reflection on "strngth in what remains"
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Prologue The prologue begins in the present (2006) with the author, Tracy Kidder, travelling in Burundi in the company of Deogratias, the Burundian man whose story the book chronicles. They are in the shadow of the Ganza Mountain, near Deogratias’s home. The author notes that this is a landlocked, poor, agrarian country. They are on the way to Deo’s home, Butanza (the real name has been changed by Kidder to protect Deo’s relatives). Deo points out a place in the mountains where his friend, Clovis, once became fatally sick. But he also insists that in Butanza, Clovis cannot be mentioned; he explains that there is a word, gusimbura, which means haunting people with the past. Unlike in America, where people seek out the past, in Burundi they try to forget. Part I: Flights Chapter 1: Bujibmura—New York, May 1994 The narrative retreats 12 years from the prologue, to the end of one phase of Deo’s nightmare. Although this book chronicles Deo’s story from fleeing genocide to achieving a successful and meaningful life, it begins with him in Burundi’s capital, Bujumbura, on the verge of escaping his war-torn country. At the moment, we do not know how Deo has arrived at this moment, but we know that he is boarding a plane to leave Burundi. He is not entirely jubilant, since there are rumors that planes have been shot down, including that of the president of neighboring Rwanda. He lands in Entebbe, Uganda, and we learn that he is en route to New York. Kidder informs us that Deo has secured a visa and tickets with the help of his wealthy friend Jean, who was a colleague at medical school. For his part, Deo only knows as much of the world as he learned in his colonial-influenced primary school, which is that the former colonial powers France and Belgium are the important places on the map. From Entebbe, Deo takes a complicated route to the US. He stops in Cairo, Moscow, and Ireland on his way. In New York he has to pass through immigration, where his lack of English (he speaks French) becomes a problem. Though he only has $200 and no real resources or place of residence, he ultimately passes through. He is helped by a French-speaking Senegalese immigration agent, Muhammad, who agrees to help Deo informally to begin to find his way in New York. Muhammad takes him to a vacant building where he himself sleeps on the floor; he recommends that Deo do the same in order to save money. Deo spends most of his first day riding the subway, trying to learn the routes and some of the locations the subway frequents.
5 Strength in What Remains SuperSummary Study Guide C o r i h t 2 0 1 3 : S u e r S u m m a r Chapter 2: New York City, 1994 Living in the abandoned building on Malcolm X Boulevard is a bizarre experience for
Deo. Not only does he not speak English yet, but the world around him seems to be a surprising mix of industriousness and waste. Among other difficult experiences, he is harassed by white police, who are enraged because he cannot understand and react to their commands as they search him for drugs. Before long, Muhammad helps Deo find a job at Gristedes, a chain supermarket. Though this is 1994, he works for $15 a day, delivering groceries for 12 hours per day six days a week. He purchases a pocket translation dictionary to try to develop a vocabulary in English. Deo takes groceries to high rise buildings, where he hopes for tips to supplement his income. While at some addresses the customers do not tip, at others doormen steal the tips. His manager, Goss (whose real name has been masked by the author), is cruel, and uses a pole to prod his employees to work harder or to get their attention. He learns from other African employees that Goss jokes that people from Deo’s part of the world are fighting in order to eat each other. These friends also let Deo know that to survive he will have to be more aggressive about tips, a necessity that goes against his better instincts (Deo has been turning down tips). Considering his fall from medical student to delivery boy, at moments he even wishes for death. Deo becomes painfully aware of the line dividing “New Yorkers” from outsiders. He has positive discoveries, too, such as finding Central Park. He also improves his vocabulary, using a phonetic dictionary from Barnes & Noble. Deo keeps in touch with Burundi using public phones that are operated as part of a black or gray market that he does not comprehend (nor does he want to know). He makes phone contact with Claude, a friend from medical school, who can keep him updated on events in Burundi. Unfortunately, conflict still rages there. Deo lives on milk, bread, and cookies. He is constantly suffering from hunger. He is surprised by the thin figures of wealthy women he sees, as this would denote poverty in Burundi. In addition to hunger, he suffers from nightmares. To make things worse, Muhammad returns to Senegal, leaving him virtually friendless. He moves to another building but gets robbed of a week’s pay. He also sees a dead body on the sidewalk outside, and makes the decision to move into Central Park. Prologue-Chapter 2 Analysis The prologue is useful because it establishes the relationship between the central character, Deogratias, and the author, Tracy Kidder. Clearly, Deo has met and told his tale to Kidder, who now relates it to the reader. The prologue also lays the foundation for the notion of gusimbura, a verb that has the negative meaning of recalling a deceased loved one in someone’s memory, so that they are forced to relive their pain and loss once again. This concept reminds us of the difference between the Western
6 Strength in What Remains SuperSummary Study Guide Copyright 2013: SuperSummary
reader’s culture and the culture of Deo. We want to know what happened in Burundi, but the people there are committed to forgetting. The title of Part I, “Flights,” is a bit of a pun operating on the many flights Deo must take, in combination with the fact that he has to flee so many times: not only from Burundi, but from place to place within New York. Chapters 1 and 2 are effective because even though they pass over the central tragedy of Deo’s life, they very impressively establish the contrast of his life immediately before and after he fled Burundi for the US. We tend to think of refugees to this country as very fortunate for the simple fact they have escaped from horrible situations to the safe, affluent US. But Deo’s journey and its aftermath reveal that the entire process is traumatic, even once someone reaches America. The line between “New Yorker” and outsider is very important for Deo at this point. While he is an educated medical student, his status as a French-speaking outsider makes it impossible for him to come into contact with people of a similar status in the US. On the other hand, we see some cooperation between immigrants, such as the Senegalese group among which Muhammad lives. But this cooperation is limited by the meager amount of resources these groups possess. It is enlightening and unsettling for the reader to see New York, and America, from this outsider perspective. It is perhaps reassuring to see that Deo rather easily gains admittance to the US; but Kidder points out that since 1994, things have becomes much more “secure” and difficult at the American border. Chapter 3: Burundi, 1970s As the title suggests, this chapter revisits Deo’s childhood. His name, meaning “Thanks be to God,” is something that Deo’s mother learned in church. Many names in Burundi tell stories, and his attests to her gratitude as she gave birth to him. The villages, Kidder explains, are called collines or hills, and Deo’s colline is on a hill called Butanza. The village is composed in part of his large extended family, who live in thatched wooden buildings in compounds surrounded by hardened mud walls. Cows are their only valuable resource. The term Hutu, which will play a huge role in his life and in human history, is something he first hears in school as an adolescent, when a girl thinks he has called her a Hutu and she becomes angry. Eventually, after much prodding, his relatives reluctantly explain that Hutus are defined as those who possess no cows or few cows, while Tutsis possess cows in large numbers. Deo’s family owns some farmland down the hill by the lake, and Deo becomes one of the young members responsible for tending the land and hauling the food the long distance back to Butanza. Deo’s mother is a somewhat eccentric figure, often lending out valuable resources such as salt. It is very shameful to have to borrow salt, and it is also infuriating to Deo’s father that his mother gives salt to shameful people.
