Letters from the Edge. 12 Women of the World Write Home

Transcription

1 Letters from the Edge 12 Women of the World Write Home

2 Illustrations inside this book: Zimbabwe Clive Offley China Peter Wingham (35), Clive Offley (39) Bolivia Alan Hughes India Miriam McCurdy (75, 82), Sarah John (88) Pakistan Miriam McCurdy Nigeria Miriam McCurdy Russia and Chechnya Miriam McCurdy (145), Sarah John (153) Colombia Sarah John Mongolia Sarah John Lebanon Sarah John Mauritius Sarah John Egypt Sarah John About the New Internationalist The New Internationalist is an independent not-for-profit publishing co-operative. Our mission is to report on issues of global justice. We publish informative current affairs and popular reference titles, complemented by world food, photography and gift books as well as calendars, diaries, maps and posters all with a global justice world view. If you like this book, you ll also enjoy the New Internationalist magazine. Each month has a main theme, such as Ethical Travel or Nuclear Weapons, as well as a Special Feature such as Guilt or How to Get Out of Iraq. In addition there are music, film and book reviews, country profiles, interviews and worldwide news. To find out more about the New Internationalist, visit our website at

3 Letters from the Edge 12 Women of the World Write Home New Internationalist

4 Letters from the Edge First published in 2008 by New Internationalist TM Publications Ltd 55 Rectory Road Oxford OX4 1BW, UK New Internationalist is a registered trade mark. Front cover image: Illustrations by Sarah John; Photograph by Dieter Telemans/Panos Back cover illustrations: Sarah John New Internationalist / The Authors 2008 Reprinted 2009 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission in writing of the Publisher. Edited by Chris Brazier Designed by Simon Loffler Printed on recycled paper by T J International Limited, Cornwall, UK who hold environmental accreditation ISO British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data. A catalogue for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data. A catalogue for this book is available from the Library of Congress. ISBN

5 FOREWORD These letters from 12 women in different locations around the world, written over a period of two decades have a timeless quality to them. They weave together a patchwork picture of our world that is very different from the standard portrait painted in news media dominated by disasters, atrocities or political pronouncements. This is not conventional travel writing, where a visitor skims across the surface of a new location, picking out the exotic morsels that loom into view. Whether they are written from the remotest part of the Mongolian steppe in midwinter, from Beirut as it stoically faces up to the latest car bomb, or from an island in the Indian Ocean, they tell the human stories of ordinary people as fresh, insightful and, often, as moving today as they were when they were written. When the New Internationalist magazine began its popular Letter from series in 1986, there was certainly no thought that it would still be appearing more than two decades later. We had simply responded to an intriguing proposal by a young woman then working as a teacher in rural Zimbabwe. Yvonne Burgess wrote beautifully about the Shona culture around her but also very thoughtfully about the relationship between rich and poor worlds and her own compromised part in that relationship. By the time Yvonne returned to Scotland it was evident to us that there would be a gaping hole where her column had been and so the Letters became a series, and Carol Davis took up the story of how she grappled with Chinese culture a decade or so after the death of Mao. This was very much the original conception a woman from the rich world living and working in (rather than just traveling through) the Global South, acting as a thoughtful, observant representative of our mainly Western readership but also as an active bridge between cultures. No sooner had that model been established than it was refined and diversified. The next correspondent, Susanna Rance, had married and had children with an Aymara man in Bolivia and thus wrote about the indigenous culture with the extra insight and engagement that situation afforded. And the correspondent after that, Mari Marcel Thekaekara, was born and bred in India though there was an intriguing twist in that she too was in a way an outsider, often writing about the perspective

6 of the indigenous people or adivasi with whom she lived and worked, whose own outlook on life was as different from her own background in Kolkata (Calcutta) as it was from that of her readers. That the correspondents were always women was not planned at the outset but it soon came to seem important. One of the reasons why these Letters are still a pleasure and an education to read today is that the women writing them are trying to get us under the skin of a country and a culture, portraying the lives and thoughts of ordinary people. And while men may dominate the world of politics and wars that makes up the daily news, it is women who are the lead actors in the dramas of everyday life yet their stories are never normally told. This was something our fifth correspondent, Maria del Nevo, excelled at, homing in with both passion and insight on the plight of the women she saw around her in Pakistan. Over the years since, the Letters have ranged across the continents and cultures from urban Nigeria to rural Mongolia, from civil-wartorn Lebanon to civil-war-torn Colombia, from Russia s capital to its troubled colony Chechnya, from the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius to their current location in Cairo. Reading these Letters together, there are many common themes. There is a fascination with how people are named in other cultures, for example: from the Mongolian Son of the Cosmos to the Nigerian God is worth worshipping, from the Zimbabwean Thank you to the Chinese Colorful Clouds at Dusk. There is also a recurrent awareness of the seriousness with which magic or the paranormal is treated in other cultures as when Susanna Rance resorts to some unconventional healing when her daughter falls ill, or when Louisa Waugh encounters a female shaman. Yet paradoxically, for all that they focus on the differences between peoples, on the cultural distinctiveness of their particular locale, the Letters as a whole convey an overwhelming sense of how alike human beings are the world over with similar hopes and dreams, similar concerns for family and community, and for making ends meet. This book is dedicated to former New Internationalist co-operative member Maria del Nevo, the only one of its contributors who was not able to play an active part in approving its contents (to understand why, see Maria s biographical section on page 91).

7 CONTENTS Letters from Mawere (Zimbabwe) by Yvonne Burgess About Yvonne Burgess 11 Changes in Zimbabwe 11 Golden eggs Calling cards Pendulum swings A fine art Upon this rock The woman in green Dancing under the full moon Evening conversation Speaking truth to fear Bulawayo to Birmingham Letters from the Yellow River (China) by Carol Davis About Carol Davis 31 Changes in China 31 Sea slugs and monkey brains Rise and shine Minding your own business Vibrate the Universe! Sleeping in cars Jumping the queue Children of the moon Trashing the past Reaching for the sky Little emperors revisited Letters from La Paz (Bolivia) by Susanna Rance About Susanna Rance 49 Changes in Bolivia 49 A style of death Spiritual food Bread for the living, bread for the dead Over the border Trashing lives Tickets to salvation Mother tongue, fatherland Becoming a person Calling the spirit Shaking the sorrows away

8 CONTENTS Letters from Tamil Nadu (India) by Mari Marcel Thekaekara About Mari Marcel Thekaekara 69 Changes in India 69 In silence and in shame People and other pests Born to shovel shit Meat matters Killer drugs The time trap The wisdom of sages Restructuring the poor They re singing our song No requiem for Rajkumari Letters from Lahore (Pakistan) by Maria del Nevo About Maria del Nevo 91 Changes in Pakistan 91 The sari s curse Heavy shadow Caught in the web The burned bride Wretched of the earth A lesson too late A suitable arrangement You can fly it! Sperm in the market Dupatta or not dupatta Letters from Lagos (Nigeria) by Elizabeth Obadina About Elizabeth Obadina 113 Changes in Nigeria 113 What s in a name? A way with waste No hair for Josie Siren values Vanity Fair Blood money Your money or your bank Shadow boxing Phoning for democracy A gust of pure evil

9 CONTENTS Letters from Russia and Chechnya by Olivia Ward About Olivia Ward 135 Changes in Russia (and Chechnya) 135 The honest colonel Walnuts and sunflower seeds Love and pies at the Usinsk Café The future is rising Mountains and miracles Dzhamilla s degree Stalemate Crystal glasses and kidnapped wives Business as usual Dust and memories Letters from Atlantis (Colombia) by Jenny James About Jenny James 155 Changes in Colombia 155 An avalanche of love Monkey business Natural causes Going home Killing connections Of poppies, plantations and parents Our children s blood Letters from Tsengel (Mongolia) by Louisa Waugh About Louisa Waugh 171 Changes in Mongolia 171 Mother Rock Tuya s tale Journey to the end of the earth The death of Kalim Tea and delight A frozen world In the eye of the beholder A sheep for the Shaman A month in the country Going home

10 Letters from Beirut (Lebanon) by Reem Haddad About Reem Haddad 191 Changes in Lebanon 191 CONTENTS Candles, courtesy of Israel Across the fence Neighborly love A visitor in the mountains Heart s desire The perfect wife Taking the veil Worlds of words Fundamental flaws Life lessons Written in the stars Motherland Speaking in tongues Running out of lies Letters from Bambous (Mauritius) by Lindsey Collen About Lindsey Collen 221 Changes in Mauritius 221 A yellow flag in the sunset The slide of sugar I see a human being The breadfruit tree Empire s exiles To a place of healing Tongue twisters Fetching grass Where the streets have no shame Of robbers and planners Letters from Cairo (Egypt) by Maria Golia About Maria Golia 241 Changes in Egypt 241 We can take it A marriage of convenience The thinness of things A bag of lemons A world apart Turn, turn, turn Beyond nature