Mango Elephants in the Sun

Posted on 25 July 2018 by Susana Herrera

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. Read Mango Elephants in the Sun by Susana Herrera – kino-fada.fr Note This is a review I wrote for the volunteer newsletter while serving in the Peace Corps.Mango Elephants in the Sun, How Life in an African Village Let Me Be in My Skin, is a great book to read if you want to feel normal and generally good about yourself as a PCV This is because, as far as I can ascertain, the author is an ass In her book Susana Herrera writes about her experience as a PCV in the Cameroon and provides you with many opportunities to say, What the hell was she thinking or Note This is a review I wrote for the volunteer newsletter while serving in the Peace Corps.Mango Elephants in the Sun, How Life in an African Village Let Me Be in My Skin, is a great book to read if you want to feel normal and generally good about yourself as a PCV This is because, as far as I can ascertain, the author is an ass In her book Susana Herrera writes about her experience as a PCV in the Cameroon and provides you with many opportunities to say, What the hell was she thinking or, Jesus, at least I m not that stupid It is hard for me to decide if I should recommend that you read this book or if I should find a place for it to ensure that it is never read again I thin...I LOVED this book It was beautiful and inspiring It was written by a woman who was in the peace corps in the early 90s in Cameroon I definitely think of it asof a woman empowering book I received it on Tuesday and finished it by Sunday morning just in time for the b...This is a crappy book written by a stupid Peace Corps Volunteer I lived just down the road from this girl s village Luckily we weren t in the Peace Corps at the same time because if we had been I would have had to interact with her.One of the tasks I chose on the GR Seasonal Reading Challenge s Summer 2017 Challenge was a task to read a memoir of a person who was a volunteer for a humanitarian organization I was a little unsure about this since I am not familiar with the subject and wouldn t know what a good memoir might be I decided that since the task creator was a former Peace Corps volunteer I would read about someone in I the Peace Corps I looked at a suggested list and was intrigued by the title MANGO ELEPHANT One of the tasks I chose on the GR Seasonal Reading Challenge s Summer 2017 Challenge was a task to read a memoir of a person who was a volunteer for a humanitarian organization I was a little unsure about this since I am not familiar with the subject and wouldn t know what a good memoir might be I decided that since the task creator was a former Peace Corps volunt...I ve decided to give up on this book, and from what I have read, I will give it a star and a half I m getting very frustrated with it because she seems to be making the same dumb mistakes with a lot of things which I ll expand on below 1 While I m not expecting great writing for Peace Corps Lit, however, this one is really bottom of the barrel I ve been sp...this was the one of MANY peace corps memoirs i suffered through reading material choices were limited to our paltry communal bookshelves in the volunteer lounge of the swaziland peace corps office anyway, i used to write a monthly literature review box or our volunteer newsletter, and one month i ranted about this genre below are my thoughts Dissecting the Peace Corps Memoir One of my least favorite genres of nonfiction is hands down the peace corps memoir I attribute it to both the f this was the one of MANY peace corps memoirs i suffered through reading material choices were limited t...A Peace Corp Adventure in AfricaNavajo Indian woman Susana Herrera decides to put her violent childhood and abusive marriage behind by joining the American Peace Corp Signing on for a two year stint in Cameroon Africa to teach young children, she has no idea just what she has gotten herself into Arriving on the West Coast of Africa where temperatures get well over 125 degrees and where the land is as dry as the Sahara, Susana s first struggle is to gain respect and trust from the local village A Peace Corp Adventure in AfricaNavajo Indian woman Susana Herrera decides to put her violent childhood and abusive marriage behind by joining the American Peace Corp Signing on for a two year stint in Cameroon Africa to teach young children, she has no idea just what she has gotten herself into Arriving on the West Coast of Africa where temperatures get well over 125 degrees and where the land is as dry as the Sahara, Susana s first struggle is to gain respect and trust from the local villagers of Guidiguis Peace Corp v...Honestly I read this one mostly because there were mangoes and elephants in the title although, alas, not actually in the book.Herrera taught English in Cameroon when she was in the Peace Corps she went, she says, both because she knew she wanted to teach and because she wanted a better life than the one she was leaving at home And you came here...I ve always had a fascination with Africa and a desire to go there In reality though, I wouldn t last a second All it would take is seeing one of the large dangerous snakes to make my heart stop beating I m certain I would not have been able to endure the experience that Susana did with her tour of duty in Africa with the Peace Corps I was oblivious of the extreme social degradation of women and girls Thinking that if a woman rides a bike she is then perceived as ...Third book of three Peace Corps memoirs I read that were recommended by a friend who did Peace Corps, and while I was applying for Peace Corps and actually after I received my Peace Corps nomination.This one was probably my least favorite Maybe it was it s women studies aspect of a woman finding her inner strength and outer strength to move beyond a life history of abuse and terrible relationships But I found her voice to be kind of grating, hypocritical, and whiny And I think had her recruit Third book of three Peace Corps memoirs I read that were recommended by a friend who did Peace Corps, and while I was applying for Peace Corps and actually after I received my Peace Corps nomination.This one was probably my least favorite Maybe it was it s women studies aspect of a woman finding her inner strength and outer strength to m...

English
25 July 2018

Susana Herrera