Thursday, January 31, 2013

"Tropical Fish: Stories Out of Entebbe" by Doreen Baingana ****

  • Short stories
  • Ugandan author
  • Originally published in 2005
  • Epigraph:  "Abagyenda bareeba, Those who travel, see." --Kinyankore proverb
  • Connected stories of three sisters (Christine, Patti, and Rosa) in Uganda
  • "Green Stones":  childhood mystery of parents' love  as opposed to looking back at that relationship as an adult.
  • "Hunger":  "I tell you, hunger is like a child crying and crying:  you can't think about anything else."
  • "First Kiss":  Vulnerability of youth
  • "Passion":  testing out the increasingly frowned upon 'juju'
  • "A Thank-You Note":  Thanks for giving me Aids.....
  • "Tropical Fish": affair with a white man
  • "Lost in Los Angeles":  speaks for itself, "I have been torn from natural living chaos that wrapped itself strongly around our lives.  I am alone and trapped in metal.  I am lost."
  • "Questions of Home":  "She would have to learn all over again how to live in this new oled place called home."
  • Cultural notes:
    • children commonly at boarding school, subject to tribal caste system as well as economic caste system
    • children punished for speaking their tribal language
    • "But here in town, the lesson these women gave was so clear no one even said it:  Study hard, speak English well, get into one of the few good high schools, go to college.  Onward and upward.  You are not these women.  Do not become them."
    • Post-Idi Amin...less fear in the air
    • Mutual distaste between white colonials and native Ugandans
  • Review:   This is an interesting collection of connected short stories which manage to convey the lives of three Ugandan sisters from youth to adulthood.  The stories are written in a direct style, in the distinctive voices of the three sisters.  The plots range widely, from the joy and mystery of being alone in her parent's bedroom playing with her mother's jewelry, to the hunger and hardship at boarding school, to the firestorm spread of HIV/AIDS across the country, to studying in the USA, to coming home to Uganda after eight years in the States.  The emotional tenor ranges from childlike wonder to fury to disillusionment to self-discovery.  All in all, a series of vignettes which give the reader some glimpses into daily life in post-Amin Uganda, and to the challenges faced by anyone growing up in one culture and trying to blend into a new one.  Baingana does a wonderful job of balancing aspects of general humanity with facets of live specific to Uganda.  Very nice collection!

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