![]() ![]() All Siibabean males, the grouping of bodies spoke to a massacre. ![]() We rounded a corner and came upon the remains site, older than the deserted camp. We heard sounds ahead, shouted commands and vehicle engines. I was glad my backpack held only the day’s necessities and was not a burden for him. With determined strength, Karlyhi hobbled behind us. Hakulupe Le scribbled a note and fastened it with the photo onto the stump that had been his station. “You must,” Hakulupe Le said, “so he saves face.” ![]() He held out his other hand in a curt gesture, indicating that I should give him the backpack. He stood to place a hand-made crutch under his arm, and slung the karkar over his shoulder. He glanced over my backpack while he chewed and looked at the photo. His expression changed, but he saw my smile and looked away. I took an energy bar from my pack, broke it in half, and bit into one section. Karlyhi calmly shook his head in the negative. Wisps of sandy hair had come loose from the binding cord. My canvas shoes had lost their shape from the needed walking. My jacket and skirt were caked with road dirt. While Hakulupe Le talked, Karlyhi considered me. Then I lost her meaning in the stream of strange words. “This is Edna Edwina Greensboro, a Softcheeks doctor,” she began. Karlyhi frowned at the photo that Hakulupe Le showed him. “If his mother returns, which she won’t, she can find him at the hospital.” “Leave this photo with a note,” I instructed. e square print rolled from the camera’s front. I took a disposable camera from my backpack and clicked Karly- hi’s photo before he could object. His mother sat him here to wait until she returns. “He should come with us to the hospital.” She turned back, fixing me with forest-green eyes. She was age twenty, hair coiled at her neck and a linen skirt hanging to her ankles. Hakulupe Le approached him speaking in his dialect. A karkar waited nearby boy soldiers were never without their automatics even when ammunition was scarce. A sheen of sweat made his dark skin glisten. Deep-set eyes watched us while he shooed insects by swishing a makeshift grass fan over a long gash on his leg. Perhaps age fourteen, he wore ripped dungarees and a ragged tunic. We saw him sitting on a stump by the road. I saw discarded gallon containers of molded plastic, mis- matched hemp-soled shoes, and damaged guns. Black insects buzzed near tent poles in the haze of heat. The stench was nauseating not of death since morgue crews had passed this way, but of human and animal offal. I had a lorry full of supplies waiting for the drive to my bush clinic. I was looking for an exit, any excuse to call the duty complete. This local medical work slowed my research. “THE WHITE SKY OVER MEKUCOO LAND IS SO DIFFERENT FROM the golden savannah,” Hakulupe Le said as we walked together in the humid afternoon. It contains a bit of sci-fi with a different world and a little fantasy with the lizard familiars. This book is recommended for fans of tribal stories, stories about women fighting for a place and recognition in a world dominated by men. There are some trigger scenes the reader should be aware of but nothing too graphic. I thought that livened the story up a bit. I also enjoyed the three ‘gualareps’, described as familiars, with their personalities and ways of communicating. I didn’t really connect to Edwina, though I think that was the point as that world also didn’t, but I did have sympathy for Brianna. The story is written well, but I found it a bit slow. They have opposite views but the same journey, trying to understand and fit in the other world. Then we switch to Brianna, who is from the tribes and knows the traditions and her adjustments as she learns the new ways. Firstly we follow Dr Edwina’s viewpoint as she learns about these communities and the struggles she has as a woman in them. The laws and traditions make little sense to the western world but are their way of life. Though set in a different world, it very much reminded me of Africa and the tribes within it. Brianna is a young local girl who, with Edwina’s help, learns her talents and that there is much more to the world than she had believed. Bonding to two gualareps, large lizard-type creatures as companions, she navigates the world as best she can. With tribal laws and customs, where men are warriors and women are sidelined. Doing research on curing local illness and saving lives where she can from her bush clinic, she has to learn to navigate this world. In a time when Earth has discovered the means to travel to other worlds, Dr Edwina Greensboro finds herself looking at the white sky over Mekucoo land. ![]()
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