Our Grandmothers' Drums
After 14 months in an isolated village in Gambia, a narrow former British colony inserted into the heart of Senegal in Western Africa, Hudson, a young Englishman, was changed "completely and forever." In this perceptive first book, he explains that although he arrived as an observer who wanted to study the lives of the village women, he soon became an active participant in the rituals of the blank, listless people who fasted in their dilapidated, termite-ridden huts, surrounded by dangerous bush. They were entirely reliant on the one rainy season to produce the food necessary for survival. Working alongside the women, Hudson was drawn into their personal, religious, social and sexual dramas. When he left, he felt that he "knew these people too well to feel sentimental about them," but was nevertheless close to tears. Readers will understand his pain.Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.