CB-DQ ~ Part Three

We are all supposed to have finished reading the book, so the rest of the CB questions assume you know the whole story. (I also assume you have no more questions for the author; if I'm wrong, you should speak up now.)

15. What do you think of this quote from Part Three?

"Fi had never accepted Mr. Abasi's claim that Mididima and settlements like it could disappear with a still breeze -- that the next time the Camel Bookmobile came, there might be no sign that life had ever huddled there. She'd considered this assertion nothing more than another attempt to talk her out of making the trip he hated. It seemed to her, in fact, that the houses of Mididima were rooted directly in the earth's subsurface, and that during the coming generations the settlement could only spread" (p. 127).

16. What did you think of Fi journeying to Mididima alone?

17. Why do you think Jwahir was attracted to Abayomi, instead of her husband Matani?

18. What do you think of Taban's desire to make pictures "pop off the page" (p. 146)?

19. Could you imagine Fi doing a cartwheel for Matani (p. 157), thinking of herself as the Cartwheel Queen (p. 158)? (I wonder if Masha Hamilton can do cartwheels.)

20. Did you notice the mention of female circumcision (p. 150)? What do you think of it?

21. Jwahir's father said, "Matani, like his father before him, is too fond of a remote and dangerous world." Why do you suppose people think any place (or anything) far from what they are used to is dangerous?

22. Neema had a problem with the white woman in the village. Maybe I should say problems, plural: Besides the fact that this woman was a foreigner, she had her own peculiar noises and smells and, worst of all, was sleeping between Neema and her granddaughter (p. 168). Neema couldn't imagine the foreigner's city which was said to have cars that moved with the speed of a gazelle, but she overheard Kanika saying, "I want to go to the Distant City" (p. 169). Can you relate to Neema's feelings?