Lion

Destination: Botswana and Zimbabwe, Africa

Book: The Girl Who Married a Lion and Other Tales from Africa by Alexander McCall Smith

Since I was first introduced to Alexander McCall Smith through his funny, thoroughly delightful No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, the first of a series that has a world-wide audience, I have been curious about why a Scotsman is writing about Africa.

Not that he never writes about Scotland, but we’ll save those books for another day.  When I went to my library to poke around for more books in the series of the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, I found that McCall Smith has also written several children’s books, and a couple of collections of folklore (not mentioning scientific papers in his role as a physician and a member of U.N. committees.)

I love the characters of the Detective Agency, and felt that I learned a lot about the culture and lives of people who live in Botswana. His keen ear for dialect makes you feel you are there. The wildly popular series now numbers ten. It is typical of his lovely sense of humor that Precious Ramotswe, “traditionally built” founder of the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency writes a foreword for The Girl Who Married a Lion.

I finally got around to his web site, which you will find by clicking on his name, here, Alexander McCall Smith. It turns out that he grew up in Zimbabwe and part of his education was in Africa.

The short fables from Botswana and Zimbabwe retold in The Girl Who Married a Lion relate a way of looking at the world, tells you what sort of things are high priorities for people who live in the bush, and let’s you hear the voices of native speakers. They deal with drought, selfish behavior, fears of the wild animals, and magical powers.

I was struck at how often songs made up on the spot played a role in these stories.  I have always thought that learning a language teaches you a great deal about another culture, because it reveals assumptions and tells you what is important and not so important in that culture.  If you can’t learn the language, then folk tales run a close second. And Kerry Dexter is about to chime in here and say that nothing is better than folk music for teaching about a culture.

In these stories, although we don’t hear the music, we definitely see the thought process that goes into creating the songs that people use as an every day medium of expression.

Photograph from Flickr via Creative Commons, taken by “etrusia_uk”

Have you ever read folk tales of a country you are visiting to help you understand their culture? Share your thoughts here.

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