Sometimes, a fictional story and a real-life story – or many stories - can intersect in very interesting and beautiful ways.This story of "The Camel Bookmobile" initially caught my interest for two reasons. The first was that over a period of three years, my husband Taba and I worked to help set up a library in Srinagar, Kashmir for which many of our friends and family as well as client companies donated thousands of books and well as money for buying books and for their transportation. The ‘library’ first operated as a travelling one, out of two beat-up old trucks, visiting schools on a weekly basis. It was actually set up since the violence in Kashmir had resulted in most libraries being bombed out or shut down, and the students who initiated the project were hungry for reading and learning.
The second reason the book grabbed my attention is because it is located in the remote and troubled areas of north-eastern Kenya, on the border with Somalia – Garissa and Wajir – that I travelled to as facilitator of the India-Kenya Women’s Journey in 2000. I recalled the courageous and amazing work done by Somalian women there, addressing education for girls, income generation as well as fighting gender inequalities and violence against women. Among the women I grew to love – Abdiya, who was part of the traveling team for around six weeks in India and Kenya, and our other local hosts, Sophie, Hubbie and Mama Fatooma who inspired and delighted us, and taught me so much of what it means to commit to making a difference.
The idea for Masha Hamilton's novel, “The Camel Bookmobile”, came when she was driving her three children to the library, and her daughter told her about a camel bookmobile she had heard of in Africa that once had a strict rule imposed -- if anyone in a settlement failed to return a book, the mobile library would not go back there. There was something about the camel library idea and that rule that struck a chord with Hamilton, who within minutes outlined the basic premise of the novel. When the book was in its final editing stages, Hamilton and her daughter journeyed to Kenya to visit the camel library that provided the initial inspiration.
The Camel Bookmobile is told through multiple viewpoints, and each of the main characters is changed in some way by the roving library.
The key character is Fiona Sweeney, a work-frustrated 36-year old American librarian, who tells her family she wants to do something that matters, and to their surprise takes off for Africa where she ends up starting a traveling library. Her work takes her to the arid bush area of northeastern Kenya, among tiny, far-flung communities, lacking proper roads or schools, where people live daily with drought, hunger, and disease.
Her mission, as she sees it, is to bring Dr. Seuss, Homer, Tom Sawyer and Hemingway to a world of new readers who will be inspired to change their own lives for the better after reading the masters.
But, though her motives are good, like most of us who have ever traveled to, or worked in, different cultures, Fiona is so burdened by the values of her own (Western) culture, that it is impossible for her to understand the people she is trying to help or even the problems that her efforts are causing for those people.
She finds herself in the midst of several struggles within the community of Mididima, where the bookmobile's presence sparks a feud between those who favor modernization and those who fear the loss of the traditional way of life in the African bush.
The story unfolds from the point of view of each person involved with the camel bookmobile, so you really get to understand the issues and concerns from all different angles.
What it also unfolds is the seemingly unbridgeable cultural differences, the strengths and struggles of nomadic life and of the changes facing the members of that culture today; also the potentially ‘disruptive’ effects that books and what they contain, can have on tribal customs and the very way of life that has sustained the tribes for thousands of years.
Now the part the story hinges on concerns with the fact that, because the donated books are limited in number and the settlements are many, the project’s African director has a firm rule that if a village fails to return all of the books loaned to it, the bookmobile will stop coming to that village.
The trouble begins when one young man referred to as 'Scar Boy', as his face has been ruined by a hyena attack, refuses to return two books. The entire village of Mididima is thrown into a social turmoil that forever changes the lives of its people and Fiona Sweeney.
The Camel Bookmobile is a powerful telling that challenges our fears of the unknown. Even as it captures the riddles and calamities that often occur when two cultures collide, many other questions are raised: Has Fiona Sweeney really done the village any favors by exposing them to a world of new and often alien ideas and cultures? Has she improved their future prospects or has she inadvertently destroyed the fabric that has held the village together and ensured its survival for generations?
Or – more importantly - is the truth somewhere between the two extremes?
ABOUT THE WRITER
I wanted to know more about the writer and learnt that Masha Hamilton started out as a journalist for The Los Angeles Times, The Associated Press and other news organizations, reporting from Russia, Africa and the Middle East. When she began her career as a novelist it’s hardly surprising that she set her books in volatile, real-life situations. Her first novel, Staircase of a Thousand Steps, was a coming-of-age story set in a Middle Eastern village. Her second, The Distance Between Us, was about a war correspondent who found herself in the midst of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
But with The Camel Bookmobile she didn’t just write a fascinating book; with author M.J. Rose she launched a massive drive to collect books for the camel library, and they also went about raising funds for shipping costs.
Interestingly, Hamilton convinced more than 150 other authors to each donate a minimum of five of their favorite books. And at bookstore signings, she encourages buyers to purchase a copy of any favorite book and donate it to the camel library - and to inscribe it with a personal message -- because while in Kenya, she reports, the head librarian made a point of telling her that readers especially love it when there is a note written in the book from the giver.
ABOUT THE PROJECT
The actual Camel Mobile Library Service, overseen by the Kenya National Library Service, that was the inspiration for the novel, operates from Garissa in Kenya’s isolated Northeastern Province near the unstable border with Somalia. It is a predominantly Muslim province, where many were farmers, but are now forced into a nomadic existence by drought or famine. For most of the families, they must follow where their camels and goats go in search of pasture and water, forcing their children to abandon school.
Initially launched with three camels in 1996, the library increased to 12 camels, with plans for more, traveling to four settlements per day, four days per week. The camel library also operates in Wajir, which is even further to the north.
The camels deliver books to these semi-nomadic groups of people who live with drought, famine and chronic poverty. The books are spread out on grass mats beneath an acacia tree, and the library patrons, sometimes joined by goats or donkeys, gather with great excitement to choose the books they get to keep until the next visit. The books are written in English or Swahili, the two official primary languages of Kenya.
The addresses and connections I located for those of you who might like to help the project –or initiate similar ones – are:
Garissa Provincial Library, (For Camel Library), Mr. Rashid M. Farah - Librarian in Charge,
The Camel Bookmobile is told through multiple viewpoints, and each of the main characters is changed in some way by the roving library.
The key character is Fiona Sweeney, a work-frustrated 36-year old American librarian, who tells her family she wants to do something that matters, and to their surprise takes off for Africa where she ends up starting a traveling library. Her work takes her to the arid bush area of northeastern Kenya, among tiny, far-flung communities, lacking proper roads or schools, where people live daily with drought, hunger, and disease.
Her mission, as she sees it, is to bring Dr. Seuss, Homer, Tom Sawyer and Hemingway to a world of new readers who will be inspired to change their own lives for the better after reading the masters.
But, though her motives are good, like most of us who have ever traveled to, or worked in, different cultures, Fiona is so burdened by the values of her own (Western) culture, that it is impossible for her to understand the people she is trying to help or even the problems that her efforts are causing for those people.
She finds herself in the midst of several struggles within the community of Mididima, where the bookmobile's presence sparks a feud between those who favor modernization and those who fear the loss of the traditional way of life in the African bush.
The story unfolds from the point of view of each person involved with the camel bookmobile, so you really get to understand the issues and concerns from all different angles.
What it also unfolds is the seemingly unbridgeable cultural differences, the strengths and struggles of nomadic life and of the changes facing the members of that culture today; also the potentially ‘disruptive’ effects that books and what they contain, can have on tribal customs and the very way of life that has sustained the tribes for thousands of years.
Now the part the story hinges on concerns with the fact that, because the donated books are limited in number and the settlements are many, the project’s African director has a firm rule that if a village fails to return all of the books loaned to it, the bookmobile will stop coming to that village.
The trouble begins when one young man referred to as 'Scar Boy', as his face has been ruined by a hyena attack, refuses to return two books. The entire village of Mididima is thrown into a social turmoil that forever changes the lives of its people and Fiona Sweeney.
The Camel Bookmobile is a powerful telling that challenges our fears of the unknown. Even as it captures the riddles and calamities that often occur when two cultures collide, many other questions are raised: Has Fiona Sweeney really done the village any favors by exposing them to a world of new and often alien ideas and cultures? Has she improved their future prospects or has she inadvertently destroyed the fabric that has held the village together and ensured its survival for generations?
Or – more importantly - is the truth somewhere between the two extremes?
ABOUT THE WRITER
I wanted to know more about the writer and learnt that Masha Hamilton started out as a journalist for The Los Angeles Times, The Associated Press and other news organizations, reporting from Russia, Africa and the Middle East. When she began her career as a novelist it’s hardly surprising that she set her books in volatile, real-life situations. Her first novel, Staircase of a Thousand Steps, was a coming-of-age story set in a Middle Eastern village. Her second, The Distance Between Us, was about a war correspondent who found herself in the midst of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
But with The Camel Bookmobile she didn’t just write a fascinating book; with author M.J. Rose she launched a massive drive to collect books for the camel library, and they also went about raising funds for shipping costs.
Interestingly, Hamilton convinced more than 150 other authors to each donate a minimum of five of their favorite books. And at bookstore signings, she encourages buyers to purchase a copy of any favorite book and donate it to the camel library - and to inscribe it with a personal message -- because while in Kenya, she reports, the head librarian made a point of telling her that readers especially love it when there is a note written in the book from the giver.
ABOUT THE PROJECT
The actual Camel Mobile Library Service, overseen by the Kenya National Library Service, that was the inspiration for the novel, operates from Garissa in Kenya’s isolated Northeastern Province near the unstable border with Somalia. It is a predominantly Muslim province, where many were farmers, but are now forced into a nomadic existence by drought or famine. For most of the families, they must follow where their camels and goats go in search of pasture and water, forcing their children to abandon school.
Initially launched with three camels in 1996, the library increased to 12 camels, with plans for more, traveling to four settlements per day, four days per week. The camel library also operates in Wajir, which is even further to the north.
The camels deliver books to these semi-nomadic groups of people who live with drought, famine and chronic poverty. The books are spread out on grass mats beneath an acacia tree, and the library patrons, sometimes joined by goats or donkeys, gather with great excitement to choose the books they get to keep until the next visit. The books are written in English or Swahili, the two official primary languages of Kenya.
The addresses and connections I located for those of you who might like to help the project –or initiate similar ones – are:
Garissa Provincial Library, (For Camel Library), Mr. Rashid M. Farah - Librarian in Charge,
P.O. Box 245, Garissa, Kenya
Or check http://camelbookdrive.wordpress.com/ ; or http://www.bookaid.org/
Or check http://camelbookdrive.wordpress.com/ ; or http://www.bookaid.org/
What I particularly liked finding out is that the project has also begun raising money for the collecting, recording and local publication of traditional stories in the Somali language, which will allow this region to move into the future while respecting and preserving their long held oral traditions and cultural richness.
May all our intersecting stories add to the 'basic goodness' of the world.
Marguerite Theophil
We don't need lists of rights and wrongs, tables of do's and don'ts:
we need books, time, and silence.
'Thou shalt not' is soon forgotten, but
'Once upon a time' lasts forever.
~ Philip Pullman
~ Philip Pullman
