Mango Elephants in the Sun: How Life in an African Village Let Me Be in My Skin [Paperback]

Susana Herrera (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 8, 2000

When the Peace Corps sends Susana Herrera to teach English in Northern Cameroon, she yearns to embrace her adopted village and its people, to drink deep from the spirit of Mother Africa—and to forget a bitter childhood and painful past. To the villagers, however, she's a rich American tourist, a nasara (white person) who has never known pain or want. They stare at her in silence. The children giggle and run away. At first her only confidant is a miraculously communicative lizard.

Susana fights back with every ounce of heart and humor she possesses, and slowly begins to make a difference. She ventures out to the village well and learns to carry water on her head. In a classroom crowded to suffocation she finds a way to discipline her students without resorting to the beatings they are used to. She makes ice cream in the scorching heat, and learns how to plant millet and kill chickens. She laughs with the villagers, cries with them, works and prays with them, heals and is helped by them.

Village life is hard but magical. Poverty is rampant—yet people sing and share what little they have. The termites that chew up her bed like morning cereal are fried and eaten in their turn ("bite-sized and crunchy like Doritos"). Nobody knows what tomorrow may bring, but even the morning greetings impart a purer sense of being in the moment. Gradually, Susana and the village become part of each other. They will never be the same again.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In 1992, Herrera set off for Northern Cameroon, where she spent two years as a volunteer teacher in the Peace Corps. While her Navajo and Spanish origins would make her a person of color in the U.S., the villagers of Guidiguis perceived her as a white woman or nasara, a term she soon realized had more to do with American culture and privilege than with skin color. Guidiguis, she found, was both modern and retrograde. The king and the mayor both had televisions and luxury cars, her neighbor bought a CD player and most of the residents appeared to have electricity, though it functioned erratically. Still, most of the daily workwashing, cooking, carrying water, grinding millet, making clothes, etc.was done by hand, and by women, which often disturbed Herrera. A fine storyteller, she paces her account so that her past in California slowly emerges (it turns out she has left an abusive marriage) between such adventures as eating termites and finding ingenious ways to circumvent the schools tradition of corporal punishment. Though the occasional bits of magical realism and mediocre poetry feel forced, the prose is lively overall. The combination of Herreras spunk, her romantic interest in a local doctor and her clever response to the political tensions involved in a teachers strike make for an absorbing read. Clearly Herrera knows how to balance the bad with the good. Its no wonder that by the time her stay ended, many of her new friends in Guidiguis saw her departure as a tragedy.

Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

YA-The content of this book is just as beguiling as its intriguing title and stunning jacket. Teens will learn much from Herrera's tale of her sojourn in the back of beyond. She tells two stories: one about her experiences as a 23-year-old Peace Corps volunteer in Cameroon, and the other about how those experiences helped her to exorcise the demons of a childhood rape, a suicidal father, and an abusive marriage. This part of the story is gradually revealed, as she is slowly able to rise above these traumas and celebrate life. Anyone who has been alone in a strange milieu will empathize with Herrera's initial months as "the white woman" in a remote desert town. Over time, she settles in and adjusts to her situation. Two friends die without medical care, she falls in love with a local doctor but reluctantly gives him up, she "adopts" two teenage boys who help and form a bond with her, and she is caught in the middle of a labor dispute when her fellow teachers go on strike. Herrera deals with all of these events and comes out the stronger for it. At the end, she is less critical of American problems and more appreciative of our freedoms-and our indoor plumbing. She also comes to understand that a positive attitude is half the battle. A glimpse of an utterly foreign way of life that provides much food for thought and discussion.
Judy McAloon, Potomac Library, Prince William County, VA
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 280 pages
• Publisher: Shambhala (August 8, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1570625727
• ISBN-13: 978-1570625725
• Product Dimensions: 6 x 0.7 x 9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #316,438 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

27 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Should Be Required Reading Before a Visit to Western Africa, April 14, 2000

By 

Glen D. Elliott (Now in Boise, ID) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Mango Elephants in the Sun (Hardcover)

When I found out I was going to Cameroon I did a search on Amazon.com for "Cameroon". This was by far the most helpful hit I received. After reading the book I went to northern Cameroon in March 2000 on a humanitarian mission with the Air Force. It was just coincidence that I went to the same general area as the book (Garoua & Maroua). Reading this book gave me a greater understanding of the people and the culture. Everything in this book rang true, the poverty, the close families, the emphisis on class, the small town doctors, and the basic generosity of the people. Her honest narrative and personal approch to her subject is unmatched. I felt her friendship and frustration. Her friends became my friends and it left me wishing for an update on how they are today. This is a book about two years of a persons life. Cameroon and the Peace Corps are just the framework. Her writing was so vivid I now would read anything by her no matter what the subject. If you enjoy people and their complexities..... read this book.

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Worth every minute!, February 10, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Mango Elephants in the Sun: How Life in an African Village Let Me Be in My Skin (Paperback)

I felt compelled to write this review because folks who have criticized it as more personal narrative and "journal-y" have completely missed the point. If you notice the title, the book was never meant to be a narrative of "what to expect if you are going into the Peace Corps" rather it is a spiritual and magical retelling of a young woman's personal and physical journey into the unknown. Herrera weaves a beautifully human story with personal detail, private pain and vivid images that takes the reader on her journey into the North African desert.

If you happen to be looking for "what to expect" you will definitely get a sense of life as a Peace Corps volunteer...in all its vivid detail...but if you think that is the point of reading this book... you will have missed the point entirely.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A wonderful book!, February 13, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Mango Elephants in the Sun (Hardcover)

I stumbled upon this book, which I'd never heard of, while browsing in the library, and checked it out on a whim. It proved to be a real stroke of luck, because the book was a delight to read. Not only does it paint a fascinating picture of life in a small Cameroonian village -- a far cry from what it's like here in the United States -- but the story of the author's personal journey, told with honesty and integrity, is compelling in its own right. The biggest surprise was that Herrera is a very talented writer with a real gift for poetry.