Riehlife Review: “Twenty Chickens for a Saddle,” by Robyn Scott

I reviewed this book for Story Circle Book Reviews (reviewing books by, for, and about women) and the review appears on Amazon. It’s good for the book and the whole shebang whenever you mark a review “helpful” there. Love it, if you would…..Janet
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A Coming of Age Story of a Girl and a Country
While set [...]

Botswana’s Bessie Head: A Meeting with Barbara Bamberger Scott

A refugee is a person whose heart has been broken.
“My daughter, who was 11 at the time, also loves Bessie’s books and was deeply influenced by living for two years in Botswana. One of my favorite expressions from there is Ke moto fela – “I’m just a person.”–Barbara Bamberg Scott (Read her impressive [...]

“Water Ceremonies,” Part II, Africa—a poem by Janet Grace Riehl (Tales from Maun, Botswana; Okavango Delta in Northern Botswana; Kalahari Desert in Western Botswna)

II. Africa
Maun, Botswana
Afternoons, I teach schoolchildren to swim
in the flooded waters of the Tamalakane.
Two fingers support wiry bodies that sink
every chance they get.
“Arch your back! Spread out your limbs! Float! Kick! Paddle!”
Until one student travels under her own speed.
We collapse on the bank, gasping with sputtered water and glee.
Evenings, I swim downriver towards sunset.
A flamboyant [...]

(African Culture of Story Series) Damaria Senne: Stories from The Place of the Mist, Part 2

For me, the difficult part of storytelling as a career was telling the stories I wanted to tell, in my own way. Locally, there is a growing movement towards the telling of indigenous stories. You’d think I would fit within that movement, wouldn’t you? Yet, I feel like a square peg in a round hole. [...]