Under African Sun
From Publishers WeeklyWith her husband (a Dartmouth professor) and two young sons, Alverson (now an anti-apartheid activist and educational administrator at Dartmouth) lived in a manure-and-mud-floor hut in Botswana in the early 1970s. Bringing a minimum of clothing and very little else, the family worked side by side with their Tswana "age-mates," shared "efforts and smiles" and learned to drink (but not enjoy) kadi beerand Alverson started a school for children. She debated with Tswana women (in Setswana) about traditional and Western attitudes toward marriage, religion, medicine (witch doctors vs. "white coats") and agricultural methods. A few years later, a new airport displaced their neighbors and swallowed up the community, so this is a valuable as well as entertaining account of disappearing African society. Photos.Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.From Library JournalAlverson"s account of her personal experiences as the wife of an anthropologist living in a village in Botswana helps us to examine our own assumptions of cultural superiority and our easy analysis of Third World cultures and of urbanization in developing countries. The descriptions of day-to-day existence for herself and her two children and the effect that their life had on her relationship with her husband are insightful and interesting. She does not glorify the hunger, the lack of education, or the inadequate housing. She does not offer easy solutions to the problems of the country. She does point clearly to the strengths of the Tswana culture and the beauties of Botswana, as well as its problems, and to the arrogance of many solutions proposed by the "developed" world. A readable book, recommended for general readers and young adults. Maidel Cason, Univ. of Delaware Lib., NewarkCopyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.