Mom must have told her brothers that I liked to read because I was soon receiving books from my maternal uncles too. Uncle Matthew sent me Grimm’s Fairy Tales and the unabridged Bambi. From Uncle Dan, I received extravagantly illustrated (pre-Disney) editions of Peter Pan, Heidi and Black Beauty.

When I entered college, English Literature seemed a fine choice for a major even though I knew I’d never be an English teacher. (In those days, we were encouraged to follow our dreams, not our vocational goals.) That’s when I first learned that reading could be hard work. I was buried under an avalanche of books, reading—and trying to critically analyze—one thousand pages every week: Milton, Shakespeare, Yeats, Joyce, Tennyson, Browning, Eliot and Austen. And then there was Chaucer. In Middle English. No one had told me I’d have to learn a foreign language to read The Canterbury Tales. Reading wasn’t so much fun anymore, but I was grateful for my broadened perspective. And I’m still reading Yeats’ poetry.

Thirty years later I seized the opportunity to do for others what those uncles had done for me. I was teaching English (never say never) to young adults in Africa. Most of my students had grown up listening to their elders tell stories around the evening fire, but only one of them had ever read a novel. Once a week, as a break from grammar, speaking and listening activities, my students and I discussed the latest chapter of Nervous Conditions by Zimbabwean writer, Tsitsi Dangarembga. The novel follows the quest of a spirited young girl to acquire education and dignity in colonial Southern Rhodesia. Accustomed to reading academic texts, my students couldn’t believe that reading could be so exciting. I was amazed at their total engagement with the characters and their lively debates about the plot twists.

When the students returned the following year for English III, I said, "You had such a good time reading that novel last semester. Would you like to read some more African stories and learn how to write your own?" Their response was an enthusiastic "Yes!" So I taught them characterization, plot lines and point-of-view. Some of my students’ stories were autobiographical; others were stories they remembered from their childhoods. At the end of the semester, I took their manuscripts to a local copy shop and "published" the collection in a small book we distributed to everyone on campus. Naturally, they were thrilled to see their work in print, but it was my student Esron Kapolo who expressed the deeper appreciation of his classmates. "Madam," he said, "You have given us a wonderful gift. You have shown us how we can preserve the oral stories of our people, so they don’t become lost when our parents pass away."

My students often reminded me that it was important to remember our ancestors. They are right. I like to imagine my uncles all standing together in the back of that hot, dusty classroom, smiles on their faces as the words reach new readers.

 

Susan Bauer returned to the USA in 2003 after teaching English for six years in Namibia and Ghana. Her work has appeared in Transitions Abroad, Women’s Independent Press, The Georgetown Review, and The Rambler. Her essay, "Choosing Africa," was published in the anthology, A Matter of Choice: 25 People Who Transformed Their Lives (Seal Press; 2004). She writes about her African friends from her home in North Carolina.