavily debated in the public forum. As the story shifts to Sira, who is a 12 year old bride, my disgust rose. A 12 year old...bride. I realize that we are talking about a whole different part of the world with different cultures at a slightly earlier time in history but the very thought of a 12 year old being married makes me ill. Then when Sira's husband dies I breathed a sigh of relief! Regardless of whether or not she is ok with being married and he is a good husband I just could not get over the age thing. And the thought of being shut in a chamber at the age of 12 with your dead husbands other wife seems like an unimaginable amount of torture to take for one hundred and thirty two days. When finally Sira is married off to another man and then gives birth to a daughter 9 years later, I even found myself thinking, "I wonder how long that young woman will have to wait before being married off as a pre-teen." Sometimes cultural differences are hard to look past. Especially when they involve pedophilia.

The Barrel of a Pen

"The Barrel of a Pen", was the most disturbing story I have read so far this semester. Abortion is never a fun topic anyway but the light-heartedness that these young women approached this topic with was unsettling. Particularly when the pregnant woman states that the baby these three girls are aborting has "a hard head like her mother". I literally wanted to be sick when I read that. Here this woman is paying another woman to stab her baby with a pen barrel and she is cracking jokes. Furthermore, the baby is old enough not only to be identified as a girl, but old enough to kick. I also felt this story was a perfect example of what happens when abortions are considered illegal and women are forced to perform them "in back street alleys" as they say. The danger that a woman may face when attempting to abort a fetus in this way is unbelievable.

Night Thoughts

"Night Thoughts" was definitely an interesting read. The opening paragraph was absolutely depressing and desolate with the main character giving scenes from what seems to be the inside of a hospital "of death". He is surrounded by the dead and dying (of AIDS possibly?) who seem to be in agony. As the story progresses and the main character continues to share his story I found it a little confusing in my own mind to understand how in a particular time their can exist 1) a ruling king, 2) cars, and 3) tabloids! The tale that the main character tells is basically a story about the king in power during his lifetime and all of the "rumored stories" surrounding that king. The character is speaking to someone who has already passed on. Finally towards the end of the tale we learn that this man is confined to a hospital with a brain tumor that is slowly killing him, surely a painful way to die. I found it very odd that this man would think to himself that his brain tumor was the only thing he had ever "owned". Was his body and mind not ever his own? It almost seemed like this guy welcomed his prognosis and was eager to die.