Product Description

In I Laugh So I Won’t Cry, Kenya’s women tell their stories of love, struggle, happiness, and tragedy in their own words. I Laugh strikes a balance between intimate acquaintance and a comprehensive view. In-depth portraits allow readers to know a diverse selection of women intimately. Topical chapters feature the voices of a large range of women talking about the subjects closest to their hearts. Chapters cover: marriage, childrearing, work and getting by when there is no work, women’s self-help groups, genital cutting, ethnic tensions, and the new government that has promised huge reforms. I Laugh shows the full panorama of women’s struggles in sub-Saharan Africa without sacrificing the vivid details of individual lives. Subsistence farmers, herders, beggars, sex workers, office workers, hawkers, business executives and a few friends who stopped an ethnic war all speak in I Laugh So I Won’t Cry. I Laugh will interest readers who seek to understand the multiple realities of contemporary Africa. Excerpts from I Laugh So I Won’t Cry: On Husbands “You know, men don't like laughing with their wives. Other men will say, ‘Don't laugh with her. You are showing her that you love her too much. She will shame you. She will make you serve tea.’ So they just sit stony-faced.” “A man wouldn't like the woman to know how much money he has. If a wife asks her husband to buy something that is needed, like soap or tea, he will ask himself, ‘Now, how did she know that I have money in my pocket?’” On Education “Women who have been educated are respected. A husband knows that she is also an independent person and can do things on her own. The man is scared. He thinks maybe that if he hits her she is free to leave, but an uneducated lady is just forced to stay even if she gets problems in her marriage.” On Female Genital Cutting “Our mothers live with us. They will say it must be done. I can't disagree with my mother regarding my daughter. But for my daughter's daughter, it will change.” “There's the social pressure, even when they are very young. Because it is being done to all her friends in school, she would feel that you are denying her right. “

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #502936 in Books
• Published on: 2005-03-01
• Released on: 2005-03-01
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 378 pages

About the Author
When Helena Halperin taught in a village school in western Kenya, she spent her free time talking with women about love, children, cattle, work, justice, the past and the future. Their courage and resourcefulness inspired her to collect women’s stories throughout Kenya. She now teaches English at Roxbury Community College in Boston, and continues to ask questions.

Customer Reviews

The Women Folk of Kenya
This is a very professionally accomplished book of collectd interviews of the ordinary Kenyan women who is trying to live from day to day in difficult conditions. It is very good reading especially in the light of the post election crisis happening now in early 2008.

Wonderful depiction of reality
This is an interesting and informative book. It has a bit of an academic format but because the author includes so many firsthand accounts of real women in all stations, ages and social strata, it has a great story telling aspect as well.
Since I spent most of my time in the interior of Kenya in the most primitive settings, I can only speak authoritatively on the plight of rural women. I can tell you that Helena's recounting of lives and situations is really indicative of what's going on there. It brought back a lot of memories.
The social landscape is changing rapidly over there but the situation women find themselves in is moving a lot more slowly. I am so thankful for this snapshot provided by this book.

Reality in the land of "The Constant Gardener."
From Robert Ruark's "Something of Value" of 50 years ago to John le Carre's "Constant Gardner," popular literature about Kenya has been visualized through the point of view of white people makking their way there.

Halperin's non-fiction book is a first. It's a story of the land, compiled from the viewpoint of very many actual Kenyans, mostly female: It is about what's really been happening there over the past half century. How the society has changed, sometimes for better, often for worse, in the past generation, as more and more people have to live on fewer acres of farmable land or depart for the impoverished cities.

It's about living with AIDS, the effects of money on a barter society, how education affects relationships and what it means to be a born again Christian (or Muslim) in a society where animistic beliefs often prevail. In short, its about what it is like being a Kenyan. It is a book of anthropological thoroughness that reads like the deep-felt personal narrative that it is.