by Casey Scieszka
with art by Steven Weinberg
Timbuktu is more or less best known as slang for the most remote place you can visit, even though it isn't. Granted, it is a city in the middle of a forbidding desert, but so are other places. It is also accessible by a variety of forms of transportation. It just so happens that one of them is camels. It makes a great hook for travel literature though, no matter the reality, and it was in fact the reason I picked up To Timbuktu while browsing.
Timbuktu the place isn't the heart of this story, however. The book is more or less a straight forward narration of an extended period of travel and study abroad immediately following college graduation. The author and her artist boyfriend (and fellow wanderer) teach english in China, travel through Southeast Asia and then end up in Mali where Scieszka works on a Fulbright grant project while Weinberg focuses on his art. The text is accompanied by Weinberg's illustrations making the book a graphic novel of sorts. I liked the art and the way it conveyed the emotions of the words, but at the same time I desperately wanted pictures. Luckily I have discovered the authors have a book blog which does have pictures and I can finally put a face to the place as it were.
It is usually the sense of place that I am interested in when reading travel literature but here it was the reality of travel and living abroad. You have great experiences, you see amazing things, you get terribly sick, you get scammed, you meet new friends, you get lonely, you miss the comforts of home, you get culture shock...all of these things all at the same time plus many, many others. Traveling is the dream of many but it can be hard. The cultures and environments the authors visit are very different from Western culture, but they do their very best to adapt. They take language classes, observe and follow social customs, they interact with local residents as much as possible. At the same time the two are just learning to live together so they must adapt to each other as well as a new culture. Scieszka is very honest about some of the difficulties they experienced using them as a contrast between the great highs of travel--usually the only things we read about. She talks of their fears, of their fights, the frustration and fright of not knowing exactly what the correct social response is, the depressing realities of the 3rd world, and of the need to depend on the kindness of strangers from time to time. It's a jet propelled narrative at times, leaving out big chunks of time and hitting the highlights, but at the same time it is an engaging memoir of travel and discovery.
Aimed at a teens aged 14 and up, To Timbuktu glosses over some things and contains little deep reflection or analysis. It is more about living in the moment and I could appreciate that for a younger audience, even if it frustrated me at times as an adult. The experiences are thought provoking and could lead to some self reflection on the part of the reader. One also hopes it might also stimulate some into reading more travel literature or hitting the road themselves. The world could definitely benefit from more global citizens like Scieszka and Weinberg who have gone on to create a nonprofit, Local Language Literacy to create and distribute books for students in the local languages.
It's a clear lesson: Reading inspires. Doing inspires. Travel inspires.
