[IGB]⇒ PDF Free Sweetness in the Belly Camilla Gibb 9780434014538 Books

Sweetness in the Belly Camilla Gibb 9780434014538 Books

Download As PDF : Sweetness in the Belly Camilla Gibb 9780434014538 Books

Sweetness in the Belly Camilla Gibb 9780434014538 Books

An interesting tale of white woman (ferenji) who grows up embracing Islam in Morocco after her parents died. Most of the story tells the history of Ethiopia from the early 70's through the 90's and the life of a refugee in London. Having grown up in Ethiopia myself, I found the story oddly comforting yet disturbing in the details of the time of famine and war. One warning, there are quite a few Ethiopian words used without translation. It did not bother mmm e but may cause some confusion for those who aren't familiar with the local language. Have some buna while reading this...


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Sweetness in the Belly Camilla Gibb 9780434014538 Books Reviews

Lilly finds a way to make home where she is planted. She make family out of those she shares her life. England/Morocco/Ethiopia are at one time foreign and home but her Islamic faith is with her.
Having lived in Harar for three years, I couldn't put Camilla Gibb's book down and wish it had continued. As an anthropologist who has done her field work there, she brings the city and its population to life, deftly working in its customs and values.

I lived in Harar during the 1960s, a period closer in time to that of the book and felt that Gibb had the late 1990s in mind as she described the lifestyles of Hararis. Blenders and other electronic devices? Television? Unchaperoned young men and women together? Perhaps that came in a later age.

The religious leader who would not support his children is also enigmatic. He would have been looked upon with suspicion if he had shirked this responsibility.

Gibb paints a picture of Harar, not as a short touristic stop and visit to the Hyena Man, but as a culture in which religion is important. She sheds light on the diversity that is apparent when one looks at the people of the Old City, but until recently was unexplained. I found the novel fascinating as did the many friends to whom I sent copies.
A marvelous book that better shaped my understanding of Ethiopia and Islam. Wonderfully readable and intensely engaging. Meaty enough for a good Book Club discussion. Seems like a natural companion piece to the book Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese. While ultimately very different novels dealing with different major themes, some interesting juxtapositions could be drawn against The Poisonwood Bible A Novel by Barbara Kingsolver.
It took a very special person to concieve of and write this novel. Only after I'd finished it, did I discover it was fiction--written by a Londoner no less! All along I had mistakenly thought it autobiographical.

How could someone have written such an authentic book unless they had lived the story themselves? The answer, in part, being that the author had spent time in Ethiopia, conducting field work in social anthropology. How else could she have had even an inkling as to what it was like to live in a dirt-floor hut in the city of Harar--one of the most peculiar, most alien, most ancient of all cities and cultures in the world--home to the Hyeana men and Ethiopias' Muslims. It is such even to the rest of Ethiopia--but then, Ethiopia is that kind of place--a country composed of a patchwork of remarkably unique cultures.

Harar is a walled city and throughout history, was a major base for the incursion of Islam into Ethiopia, a country that prides itself on being first in the world to proclaim Christianity its state religion. Ethiopia is and always was an island of Christianity in a sea of Islam-- and Harar, a small city of Muslims in a sea of Chritians.
In eastern Ethiopia, Harar is only a short distance from the Djibouti coast, directly across the Gulf of Aden from Yemen and Saudi Arabia. But it is a long way from Morroco!

Still, it makes sense that Gibbs' protagonist would undertake a pilgrimage to Harar--this far away place that had such an exotic, mystical reputation for the Islamic faithful. Thousands of others traveled here, as well, to pay homage.

It was indeed an incredible thing to experience-- the way Gibb wove here plot--traveling from a primeval, third world culture to the developed world and a country, oceans away, with a culture, religon and way of life so diametrically opposed. The overwhelming burden the heroine carried with her is unimaginable--a woman without a home, without a country, without family--twisting in the wind between two cultures into neither of which she fit. All this amidst love, revolution and longing for the mother and father she so long ago lost. She steals the readers' heart and makes you want to hold her, comfort her and tell her its going to be alright.

To write this story, Camilla Gibb had to have lived it herself, in her mind--there is no other way--and because of this, her novel might just as well be labeled autobiographical. It is an astounding achievment to have accomplished such a feat and I can only dream of having the privelege of sitting at a table in old Harar sipping tea with her.

DH Koester--"And There I Was" And There I Was Volume VIII A Backpacking Adventure in Ethiopia
A great story that will sweep you into the life of Lilly the daughter of hippies, who is orphaned in Tangier and raised by a Sufi Scholar. Her rich, peaceful life there studying the Qur'an is interrupted when political violence erupts and all people of any faith are persecuted. For safety she is sent to Harar, Ethiopia where she expects a safe haven and instead is rejected because she is an a white, Arab, and a girl. So from a life of some privilege to a servant with no voice, Lilly who does not even speak the local language is moved into to a tribal village to live in a dusty hut with a woman and her 4 children. The most interesting and inspiring story really begins there. Lilly's reaction, even though she is scared and always hungry, is to pitch in and see how things can be the best they can. Here's where the author's first- hand knowledge of life in Ethiopia really shows up in the details described in Lilly's story. Her devotion to prayer and hard work does not keep her from the struggle of poverty and oppression, but give her strength and self assurance to be present to her friends and honest to herself. As for "sweetness in the belly" you will just have to read the book.
An interesting tale of white woman (ferenji) who grows up embracing Islam in Morocco after her parents died. Most of the story tells the history of Ethiopia from the early 70's through the 90's and the life of a refugee in London. Having grown up in Ethiopia myself, I found the story oddly comforting yet disturbing in the details of the time of famine and war. One warning, there are quite a few Ethiopian words used without translation. It did not bother mmm e but may cause some confusion for those who aren't familiar with the local language. Have some buna while reading this...