Waiting is set in Uganda during the 1979 civil war around the time of Idi Amin's ousting. The tension in the 1st half of the novella is hard to take. Amin's soldiers are retreating, killing and pillaging as they go. Villagers have to hide out in the bush. Still, the writing is surprisingly gentle and not too graphic, given its subject matter. We also get to learn a lot about women's daily life and chores.
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Have just started the tagged book and here's a terrible photo or the Ugandan rolex I made yesterday: a vegetable (onion, mostly) omelette rolled up with extra vegetables and coriander leaves, inside a Ugandan chapati (which looks exactly like a paratha to me). It's street food that's as good as the ingredients you put in.
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pickFor Alinda's family, war is just a series of hardships visited upon them, from the killing of one family member to the amputation needed by a neighbor to the disappearance of some family members and the addition of others. While there seems to be a momentum in the events described, there is no meaning. It is a well-told story of an adolescence lived in anticipation of unpredictable, uncontrollable events and adjusting to circumstances as one can.
so-soAn interesting contrast between the brutality of the war that is happening there somewhere in the city, and the everyday life of a rural population trying to survive. Experiencing uncertainty and fear that is growing more and more while waiting for something to happen seems to me a great topic/idea, but I think that in this story, the author failed to capture this agony and the unpredictability of waiting. #ReadAroundTheWorld #Uganda
Waiting: A Novel of Uganda's Hidden War | 
#Uganda (edited) 1y