Books Set in Africa: Kenya

The Lioness, by Chris Bohjalian (2022)

 

This novel takes place in 1964 in East Africa, at a time when there was considerable violence in the continent.  Kate Barstow, a wealthy A-list Hollywood actress had just married David Hill, a struggling art gallery owner.  They were on a safari honeymoon in the Serengeti along with several of their closest friends.

 

David’s gallery isn’t doing well, and he is well aware that his wife is the main breadwinner.  After all, she is funding the trip for everyon ethe safari.  David’s father also holds some ambiguous position with the CIA, which adds to the political intrigue.

 

Kate’s inner circle, who are on the safari include her brother and sister-in-law, her best friend (a minor Hollywood actress) and her husband, Kate’s publicist, her agent and another fellow actor.  Their local guide is a big game hunter, who had to change is focus from clients who were more interested in shooting animals to clients more interested in shooting photographs.

 

While there were political uprisings in the Congo, the safari party has been assured that they will be perfectly safe in East Africa.  Unaware that there are political rumblings throughout the continent, the party seems oblivious to their surroundings.  They are luxuriating in the extreme pampering they are experiencing on their safari.

 

After enjoying a few spectacular days on the safari, in which the African porters tend to the company’s every need, things take a drastic turn.  Suddenly, they are caught in a kidnapping gone wrong.  Russian mercenaries burst upon their camp and separate the American tourists into smaller groups.  Immediately, one of their guards is shot and killed.

 

The novel goes back and forth between the events unwrapping in the kidnapping, and the events leading up to the trip.  The reader gets to know the background stories behind each tourist.  Before embarking on the trip, they knew of the potential dangers in the African plains but believed themselves to be in capable hands.

 

What is the motive of the kidnapping?  Is it money?  Who is behind the kidnapping?  Who has the most to gain?  What is the importance of David’s father?

 

We know from the first page, that very few of the party will survive, we just don't know who.  While I enjoyed most of the book, the ending left me wanting.  Why did one of the captors confess to the rationale of the kidnapping?  This was done in a manner that didn’t fit with the rest of the novel.

 

I find that this author often wraps up in novels quickly in a way that doesn’t fit with the rest of the book.

Read:  February 11, 2023

3.5 Stars

Books Set in Africa: Congo

King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror and Heroism in Colonial Africa, by Adam Hoschild (1998), with a 2005 update

Belgium was a relatively new monarchy when Leopold II became King.  He had an inferior complex as his country was so young and small.  He made the decision to conquer and colonize as much of Africa as possible.  In the mid-1800s, Africa had become one of the last land masses ripe for European colonization, and Leopold was ready.  He had his agents plunder a huge swath of territory surrounding the Congo River.  When rubber became an important product for the nascent automobile tire industry, Leopold had African slaves tap rubber plants.  His agents were brutal and would often kill or chop off the hands of slaves who didn't work quickly enough.

This was a fascinating story of a piece of history that I was unfamiliar with.

Read: June 20, 2022

5 Stars

Books Set in Africa: Kenya

A Death in Kenya, by M.M. Kaye (1958)

This cozy murder mystery takes place against the background of the Kenya Emergency, as the British called it, or the Mau Mau Uprising.  It was the war in the British Kenya Colony between the Mau Mau and the British authorities that took place in the 1950s.  The major characters in the novel are British and live on large, and isolated, farms in rural Kenya with many African servants.  The attitudes of the white characters reflects the attitude towards their servants as would have been during this time period.

Lady Emily (Em) Debrett has lived in Kenya her entire life.  At age 72, she still run her farm estate, named The Flamingo.  It is her dream to build a family dynasty to be passed down through generations.  She lives on The Flamingo with her grandson, Eden, and his wife, Alice.  She seems dismissive of the uprising, believing that her family will live in Kenya long after it ceases to be a colony.

When the novel opens, a “poltergeist” has been wreaking havoc at The Flamingo.  Valuable items are broken or gone missing.  This, and the raging uprising between the Mau Mau and the British causes tension among the British farmers.

Lady Emily invites her young niece, Victoria, to The Flamingo help with the accounting books.  Victoria grew up in Kenya and has fond memories of the area.  She had been engaged to Eden, so has some trepidation about joining her aunt in Kenya but doesn’t want to disappoint the family.

The day Victoria is to arrive in Kenya, Eden’s wife has been found brutally murdered.  Alice had been returning to The Flamingo from the home of Gilly Markham.  Markham was The Flamingo’s estate manager, albeit he was more interested in music and drinking than tending to the estate.  He lived with his wife, Lisa, who was in love with Eden.  Was she killed by one of the servants?

Shortly Victoria’s arrival in Kenya, the white settlers travel into the countryside for a picnic.  After their meal, the participants go in separate ways to explore.  Then, another death occurs.  Suddenly, everyone becomes a suspect.  Secrets are revealed and past grudges erupt.

This was a fun read in the vein of Agatha Christie mystery novels.

Read: December 12, 2021

         February 24, 1995

3 Stars

Books Set in Europe: Hamburg, Germany and Africa: Liberia

Destined to Witness: Growing Up Black in Nazi Germany, by Hans J. Massaquoi (1999)

After a whirlwind romance with the black Liberian son of a diplomat, the Bertha Baetz found herself pregnant, and in January 1926, gave birth to the author, Hans Massaquoi (Jan. 19, 1926 ~ Jan. 19, 2013).  Although the diplomat’s son promised to marry Bertha, the wedding never took place.  Instead, he went off to England to pursue his studies.  Meanwhile, Bertha and Hans, were welcomed into the diplomat’s home.  For the first 5 years of his life, Hans lived a life of wealth and privilege.

When the diplomat was called home, Bertha decided to remain in Hamburg, Germany with her son.  Their standard of living dropped dramatically, as Bertha was forced to look for jobs.  Around this time, the political climate was changing in Germany.  Like so many German children, he was indoctrinated into Nazi propaganda and dreamed of joining the Hitler Youth, like many of his comrades.

Although his was often called names by neighborhood bullies, he was generally accepted by his peers.  His teachers, however, were another story.  Many of his teachers would single him out for his black skin.  When his was denied entry into the Hitler Youth, he begged his mother to plead his case for him, arguing that he was “German just like everyone else.”  His mother fiercely protected her young son.  Throughout this memoir, the love he has for his mother is evident on nearly every page.

Through his teachers, he learns that his is “non-Aryan”, thus there is no place for him in Nazi Germany.  As Nazi Germany begins its conquest of Austria, and the war begins, Hans and his mother experience the trauma of the war and their beloved city of Hamburg being bombed.  Although Hans has been informed that after the Nazi are “done” with the Jews, he will be next.  Despite this, the author makes only an off-handed reference to Jewish extermination or the concentration camps.  I found this to be troubling.  Perhaps, at the beginning of the war, he was too young to fully understand what was happening, and by the end of the war, he and his mother were simply trying to survive.

After the War, Hans hangs out among the docks of Hamburg and often passes himself of as an American GI.  He has dreams of one day immigrating to the United States, where some of his mother’s relatives moved before the War broke out.

While still in his early 20’s, he made contact with his father, now an important businessman in Liberia.  He felt that staying in Germany would be a dead-end for him, thought that moving to Liberia would lead him to a better life.  His relationship with his father, however, quickly turned sour.  After a few years in Liberia, his mother’s relatives eventually arranged for him to immigrate to the United States.  In 1950, at age 26, he entered the United States.  After being erroneously drafted into and serving in the Army, he earned a degree in journalism.  

His mother was finally able to immigrate to the United States, where the two were reunited.  Hans ultimately became a managing editor of Ebony magazine.  As a post-script, Hans died in 2013 on his 87th birthday.

Read:  April 3, 2021

4 Stars

Books Set in Africa and North America: Egypt and Boston, Massachusetts

The Book of Two Ways, by Jodi Picoult (2020)

In ancient Egyptian mythology, the Book of Two Ways describes the roads through the afterlife.  One route is through water and the other by land.  The roads are separated by a lake of fire, but both routes have the same destination.

In this novel, the author uses this theme as a way to describe Dawn’s life.  Dawn had been an up-and-coming graduate student in Egyptology, when she learned her mother was in hospice and would soon die.  Dawn left her studies to be with her dying mother.  After her mother died, Dawn suddenly found herself responsible for raising her young brother.  At the hospice facility, she met Brian, whose grandmother was dying.  They took comfort in each other, had a child and then married.

Brian represented security.  He was a respected theoretical physicist at Harvard who studies, in its own way, a theoretical path of two ways.  After giving up her studies in Egyptology, she becomes a death doula – she assists people at the ends of their lives.

For 15 years, Dawn has had a wonderful life.  Her relationship with her teenaged daughter becomes rife with teenage angst.  Her marriage reaches a stalemate.  Dawn finds that she can’t forget Wyatt, the pedigreed fellow graduate student, with whom she initially had a love-hate relationship, back before she gave up on her studies in Egypt.

The novel takes the path of two ways.  In one path, Dawn travels to Egypt to find Wyatt.  In the other path, she stays with Brian as their relationship frays.  The novel also goes back and forth in time, from the present to events that occurred in Dawn’s student days.

The author seemed to try too many story lines.  Dawn’s parents never married.  As presented in the story line, the reader thinks there must be a reason for this that will be later explained.  Kieran’s brother is gay, but this is irrelevant to the story line.

Ultimately, none of the characters were very likable.  I read this book while trapped on a plane for several hours.  Otherwise, I might not have finished reading it.

Read:  March 19, 2021

2 Stars

Books Set in Africa; Nigeria

Stay with Me, by Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀ (2017)

 

This novel takes place in Nigeria, mostly in the 1980s, against the political upheaval in the country.  Yejide and Akin were university students when they met and fell in love.  In a country where it was not uncommon for men to have multiple marriages, Yejide agreed to marry Akin only if he would not take other wives.  Yejide’ mother had died when she was born and was raised by her father’s several other wives, none of whom were especially kind to her.  In her marriage to Akin, she initially bonds with her mother-in-law.

 

After four years of marriage, the couple have not been able to have a baby.  They seek out fertility doctors and healers, all to no avail.  Akin’s family pressures him into taking another wife.  Finally, Akin is forced to give into family demands. Yejide was furious when she learned after the fact that her beloved husband took another wife.  Under mutual agreement, the new wife has an apartment on the other side of town and Akin only spends weekends with her.

 

Yejide believes that the only way to save her marriage and have life return to the early days of their marriage is to become pregnant.  She will do whatever it takes to become a mother, despite the cost.

 

After Akin’s younger no-good brother, Dotun, lost his job, he briefly moved in with Akin and Yejide.  He seduces her and soon Yejide gives birth to a beautiful little daughter.  Five months after the birth of her daughter, the child died suddenly.  Dotum again seduces Yejide a second time and this time she gives birth to a son.  When he is about 5 years old, he is diagnosed with Sickle Cell Disease.  Dotum was a carrier of the disease, but not Akin.  Akin rages when the doctor tells him that he could not have been the father.

 

Later we learn that Akin knew all along that he was impotent and talked his brother into seducing his wife so that they could have children.  Akin, however, couldn’t even admit to himself, that he could not father children.  Finally, Yejide learned the truth about her husband, and leaves him, only to see him years later at his father’s funeral.

 

I loved this book.

 

Read:  December 6, 2020

 

5 Stars

 

Books Set in Africa: Burundi

Small Country, by Gaël Faye (2018)

Small Country is a semi-autobiographical novel of Gabriel, a young boy growing up in Burundi in the 1990s.  He had an idyllic childhood, living in Bujumbura, the capital city of Burundi to a French diplomat father and a Tutsi Rwandan mother.  Most of his closest young friends also had white fathers and Black mothers.  His life is sheltered from the politics brewing in his country.

As a 10-year old boy, he spent his days stealing mangos from neighbors’ trees and selling them back to tree’s owners.  He is oblivious to the rising tensions erupting in Rwanda, other than the whispers he hears from his parents.

His mother is a Rwandan refugee and has family still living in her home country.  She worries about her native country.  Her younger brother decided to return to Rwanda to fight for the Tutsi, who are being slaughtered by the Hutus.  Gabriel becomes aware of conflict when his family visits their Rwandan family to attend his uncle’s wedding.  While there, he eavesdrops and hears his aunt describing the violence and genocide of Tutsis.

The violence knows no borders and erupts in Burundi, too.  Gabriel recalls the first democratic election of the country’s president in June 1993.  He was the country’s first Hutu president and had hoped to smooth relations between the Hutus and Tutsi in the country.  When he was assassinated 3 months later, the country erupted into a civil war.  The political climate had a profound impact on Gabriel.  His young friends are anxious to take up the “cause” and defend their neighborhood.  Gabriel retreats into books and befriends and elderly Greek widow who has a house filled with books.

The civil war forced its citizens to choose sides.  Violence and death are all around and curfews are in place.  Young Gabriel is suddenly faced with a terrible choice that will end his childhood with which ever option he selects.

This is a small novel, but very powerful.

Read:  July 25, 2020

5 Stars

Books Set in Africa: Cairo, Egypt

The Last Watchman of Old Cairo, by Michael David Lukas (2018)

The Last Watchman of Old Cairo takes place over a millennium, from 1000 years ago when Ali became the night watchman of the Ibn Ezra Synagogue in Cairo, to the late 1890s, when Solomon Schechter and the Smith twins, Agnes and Margaret, “discovered” and saved the documents stored in the synagogue’s geniza, to present day Joseph al-Raqb, who traveled to Cairo, Egypt to learn about his father.  The synagogue is said to house the legendary Ezra Torah Scroll, which was written centuries before the birth of Christ.

In alternating chapters, we learn Cairo during three periods of history.  Ali’s story takes place around the year 1000.  He was a young Muslim orphan who was hired by the synagogue council to be its night watchman.  As he learned his job, he also became fascinated by Jewish traditions, while maintaining his own religious beliefs.  In the late 1890s, Solomon Schechter (1847 ~ 1915) was in Cairo to search for the Ezra Torah Scroll.  With him were the middle-aged widowed twins Agnes Smith Lewis (1843 ~ 1926) and Margaret Smith Gibson (1843 ~ 1920), who were real people (although probably did not join Schechter on this quest).  The sisters were known for having discovered the Syraic Sinaiticus and were Biblical scholars in the Presbyterian Church.  In present day, Joseph al-Raqb, is a young American graduate student, raised by his Jewish mother, but whose father is Muslim.  A few months after his father’s death, Joseph received a mysterious package from his father.  This led him back to Cairo to find out why the object was sent to him.

In alternating chapters, the focus is on one of the above periods of history.  In Jewish tradition, texts with G~d’s name are sacred.  When such texts become worn or unusable, they must be treated with respect and not just thrown out.  Traditionally such texts are either buried or stored in a geniza.  The geniza in the Ibn Ezra Synagogue is a small room in the attic.

When portions of sacred texts are found being sold on the black market, Solomon Schechter traveled to Cairo to seek out the documents.  He had the documents saved and sent to Cambridge University, where they are still held.  [This is true.]

In family tradition, the eldest son of the al-Raqb family (with Ali being the original night watchman).  Joseph’s father was the eldest son, hence was the night watchman.  He held this position until after the Yom Kippur War when an event occurred in which he was unable to keep a mob from the synagogue.  Joseph became fascinated in his quest to determine the fate of the Ezra Scroll.

The novel doesn’t take a position on the religious tradition per se, but does raise issued confronted by religious scholars in studying ancient documents.

I was totally absorbed by this novel.  Michael David Lukas also wrote The Oracle of Stamboul, which is a historical novel about the last days of the Ottoman Empire.  I read this book about 7 years ago and very much enjoyed that as well.

Read:  August 8, 2018

5 Stars

Books Set in Africa: Belgium Congo

The Girl Who Married an Eagle, by Tamar Myers (2013)

I just loved this little novel.  This is actually the fourth book in the Belgium Congo Series.  I inadvertently skipped the third book, but enjoyed the other two.

This novel, like the other two, takes place in the late 1950s on the eve of the Congo's independence from Belgium and is drawn from the author's actual life.  Her parents were missionaries in the Belgium Congo and the author lived there until she was a teenager.  Her family lived among a tribe known for being headhunters.

In this novel, a young girl named Buakane was given in marriage to be the 23 wife of the tribal chief, Chief Eagle.  He had a violent temper and was known to beat his wives.  In addition, according to tradition, when the chief died, his wives were buried alive with his body.  On the day of her marriage, Buakane runs away.  She comes upon a road built by the "whites" and is attacked by hyenas.

Along came Julia Newton, a young fresh-faced and naive college student with romantic dreams of being a missionary in Africa.  She is in for a rude cultural awakening.  She is traveling to the village where she will be working, when her jeep see Buakane.  They bring her to the village where the strict Protestant nurse stitcher her wounds.

The novel goes into great detail about the cultural differences between the whites who have moved in to "save the natives" and the various tribal traditions.

4 Stars

Books Set in Africa: Belgium Congo

The Headhunter's Daughter, by Tamar Myers (2011)

This is the sequel to The Witch Doctor's Wife.  The books must be read in sequence as there was a lot of reference to the first book.  The novel describes relations between the Belgiums, the American missionaries, and the various interactions of the African tribes right before the country's independence from the Europeans.

3 Stars
Read:  February 23, 2014

Books Set in Africa: Congo

The Witch Doctor's Wife, by Tamar Myers (2009)

Four Stars

Read: December 29, 2013

Books Set in Africa: Ethiopia

Cutting for Stone, by Abraham Verghese (2009)


Read: July 17, 2011

Books Set in Africa: Morocco

Secret Son, by Laila Lalami (2009)

Read: May 1, 2011

Books Set in Africa: Kenya

Nowhere in Africa by Stefanie Zweig (1996, English Translation 2004)

Nowhere in Africa is an autobiographical novel about a Jewish family who left the Nazi regime in 1938 for a Africa. Walter Redlich left first, thinking he could earn money to send for his family. Instead, he found himself on a rural farm, far from the city. His letters to his wife counsel her on what to bring when she and her young daughter set off to join him.

In Germany, Walter had been a respected lawyer. In colonial Kenya, he is the overseer of a farm, working without pay. His wife was a spoiled and pampered woman, who, instead of bring an icebox per her husband's instructions, packs an evening gown and good china. While the new environment is extremely hard on the parents, young Regina finds herself in a wonderland. She quickly makes friends with Owour, the farm's cook, and learns Swahili. Soon, she has lost her grasp of the German language, although her parents struggle with the English of the British who are ruling the country and the Swahili of the indigenous people.

Jews fleeing Nazi Germany found refuge all over the world. Until I read this book, however, I was not aware that Kenya was a safe haven. The ruling British, however, were not always sure how to handle the Jewish refugees. Once Britain entered the war, all Jewish men were rounded up and placed in internment camps. Women and children were gathered and housed in posh hotels in Nairobi. The British did not have any understanding of Jewish customs, and insisted on feeding the women and children lavish meals of shellfish and non-kosher meats prepared by the best cooks in the city. The British could not understand why the food remained untouched. The author's description is told with humor.

Although the English translation/style is a bit difficult to read at times, Nowhere in Africa is a fascinating story that give a difference glimpse of life during the Holocaust.

After the war, Walter was desperate to return to Germany. The author's second autobiographical novel, Somewhere in Germany, continues the family's story after returning to their homeland.

Read: May 26, 2010

Books Set in the United States and Kenya

Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance by Barack Obama (1995)

Dreams from My Father was published long before Barack Obama began his run to become President of the United States. I don’t generally read books by political figures; however, a friend lent me this book. It sat on my shelf for some months before I decided to pick it up and give it a go.

The book tells us very little of his early life. Although he has said publically that his mother was in influence in his life, she is virtually absent in this book. He was born in Hawaii, but lived in Indonesia as a young boy, before being shipped off to Hawaii again to live with his grandparents. The picture he paints of his maternal grandparents is not the one he spoke of during his presidential campaign. The focus of this book, of course, is his search for his father’s side of his history.

As a school boy in Hawaii, Obama encountered few other black classmates and he began to feel the “differentness” of being black. He attended college on the mainland and while a student, turned to books by such writers as Langston Hughes, Ralph Ellison and Richard Wright. He struggles with his racial identity, where he is unable to fit in with the white students, yet must prove himself to the black students.

Following college, Obama decided to become a community organizer. He was hired by a white Jew, with whom he seemed to have a tenuous working relationship. He went into a rough project community to try to arouse interest in getting its residents involved in making improvements. He was frequently frustrated by the lack of apparent involvement by the residents, but he persevered. In the course of this work, he is told to become a member of a church, any church, in order to gain credibility. That began his relationship with the Reverend Jeremiah Wright. Obama describes the first sermon he hears the Reverend Wright give. That sermon was entitled “The Audacity of Hope.” From the description, it appears to have been much the same rhetoric that was discussed during the President’s campaign.

Change was the theme of his presidential campaign. Change was also a theme of his early working career. He tried to effectuate change as he worked in the projects of Chicago as a community organizer. His efforts are truly admirable and consistent. Still, while working there, he feels like an outsider ~ a young man looking for his place in the world.

The main theme of Dreams from My Father, is, as the title suggests, Obama’s quest to learn about his absent father. Obama met his father only once, long when he was about 10 years old. His memory created a fantasy, and ideal man, so that 11 years later, when Obama was 21 and learned that his father was dead, he had no sense of loss.

Finally, Obama decides to travel to Kenya to meet his father’s complicated, tangled and extended family. His father had been married several times and had several children. At least two of his wives, including Barack Obama’s mother, were white Americans. All the children, except Barack, lived and grew up in Kenya.

Obama discusses the issues of race and class, as it is played out in Kenya and America. He also analyzes race in terms of human psychology that manifests itself in the prejudices towards one another.

President Obama is a very articulate speaker. He is also a good writer. He is good with words. This book conveys his quest to find his place in the world, first by finding his past through his missing parent(s) and then by helping change the plight of those less fortunate than him. Perhaps it was his sense of loneliness and need to fit in that lead him on his path to the White House.


Read: April 19, 2010

Books Set in Africa: Zimbabwe

When a Crocodile Eats the Sun by Peter Godwin (2006)

The saying, “When a Crocodile Eats the Sun,” comes from a belief in some remote villages of Zimbabwe that a crocodile eats the sun when a solar eclipse occurs. This event is a very bad omen, signaling the celestial crocodile's displeasure with the behavior of humans living on earth.

At the beginning of the 2000s, two total eclipses occurred within the span of less than two years. The Zimbabwe villagers became very scared, saying that the crocodile must be very angry with humans, with the threat of perpetual darkness occurring so close together.

When a Crocodile Eats the Sun is Peter Godwin's memoir, recounting the final years of his father's life. Godwin grew up in Zimbabwe. His parents emigrated to Rhodesia, as Zimbabwe was formerly known, after World War II. Following several years of a civil war, which pitted black nationalists against white settlers, the country was becoming increasingly more violent. Robert Mugabe's government began taking over white-owned commercial farms and began redistributing the land to his supporters, who had no farming knowledge or interest. The government refused to acknowledge the AIDS epidemic and refused assistance from other countries. The life expectancy plummeted to about 34 years.

Mubage's henchmen, men who began calling themselves "War Vets", began terrorizing white farmers. Many of the so-called War Vets had not actually fought in the War of Independence, but were actually a band of rogues and Mugabe supporters, whom others began calling "Wovets. They carried out their threats with AK-47s and machetes. Many farm owners lost their lives in confrontations with the Wovits. Many of the wovit leaders took such names as Hitler Hunzvi, Comarade Satin and Stalin Mau Mau.

Peter's parents were white liberals, his mother was a physician in a black hospital. When she was in need of a hip replacement, she insisted on being treated in the same hospital where she worked instead of opting for a better-equip facility.

In 1978, shortly before her wedding, the author's older sister, Jain, and her fiance, were ambushed in a guerrilla attack. Later her grave is desecrated by wovits, simply because she is interned in a white cemetery.

Mugabe turns many blacks against the whites. Mavis, the Godwin's housekeeper, whom they regarded as a member of the family, began stealing from them and demanding money. The elderly Mr. Godwin was attacked outside the gates of his house. Fires are set in the bushes surrounding their house. Despite all this, the Godwin's refuse to leave the country that has been their home for 50 years.

When his father suffers a heart attack, Peter returns from his overseas journalist job to tend to his parents. He finds a photograph of a middle-aged couple and a young girl. His mother informs him that the people in the picture are his paternal grandparents and aunt. With this comes the knowledge that the man known as George Godwin was actually a Polish Jew named Kazimierz Goldfarb. He had been sent to England to a boarding school in 1939, thereby surviving the ensuing Holocaust. The rest of his family was not so lucky. His mother and sister were killed in the Holocaust. Although his father survived and remarried, George never saw him again. Instead, he reinvented himself as an Anglo and moved to the deepest part of Africa.

George Godwin observes that being a white in Zimbabwe is a bit like being a Jew in Poland during the Holocaust.

Read: October 25, 2009