Nine Hills to Nambonkaha

Directly on the heels of Nevada Barr’s thriller, I finished Sara Erdman’s impressive memoir of two years in the Peace Corps in a small Ivory Coast village. Talk about a compare and contrast on the subject of polygamy! In this part of Africa, it’s the norm, and as Sara unfolds the gentle mysteries of daily life in the village, it becomes evident why it works well for this culture. It truly does “take a village” to ensure all villagers are taken care of, including the absorption of widowed families by their brothers-in-law via plural marriage. However, the cultural norms also fuel Sara’s greatest fear as a health worker, and that is the spread of AIDS. She pulls no punches in her descriptions of personal interactions with government workers expecting graft; the village chief, who, as she finds, needs to approve everything that goes on to feel comfortable; and the villagers themselves, especially the women, who learn to bring their babies to market day to get weighed and immunized. You’ll cheer when the new, efficient motor-powered mill breaks down and everyone goes back to the simple tok-tok of the mortar and pestle for grinding, and boo when the electric lights finally arrive and flood the village in pools of artificial sun all night long. It’s an engaging, well-written book, and a good motivator for anyone who’s ever thought of joining the Peace Corps.