Malidoma, whose name means "be friends with the stranger/enemy," was born under the shadow of French colonial rule in Upper Volta, West Africa. When he was four years old, he was taken by a Jesuit priest and imprisoned in a seminary built for training a new generation of "black" Catholic priests. In spite of his isolation from his tribe and his village, Malidoma stubbornly refused to forget where he had come from and who he was. Finally, fifteen years later, Malidoma fled the seminary and walked 125 miles through the dense jungle back to his own people, the Dagara. Once he was home, however, many there regarded him as a "white black," to be looked on with suspicion because he had been contaminated by the "sickness" of the colonial world. Malidoma was a man of two worlds, at home in neither.His only hope of reconnection with his people was to undergo the harrowing Dagara monthlong initiation in the wilderness, which he describes in fascinating detail. Malidoma emerged from this supernatural ritual a newly integrated individual, rejoined to his ancestral past and his cultural present. For more than a century, anthropologists and ethnologists have attempted to penetrate the worldview of indigenous peoples. Now a true son of Africa has come forth, with the permission of his tribal elders, to tell us with stunning candor about their way of life. Today Malidoma flys the jetways writing on his laptop computer, seeking to share the ancient wisdom of the Dagara with the rest of the world and bring an understanding of another way of life to his village. His book is a courageous testament to the hope that humanity can learn to live in a global village and see the "stranger" as a friend.… (more)
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As a child, Somé was kidnapped by Jesuits, to be trained as a priest and used as an intermediary with his people. He escaped as an adult (after assaulting a teacher, he fled the Jesuit school) and returned to his village. There, he was out of place and unable to assume an adult role. He was both lacking in local knowledge and had been taught a different way to see the world. Much of the memoir recounts Somé's grueling initiation and transition to cultural adulthood. Even after initiation, however, Somé remains a man of two worlds, charged by his elders to bridge his culture and the Western world.
Like many memoirs and narratives from non-Western cultures, magic and symbolism abound. This is not how I understand the world and its workings, so it is interesting to read Somé's descriptions. He addresses the worldview differences, but I would have wished for more commentary on the contrasts. Also like many memoirs from countries affected by colonialism and war, the questions of identity, identification, and multiple cultures are pervasive, critical, and ultimately unanswerable.
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