Gods of Noonday: A White Girl's African Life

Rating:
Summary: A Kindred Spirit
Review: Although never a missionary kid, Orr's memories of growing up during the 60s and early 70s struck a resonant chord and I felt as if I knew her - or perhaps WAS her. We were born in the same year, and like Orr I was raised in the Southern Baptist Church. I was a "GA" like she was and learned early my "place" in the dynamics of a church congregation. So many of the conflicting emotions Orr felt as a girl who wasn't sure where she belonged, as well as her ambivalent feelings about her family led to an insightful prose that accurately describes my own emotions during that time in my life - although we were an ocean apart. With clear, concise writing that often turned poetic, this book was an enjoyable read from start to finish, and I'm sure to re-visit it time and again.

Rating:
Summary: I LOVED THIS BOOK
Review: Elaine has succeeded in what many MKs (missionary kids) have wanted to do and that is to write about our experiences while growing up in Nigeria. I too, was born in Ogbomosho, Nigeria and knew Elaine and her family while in living in Nigeria and when I read her book, I could see, hear, taste, smell and touch Nigeria just as if I were right back there. It brought back so many precious memories that I have not thought about in years, some that I had even forgot.
It helps to strengthen our common bond when we have the opportunity to share with one another about our experiences in Nigeria. It makes me appreciate and proud of the heritage that we all share.

Thank you, Elaine, for making "going home", close as possible.

Your fellow guava tree lover,

Ron Wasson

Rating:
Summary: Plenty at Stake in "Gods of Noonday"
Review: Elaine Neil Orr's memoir, Gods of Noonday: A White Girl's African Life, is an essential book in an era of global expansion. Orr's courage to claim as home Nigeria, the land of her birth and childhood, despite her expatriate status, should encourage expatriate children everywhere to claim their various nations, whether they integrated to host cultures or not. It should encourage them to do the archeology, as Orr does, uncovering the archetypes of their host cultures, whether they were conscious of them at the time or not. And it should encourage families raising children overseas to give them a fuller immersion, permit them host country playmates, and encourage local education and language study. Parents employed outside their borders must recognize that their childhood homes are not their children's childhood homes.
Orr's most symbolic immersion was swimming in the cool clear Ethiope, and she claims the river as her sacred ground. "Nothing you could tell me about Jehovah was equal to the proof of divinity provided by the mere existence of so lovely a river. And so I worshipped it."
The river represents the cultural immersion Orr longs for, after the fact. Her life in Nigeria seems decorous and material as she recalls American girl toys she got for Christmas in an American decorated house, later wishing it had been African art. Orr contrasts herself to "real missionaries" who spoke native languages, lived among Nigerians and regarded her, a white child, as no "more special than they (Nigerian children) were."
Honesty glimmers through that exceeds "Out of Africa" and "The Poisonwood Bible," however much those books claim to be "of the land." For instance, Orr sees the anger of Nigerians directed at American missionaries during the U.S. Civil Rights Movement when bulletin boards were defaced in the hospital where her father was administrator and her mother a nurse.
It seems that Orr mourns a land she lived on, often secluded from, rather than in and among. And yet she dares to claim more, and that claim of being Nigerian is like catharsis in her illness, which is, perhaps, her most poignant claim. She suffers a disease, diabetes, common to African Americans in the U.S., many of whom, she realizes, may not have received the care she did as she faces end stage renal disease.
Dr. Orr's writing recalls Isaak Denisen's, in that there is longing on every page. But it also recognizes the fallacy of claiming too much, knowing (as Ngugi wa Thiong'o did in "Weep Not Child," his lament in response to "Out of Africa"), that the land taken by colonists was not theirs to mourn. Even when her mother attempts to involve the teenage Elaine in Sunday evening meetings, she realizes, "I had become too Americanized to feel comfortable trying to pass as a Urhobo girl...."
Her voice and project gain strength as she interweaves her adult experience of declining health and relationships, finding that she has resisted intimate friendships, whether because she moved so often, or because she is seeking to "rekindle a greater loss." The reader may wish to know more about how her marriage was resolved, but that may be another volume.
Grippingly Orr writes about the Biafran war (1967-70), the suffering all around and the shields thrown up for the children even after the loss of a mission surgeon. "You really should not try to raise children in the midst of a war and pretend it isn't there," she writes in one of many direct addresses to her readers. We are drawn in.
Orr is also eloquent about the estrangement experienced on returning to the land that was supposed to be her home. She refutes the misconception that the trauma of MK life is about landing in Africa without prior knowledge of the culture. "West Africa will take you in." Rather the trauma is in moving back to America and trying to pass as an insider. "It's hard to hold up under that kind of pressure and remember who you are."
She finished high school in the U.S. where she "I often attempted greatness, but it was very hard without a village behind me." Her unique observation echoes a weighty theme among global nomads (see "Unrooted Childhoods: Memoirs of Growing Up Global"). Orr recognizes that, despite being enriched by Nigeria, she was impoverished of community at "home." The America her parents were rescuing her for was already lost to her, and her boarding school compound was seperated from African village life.
Also essential at a time when missionary kids are confronting their missions (see: mksafetynet.com) and demanding trained dorm parents and child advocates, is Orr's recognition of sexual hazing and ritualized beatings in the boys' dorm. The rules of decent behavior frayed, so that "I left like the foreigner I was. I left the way I always left: without a tear." Her connectedness to any place was unavailable to her. Her wrenching refrain is, "For all I loved there, it was not mine to hold."
Even those who've lived all their lives as rooted as trees should read this book for Orr's masterful style; her resonant similes, "My youth was slipping away like badly spent money"; her metaphorical verbs, "the joy that petaled my youth"; her strong declaratives, "I was a Nigerian spirit born to an American mother: a crossed star, a mixed message, a long hunger."
There is plenty at stake in this book, as Orr faces death or rebirth from her illness. The tension builds and the ending is exquisite.

Rating:
Summary: Plenty at Stake in "Gods of Noonday"
Review: Elaine Neil Orr's memoir, Gods of Noonday: A White Girl's African Life, is an essential book in an era of global expansion. Orr's courage to claim as home Nigeria, the land of her birth and childhood, despite her expatriate status, should encourage expatriate children everywhere to claim their various nations, whether they integrated to host cultures or not. It should encourage them to do the archeology, as Orr does, uncovering the archetypes of their host cultures, whether they were conscious of them at the time or not. And it should encourage families raising children overseas to give them a fuller immersion, permit them host country playmates, and encourage local education and language study. Parents employed outside their borders must recognize that their childhood homes are not their children's childhood homes.
Orr's most symbolic immersion was swimming in the cool clear Ethiope, and she claims the river as her sacred ground. "Nothing you could tell me about Jehovah was equal to the proof of divinity provided by the mere existence of so lovely a river. And so I worshipped it."
The river represents the cultural immersion Orr longs for, after the fact. Her life in Nigeria seems decorous and material as she recalls American girl toys she got for Christmas in an American decorated house, later wishing it had been African art. Orr contrasts herself to "real missionaries" who spoke native languages, lived among Nigerians and regarded her, a white child, as no "more special than they (Nigerian children) were."
Honesty glimmers through that exceeds "Out of Africa" and "The Poisonwood Bible," however much those books claim to be "of the land." For instance, Orr sees the anger of Nigerians directed at American missionaries during the U.S. Civil Rights Movement when bulletin boards were defaced in the hospital where her father was administrator and her mother a nurse.
It seems that Orr mourns a land she lived on, often secluded from, rather than in and among. And yet she dares to claim more, and that claim of being Nigerian is like catharsis in her illness, which is, perhaps, her most poignant claim. She suffers a disease, diabetes, common to African Americans in the U.S., many of whom, she realizes, may not have received the care she did as she faces end stage renal disease.
Dr. Orr's writing recalls Isaak Denisen's, in that there is longing on every page. But it also recognizes the fallacy of claiming too much, knowing (as Ngugi wa Thiong'o did in "Weep Not Child," his lament in response to "Out of Africa"), that the land taken by colonists was not theirs to mourn. Even when her mother attempts to involve the teenage Elaine in Sunday evening meetings, she realizes, "I had become too Americanized to feel comfortable trying to pass as a Urhobo girl...."
Her voice and project gain strength as she interweaves her adult experience of declining health and relationships, finding that she has resisted intimate friendships, whether because she moved so often, or because she is seeking to "rekindle a greater loss." The reader may wish to know more about how her marriage was resolved, but that may be another volume.
Grippingly Orr writes about the Biafran war (1967-70), the suffering all around and the shields thrown up for the children even after the loss of a mission surgeon. "You really should not try to raise children in the midst of a war and pretend it isn't there," she writes in one of many direct addresses to her readers. We are drawn in.
Orr is also eloquent about the estrangement experienced on returning to the land that was supposed to be her home. She refutes the misconception that the trauma of MK life is about landing in Africa without prior knowledge of the culture. "West Africa will take you in." Rather the trauma is in moving back to America and trying to pass as an insider. "It's hard to hold up under that kind of pressure and remember who you are."
She finished high school in the U.S. where she "I often attempted greatness, but it was very hard without a village behind me." Her unique observation echoes a weighty theme among global nomads (see "Unrooted Childhoods: Memoirs of Growing Up Global"). Orr recognizes that, despite being enriched by Nigeria, she was impoverished of community at "home." The America her parents were rescuing her for was already lost to her, and her boarding school compound was seperated from African village life.
Also essential at a time when missionary kids are confronting their missions (see: mksafetynet.com) and demanding trained dorm parents and child advocates, is Orr's recognition of sexual hazing and ritualized beatings in the boys' dorm. The rules of decent behavior frayed, so that "I left like the foreigner I was. I left the way I always left: without a tear." Her connectedness to any place was unavailable to her. Her wrenching refrain is, "For all I loved there, it was not mine to hold."
Even those who've lived all their lives as rooted as trees should read this book for Orr's masterful style; her resonant similes, "My youth was slipping away like badly spent money"; her metaphorical verbs, "the joy that petaled my youth"; her strong declaratives, "I was a Nigerian spirit born to an American mother: a crossed star, a mixed message, a long hunger."
There is plenty at stake in this book, as Orr faces death or rebirth from her illness. The tension builds and the ending is exquisite.

Rating:
Summary: This is a wonderful book!
Review: I have not been able to stop thinking about this book which is so beautifully written by Elaine Neil Orr. As she told the story of her childhood in colonial Africa, I could feel the heat, smell the sometimes awful smells, taste the dust, and relate to her pain of being a child of 2 countries. She writes hauntingly of war breaking out all around her and how the Americans chose to ignore it and just kept "carrying on". This is a great book for anyone that grew up one country( mainly due to their parents' jobs) but were then sent back to live in their parents' country. Elaine starts the journey to find what she left behind in her beloved Africa only after her health takes a serious turn for the worse. I could not put this book down until I knew the ending.

Rating:
Summary: This book hit home.
Review: Like Elaine, I am an MK from Nigeria, but in the far north eastern part. As I read her book my overwhelming feeling was "Yes, I know that emotion". What a treat it was to read her book. I bought two copies. One to keep and one to share.

Rating:
Summary: A Memior Which Speaks to Parents
Review: While the descriptions of the land and the people of Nigeria are powerful and beautiful, the relationship of the children and the author in particular, to the adults and to their parents really spoke to me. Do we pay attention to our children? Are we there when they need us? What happens when we are so distracted by our work and our passion that the child's voice goes unheard?

Ms. Orr's book also portrays the universal struggles of young women, teenagers in particular, as they grow up amidst difficult and demanding societal pressures. Ms. Orr may have felt attached to Africa but America had a hold on her as a young woman. This book offers a rich experience for mothers and daughters to read "Gods of Noonday" together and to explore their own unique relationships.

It is also a story of great survival and determination as Ms. Orr faced the very real possibility of losing her battle against Diabetes and kidney failure. "Gods of Noonday" is a treasure.