THE VILLAGE OF WAITING

by George Packer ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 3, 1988

A Peace Corps volunteer--returned from service in Togo--offers a richly detailed, admirably frank account of village life and the problems of development and of a yovo (white) outsider in West Africa. The small country of Togo doesn't make headlines: African-ruled for decades, there's no nationalist struggle (though Packer's teaching experiences are often surprisingly reminiscent of Crossing the Line, 1986, William Finnegan's report of teaching ""colored"" students in apartheid South Africa); famines threaten but never actually occur; the country is stable and free of coups since military man Eyadema took over in 1967--his reign is also free of sensationalism, without excessive cruelty or greed, but without much inspiration either. And so the virtue of Packer's book is to show ordinary Africans facing not extreme situations but rather the joys and frustrations of daily life in the Third World, where community ties remain strong but the promises of education and development begin to seem like bad jokes. Assigned to the village of LaviÉ (the name, appropriately, means ""Wait a little more""), Tucker finds Africans coping with dust, boredom, hard work, shortages, and the sense of futility. A Togolese friend espouses the philosophy of the cicada (""To live happy, live hidden""), while a French expatriate in Lagos, Nigeria, prefers the frenetic life in that overcrowded metropolis where traditional loyalties have broken down (""Better dog-eat-dog than dog-eat-nothing""). Eventually, Tucker himself cracks under the strain of African life. The author doesn't pretend to know it all, but he knows plenty, and shares it with grace and humor in this colorful and disturbing book at contemporary West Africa.

Pub Date: Aug. 3, 1988

ISBN: 0374527806

Page Count: -

Publisher: Vintage/Random House

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1988

Categories: NONFICTION