Mango Elephants in the Sun How Life in an African Village Let Me Be in My Skin

by HERRERA, SUSANA

• ISBN13: 9781570625725
• ISBN10: 1570625727
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2000-08-08
• Publisher: Shambhala

Summary

When the Peace Corps sends Susana Herrera to teach English in Northern Cameroon, she yearns to embrace her adopted village and its people, to drink deep from the spirit of Mother Africa-and to forget a bitter childhood and painful past. To the villagers, however, she's a rich American tourist, anasara(white person) who has never known pain or want. They stare at her in silence. The children giggle and run away. At first her only confidant is a miraculously communicative lizard. Susana fights back with every ounce of heart and humor she possesses, and slowly begins to make a difference. She ventures out to the village well and learns to carry water on her head. In a classroom crowded to suffocation she finds a way to discipline her students without resorting to the beatings they are used to. She makes ice cream in the scorching heat, and learns how to plant millet and kill chickens. She laughs with the villagers, cries with them, works and prays with them, heals and is helped by them. Village life is hard but magical. Poverty is rampant-yet people sing and share what little they have. The termites that chew up her bed like morning cereal are fried and eaten in their turn ("bite-sized and crunchy like Doritos"). Nobody knows what tomorrow may bring, but even the morning greetings impart a purer sense of being in the moment. Gradually, Susana and the village become part of each other. They will never be the same again.

Author Biography

Susana Herrera spent over two years as a Peace Corps volunteer in Northern Cameroon. Now a schoolteacher in Watsonville, California, she uses many of the stories from her life in an African village to teach her students about compassion, diversity, strength, and faith.

Table of Contents

Awakening	1	(3)
Lizard Speaks	4	(3)
Becoming an Elephant	7	(3)
Jam Bah Doo Nah?	10	(7)
Goo	17	(2)
The Healer	19	(5)
I Am Being	24	(6)
Me Eedee Ma	30	(7)
Dear Mom, September 1992	37	(2)
Lizard Speaks	39	(2)
Discipline	41	(5)
Suffering	46	(7)
Balance	53	(8)
An American Bicycle	61	(3)
Aissatou	64	(2)
Lizard Speaks	66	(1)
Valentine's Children	67	(5)
News	72	(6)
Fat	78	(5)
Wonderful	83	(6)
What's Up, Doc?	89	(4)
Elephants and Sorcerers	93	(4)
Lizard Speaks	97	(1)
Mango Elephants in the Sun	98	(8)
Choose Us	106	(2)
Egre and Francois	108	(3)
Fabric of My Family	111	(5)
Un Serpent	116	(4)
Dear Mom, March 1993	120	(1)
African Skies	121	(2)
Guavas	123	(5)
Infectious Bliss and Joy	128	(3)
Dear Mom, June 1993	131	(4)
A Little Ant	135	(3)
Lizard Speaks	138	(2)
Fire	140	(3)
Dada Am	143	(3)
The Hospital	146	(3)
Asha	149	(4)
Emergency	153	(5)
Soul Family	158	(4)
Lizard Speaks	162	(1)
Baptism	163	(4)
One Day	167	(25)
Chunky Monkey	192	(8)
Dear Mom, December 1993	200	(2)
Visiting	202	(10)
Kaele or Bust	212	(7)
Freedom	219	(4)
Dear Mom, January 1994	223	(8)
Heart and Soul	231	(2)
Lizard Speaks	233	(2)
African Eyes	235	(6)
Lighting the Way	241	(2)
Weekends of Hope	243	(8)
Malaria Dreams	251	(5)
The Medicine River Dream	256	(4)
Waking Up	260	(2)
Cafe in the Clouds	262	(2)
Oh Say Ko Jour	264	(5)
Acknowledgments	269

Excerpts

The villagers awake with a merciless bang. Cows holler as they pass along the dusty, brown road next to my little cement house, which is standing out in sharp contrast to the surround mud huts. Hot peanut oil sizzles, frying the beignets in my neighbor's outside kitchen. Roosters join the Islamic prayers ringing out across Guidiguis. The desert sand awakens and circles us all in its embrace. Women clang their buckets, filling them at the water well, chattering the village news. Even with my few words of Fulfulde, I understand that the villagers are talking about the new white woman. "Nasara, nasara," they say, and my ears hurt. Their voices frighten me, for within that word meaning "white man," I feel seperated from the hope I have of belonging to the community.

I don't want to be an outsider; I don't want to be full of fear; I don't want to resist this adventure. I want to become part of this desert, this village, these people, these laughing children. My body is filling with Africa's spirit.

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Excerpted from Mango Elephants in the Sun: How Life in an African Village Let Me Be in My Skin by Susana Herrera
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