Reflection on book the camel bookmobile - Essay Example

10 November The Camel Bookmobile: Nature Versus Culture The narrator of the book The Camel Bookmobile by Masha Hamilton, struggles with bringing new ideas through her bookmobile to a traditional African culture. The quote that compares mosquito love to human love signifies that struggle. A female mosquito needs to mate only one time, and then she carries around the sperm and can produce any time she wants. The quote is saying that humans are far different than mosquitoes. Human beings “convince themselves that they mean it, every time.

” The quote is indicating that humans have a biological need to love in order to reproduce, but are not honest with themselves as to the reason. Instead they believe in a bigger concept of love and romance. Fi takes books to an African culture that does not even have running water. To illustrate the quote, Fi is the human with the greater ideals and the mosquitoes are the Africans. The Africans are more pragmatic: they have a traditional way of doing things in order to survive. Fi brings them books assuming that they are in need of an education.

Fi is looking at the African culture from a standpoint where she thinks she is better than them. Enlightening more primitive civilizations to a more cultured way of life is a debate with which many sociologists struggle. Fi is essentially stirring up their way of life. Instead of bringing the African people positive change, she causes shame to them. Scar Boy brings shame to himself when he refuses to return books to the Bookmobile. Fi sleeps with an African man from one of the villages she visits.

If she aimed to make a difference by bringing books to the African people, she did it in a negative way. I had mixed reactions to the last half of the book. As an immigrant who came to the United States four years ago, I have a different perspective. Fi’s arrogance is almost insulting to the African people. She is saying that her way of life is better than theirs, yet she knows very little initially about their culture. The Africans do what they need to do in order to survive. They have their traditions and rituals that go along with that.

They are the mosquitos to a certain extent. Fi, as an American, lives for pleasure and fulfillment. The cultures collide because Fi is not willing to accept that she cannot change the African people, and that they may not need change. On page 135, Chica says, “Why? Books-… What are they? They won’t give her milk.” This quote illustrates how the African people feel about Fi coming to their culture and forcing literacy on them. Their way of life is so practical, steeped in tradition. Fi regards their culture as primitive when she should simply think of it as unknown and mysterious.

What was Fi hoping to accomplish with her bookmobile? To claim altruism would be degrading to the African people. When it comes to infringing on other cultures, I believe it is best to not interfere unless it is a matter of life and death. If the African people wrote a letter to the United States that said, “we want to know what we are missing, please send a bookmobile a.s.a.p.” then I would understand. But to intentionally infringe on another culture because you think you have more answers is naïve and insulting, in my opinion.