I am reading Little Bee, and am drawn in by certain phrases which scream at me from the pages. Ex: “Scars are beautiful because scars do not form on dying people, and scars mean I survived.” There are many others phrases that make the reader see that you have insight into the depth of the anguish suffered by people who have been so victimized by the cruelty of some of humanity.

I am going to Mozambique this summer for the second time, and am hoping to start a writing project which will tell, for future generations, the history of the people who have lived in a small village on the Southeast coast. After reading Tracy Kidder’s Strength in What Remains and The Translator( can’t recall the author’s name at this moment), plus several other books, I am wondering if this project would be a negative endeavor because of the pain the telling of their stories would bring to the forefront of their emotions. I think it would be a valuable account for future generations, but maybe not worth the pain it would cause to those who share their personal stories. They may have to be at least three or four generations removed from those who survived an environment of terror before they can view it without experiencing overwhelming emotions and reliving the horrors. I am particularly interested in finding anyone who was alive during the Portuguese colonization period, which ended in 1975. I don’t know that much has been written about life from the African point of view during that time. The person about whom Tracy Kidder wrote his book is a real person, and his efforts to deal emotionally with his flight from, and return to, Burundi is a statement of how wise it may or may not be to try to write the stories of people who have suffered beyond the comprehension of most Western minds. He says,” In the West you want to remember. In Africa, we try to forget.”

Doris Taylor