Other than that, I really enjoyed Maarten Troost's (MT for short) The Sex Lives of Cannibals, a story of life in the equatorial Pacific. He and his not-quite-yet-wife Sylvia lived on South Tarawa in Kiribatis (pronounced Ki-ree-bas) for two years while she worked for an international aid organization and he maintained a long-term flirtation with the idea of writing a novel. While he failed at fiction, I'm pleased that he was more successful at writing an accurate yet entertaining account of their life in a place he learned to love.
MT's prose is lively, conversational, and it's impossible to become bored with the book, as each chapter is almost a stand alone short story that can be devoured in little chunks. Most chapters revolve around unique events or experiences, but what ties them all together is MT's personal narrative. We see him change from an innocent I-Matang (foreigner) who packs sweaters for a tropical island to someone who takes it for granted that lagoons are for pooping. His feelings and reactions are transformed from naiveté, to something resembling horror and fear, to survival , and to respect and love for a culture that survives in the face of great change.
I don't really feel the need to go into many of the specifics of what happened to him. He moved from the US to a tiny atoll in the middle of the Pacific, and then back again. You can probably imagine hijinx were had. What made this book so enjoyable for me was that I felt like he was telling my Peace Corps story. My emotional journey was similar to his, and I imagine that's true for many other people who give up the "civilized" world for a significant time and head into the third world wild west.
People who have never done this are often surprised by how you can learn to love these places where electricity may be rare and toilets are a luxury. MT hits all the right notes: how every day is different and new, that things we take for granted in the US become triumphs, the reward of personal relationships, waking up and realizing that you are happy in a life you never imagined even with all the challenges you face on a daily basis. The most ridiculous misperception we have in the US of 3rd world countries is that the people who live there are always unhappy. Of course there are preventable diseases and poor nutrition and poverty, but there are also close families, the comfort of tradition, and often an amazing natural beauty that we have lost touch with.
My favorite chapter from the whole book is probably the penultimate one when he discusses their return to the Western world, particularly the first time they go to the American grocery store and the mall. He says they went from having no choices to having too many choices. I know what he means. In Kiribati, they had "syrup", in Washington, D.C. they had 32 different kinds. They can't shop at the mall because they can't even figure out which store to go in, much less what to actually buy to wear. I remember these feelings well. The confusion of having so many options. Honestly I hated the mall before I went to Nicaragua, but now I find it absolutely terrifying. It's as though we have substituted these kinds of challenges for the more basic ones of finding food and shelter and staying healthy. MT points out that when they were on Kiribati, they lost their vanity. Their lives were functional in a way that we cover up here, and it's a feeling I miss every day.
I would highly recommend this book to anyone who likes travel books. He keeps it light-hearted while still managing to go a lot deeper than your average 21 cities in 6 days travelogue.
A practical aside: The font used for the chapter subtitles should never be used ever again in any context.
MT's prose is lively, conversational, and it's impossible to become bored with the book, as each chapter is almost a stand alone short story that can be devoured in little chunks. Most chapters revolve around unique events or experiences, but what ties them all together is MT's personal narrative. We see him change from an innocent I-Matang (foreigner) who packs sweaters for a tropical island to someone who takes it for granted that lagoons are for pooping. His feelings and reactions are transformed from naiveté, to something resembling horror and fear, to survival , and to respect and love for a culture that survives in the face of great change.
I don't really feel the need to go into many of the specifics of what happened to him. He moved from the US to a tiny atoll in the middle of the Pacific, and then back again. You can probably imagine hijinx were had. What made this book so enjoyable for me was that I felt like he was telling my Peace Corps story. My emotional journey was similar to his, and I imagine that's true for many other people who give up the "civilized" world for a significant time and head into the third world wild west.
People who have never done this are often surprised by how you can learn to love these places where electricity may be rare and toilets are a luxury. MT hits all the right notes: how every day is different and new, that things we take for granted in the US become triumphs, the reward of personal relationships, waking up and realizing that you are happy in a life you never imagined even with all the challenges you face on a daily basis. The most ridiculous misperception we have in the US of 3rd world countries is that the people who live there are always unhappy. Of course there are preventable diseases and poor nutrition and poverty, but there are also close families, the comfort of tradition, and often an amazing natural beauty that we have lost touch with.
My favorite chapter from the whole book is probably the penultimate one when he discusses their return to the Western world, particularly the first time they go to the American grocery store and the mall. He says they went from having no choices to having too many choices. I know what he means. In Kiribati, they had "syrup", in Washington, D.C. they had 32 different kinds. They can't shop at the mall because they can't even figure out which store to go in, much less what to actually buy to wear. I remember these feelings well. The confusion of having so many options. Honestly I hated the mall before I went to Nicaragua, but now I find it absolutely terrifying. It's as though we have substituted these kinds of challenges for the more basic ones of finding food and shelter and staying healthy. MT points out that when they were on Kiribati, they lost their vanity. Their lives were functional in a way that we cover up here, and it's a feeling I miss every day.
I would highly recommend this book to anyone who likes travel books. He keeps it light-hearted while still managing to go a lot deeper than your average 21 cities in 6 days travelogue.
A practical aside: The font used for the chapter subtitles should never be used ever again in any context.
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