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A review by avalinahsbooks
Bucket Showers & Baby Goats: Volunteering in West Africa by Christine Brown
3.0
How I read this: Free ebook copy received through Edelweiss
This is a very simply written account of a volunteering stay in Ghana. When I say simply written, I mean it's basically diary entries for the time the author spent there, nothing more. There are no musings or philosophizing that is common for travel memoirs - it's quite simply the account of what happened, sometimes down to the smallest details, such as what was served for dinner or what was said over a small thing (it is precisely in terms of "the first computer didn't work, the second one started cutting out, and the third one...") It even has dates on the entries, so I imagine a diary with some editing is exactly what it is. While that's nice and genuine in a way, a lot of the time I felt like I wasn't actually reading a book - rather just someone's blog (and not a very interesting one, at that.). A good example of this is how the author visited the castle of Cape Coast twice. She tells the same rephrased history of it twice. I had to scroll back to check if it wasn't copy pasted because that's what it felt like - it wasn't, but why tell the exact same thing twice? Surely once is enough and you can edit the second one out? What's the point of making your reader wonder if you've copy pasted it into part 2 of the book..?
Anyway, despite that, the book is pretty informative on the local customs that the author experienced during the travel. Foods are described, also the ways things are done, the way of life of the people in the village they are staying with, clothing and ways to travel. This detail was precisely why I wanted to read this - it's always interesting to hear about how people live in places far away from where I am.
The book also talks about some of the issues that the volunteering trip was meant to help with - children not having enough time for school due to house or farm work, inaccessibility of good computers, lack of sexual education and the problems that come with it. These things are just stated and there isn't really any judgement attached to it, so it's good. It's just an account of what the volunteers experienced. At the end, there are also a few appendixes detailed the problems that come with the lack of sex education and what the locals themselves think about it. That part was pretty interesting.
I thank the publisher for giving me a free copy of the ebook in exchange to my honest review. This has not affected my opinion.
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This is a very simply written account of a volunteering stay in Ghana. When I say simply written, I mean it's basically diary entries for the time the author spent there, nothing more. There are no musings or philosophizing that is common for travel memoirs - it's quite simply the account of what happened, sometimes down to the smallest details, such as what was served for dinner or what was said over a small thing (it is precisely in terms of "the first computer didn't work, the second one started cutting out, and the third one...") It even has dates on the entries, so I imagine a diary with some editing is exactly what it is. While that's nice and genuine in a way, a lot of the time I felt like I wasn't actually reading a book - rather just someone's blog (and not a very interesting one, at that.). A good example of this is how the author visited the castle of Cape Coast twice. She tells the same rephrased history of it twice. I had to scroll back to check if it wasn't copy pasted because that's what it felt like - it wasn't, but why tell the exact same thing twice? Surely once is enough and you can edit the second one out? What's the point of making your reader wonder if you've copy pasted it into part 2 of the book..?
Anyway, despite that, the book is pretty informative on the local customs that the author experienced during the travel. Foods are described, also the ways things are done, the way of life of the people in the village they are staying with, clothing and ways to travel. This detail was precisely why I wanted to read this - it's always interesting to hear about how people live in places far away from where I am.
The book also talks about some of the issues that the volunteering trip was meant to help with - children not having enough time for school due to house or farm work, inaccessibility of good computers, lack of sexual education and the problems that come with it. These things are just stated and there isn't really any judgement attached to it, so it's good. It's just an account of what the volunteers experienced. At the end, there are also a few appendixes detailed the problems that come with the lack of sex education and what the locals themselves think about it. That part was pretty interesting.
I thank the publisher for giving me a free copy of the ebook in exchange to my honest review. This has not affected my opinion.
Book Blog | Bookstagram | Bookish Twitter