Product Description
Reports about the Sudan are often critical and harsh, and it is easy to equate the people of the Sudan with their government's policies. By contrast, the stories in Every Day But Not Some offer a more positive view of what life is like for the ordinary Sudanese. The author spent 22 years in Sudan and draws from a vast range of relationships and experiences to tell the untold side of the individual people and cultures of the Sudan. This collection of stories reveals how learning another culture is rather like walking around in an unfamiliar house in the dark.You don't know where anything is until you bump into it, sometimes gently, sometimes painfully.All the while, you are desperately looking for a light switch in hopes of being able to see more clearly.Here is a candid, entertaining and informative look at life in the Sudan. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Honest, Humorous and Respectful Look at Other Cultures
I LOVED this book! I don't get much reading done now with four kids and a retail job. But I managed to grab many short bits of time and got through almost all of it in just a month or two. The short segments in the book worked well for that.

I really enjoyed the description of people and events with humor, honesty and much respect for different cultures, even when it didn't make sense to the author. She didn't just say they were different and thus, couldn't connect. Neither did she portray everything everyone did as good and justified. It seemed a very honest and appreciative description. I loved the humor. I have lived in that part of the world, but I enjoyed both getting a better picture of places I had not been and gaining a better understanding and respect for the people living there.

I think this book would be a great contribution to the preparation of people going to work in that part of the world or for anyone interested in learning about different cultures.

Great read!
After reading this book, I felt like I had lived in the Sudan.The humor and honest perspective made it interesting and easy to follow.It would be a great book for someone who is about to travel to another country or has done so recently. It would also be a good book for teenagers or for a family to read short segments together since it teaches lessons in diversity.The author sends all the profits back to the Sudan to help with literacy and language development in that country.

AGreat Gift, A Great Read
Having taken this book with me to a doctor's office, I was actually disappointed to have to stop reading, when my name was called for the appointment!I expected the book to be interesting, but it was much more than that. The great humor was unexpected! I laughed out loud several times, chuckled and smiled through many of the stories of Leoma's adventures during her years in the Sudan. Dr. Gilley gave a thorough understanding of the difficulties and hardships faced by an expatriate,while providing enilightening insight into Sudanese culture and customs. I highly recommend this book,both for personal reading and for gift-giving.Dixie M

A Fresh Perspective
After so much media coverage of the political situation in Sudan and Darfur, it was especially interesting to read this very personal view of the Sudanese culture and people. With a combination of humor and insight, the author takes the reader along with her as she learns how to live and work in a culture so very different from her own.The author obviously loves and respects the Sudanese; and by the end of the book, I had gained an appreciation for the Sudanese as well. ... Read more

Product Description
Born into the Zaghawa tribe in the Sudanese desert, Halima Bashir received a good education away from her rural surroundings (thanks to her doting, politically astute father) and at twenty-four became her village’s first formal doctor. Yet not even Bashir’s degree could protect her from the encroaching conflict that would consume her homeland. Janjaweed Arab militias savagely assaulted the Zaghawa, often with the backing of the Sudanese military. Then, in early 2004, the Janjaweed attacked Bashir’s village and surrounding areas, raping forty-two schoolgirls and their teachers. Bashir, who treated the traumatized victims, some as young as eight years old, could no longer remain quiet. But breaking her silence ignited a horrifying turn of events.

Raw and riveting, Tears of the Desert is the first memoir ever written by a woman caught up in the war in Darfur. It is a survivor’s tale of a conflicted country, a resilient people, and an uncompromising spirit. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (20)

An education
The author does a spectacular job sharing the joy, sadness, challenge and yes, the horrors of her world in this book. Much of the time I felt as though I was right there with her, participating in her experiences. I laughed and cried with her and I felt her pain and humiliation deep in my soul. One cannot help but grow as one reads this book. It is more than a good read... it is an education about an ancient, exotic culture and a lesson on empathy, love, compassion and fear. Those who follow events that reveal man's inhumanity to man (and women) are aware that the author showed great courage by placing her personal safety at considerable risk with this book. By refusing to remain a victim and telling her story she has pointed the finger of guilt at her aggressors. They are fearful and striking back with accusations and threats but the world knows the truth of their inhumanity now, so try as they may, their efforts will fall on deaf ears.

Michael James Jaquish
Author: Beyond Courage: Tales of a Country Cop in AfricaThe Buddha And The Badge: A Journey of Personal DiscoveryA Monk Without A Monastery: An Examination of Self-Discovery

speechless
This memoir is fascinating, and heart-wrenching. A powerful testament to the power of will and the deeply profound need for justice in our world.

A look at the horrors occuring in Darfur
After reading Tears of the Desert: A Memoir of Survival by Halima Bashir, the realization that the focus has slipped off the tragedy occurring there makes me a little sad too. In 2004, shortly after the civil war in this region of Sudan heated up it seemed Darfur was the celeb cause du jour. Save Darfur was everywhere. Now? Not so much.

Dr. Halima Bashir tells the story of her childhood growing up as one of the wealthier families in a small village in Sudan. Recognizing her academic abilities her father sends her to one of the better schools in the area where she competes against Arab students. Despite discrimination and unfair treatment because she is a black village girl, Halima soon emerges at the top of her class and earns herself a spot at University to study to become a doctor. At this point in time the conflict between the Sudanese government and the rebel militia was quietly brewing in the background. Midway through her studies the war intensified when the Black Muslim militia groups accused the Sudanese government of favoring Arabs over Black Muslim Africans and the Sudanese government responded by sending it's Army and the Janjaweed (a militia group of Black Arabs) to commit atrocities against the civilian population.

Halima tells her story with honesty and puts a human face on a conflict that is still occurring thousands of miles away. She details her personal tragedies at the hands of the Janjaweed for doing her duty as a doctor and treating casualties on both sides of the war and tells of the unspeakable horrors committed around her as well. When the fighting reaches her village, Halima manages to escape to England but must struggle against a bureaucracy overloaded with asylum seekers in order to not be sent back into the war torn country.

This book and books like it are hard for me to read. I've been to a war torn country (Iraq) and I've seen and interacted with people who have lived in extreme poverty under an oppressive government. Halima's story broke my heart but I'm glad I picked up this book because it reminds me that I need to think outside my own little bubble. I recommend this to anyone who wants to understand why the conflict in Darfur is occurring and why the attention needs to remain on it until peace is brought to the region.

excellent memoirT
Tears of the Desert was an excellent memoir & an easy, page turning read. It was an insightful read about Darfur.

every person should read this book
This is the most disturbing and, perhaps, the most important book you will ever read.I could not be more certain in recommending it to anyone as an profoundly important work of non-fiction about the dreadful conditions on the African continent. ... Read more