Rubys World: My Journey With The Zulu

The narrative is deeply personal, yet universal, extending a raw invitation for readers to examine their own prejudices and ethics. She will end up fleeing for her life… Fifteen years after the fall of Apartheid, Karen Baldwin accepts an invitation to teach elementary school in a rural village set in the stunningly beautiful foothills of the Drakensburg Mountains. Read more Read less.

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Author Karen Baldwin (Ruby's World - My Journey with the Zulu) Travels to the Blogosphere

The international bestselling memoir. We Were the Lucky Ones. Kindle Edition File Size: Apocryphile Press; 3 edition 15 November Sold by: Amazon Australia Services, Inc. Share your thoughts with other customers. Write a customer review. Most helpful customer reviews on Amazon. I was drawn into this book from the moment I read the first paragraph of the preface.

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The writing is so vivid that I felt like I was right there experiencing the daily events as they unfolded. The daily joys, struggles, tragedies, and suspense made this a page turner. I was introduced to a culture so vastly different from my own and was left with a new appreciation for cultural traditions and human connections as well as a deeper awareness of the bondage that traditions can impose.

This book gave me a new awareness and conviction of the bias and judgement that naturally comes from viewing the world from ones own perspective. Preview — Ruby's World by Karen Baldwin. Baldwin's account of her adventure in Africa is honest, moving, frequently funny, sometimes startling, and always compelling. This is a journey of faith, and it carries the reader along every twist and turn in that journey with remarkable clarity and grace.

Kindle Edition , pages. To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up. To ask other readers questions about Ruby's World , please sign up. Lists with This Book. This book is not yet featured on Listopia. Nov 23, Lin Teichman rated it really liked it. Unprepared for teaching, uneducated to the culture of the Zulu people, the author blunders through several weeks of good faith attempts to teach English to rural children.

The contrasts with her expectations and reality create an interesting tension throughout the book and makes for an interesting read. Apr 24, Francisca Friday-Pabros rated it really liked it. I was privileged to get an 1st edition autographed copy of Ruby's World: Vikki rated it it was amazing Aug 09, Brenda rated it really liked it Dec 13, Lists with This Book. This book is not yet featured on Listopia. Jun 04, Sean rated it really liked it. An excellent memoir about culture clash in South Africa, by an American woman who volunteered to teach in a Zulu village, without having the slightest idea what she was getting herself into As originally posted on Mina's Bookshelf http: Not trying would have been worse.

Knowing that there are people like Karen Baldwin in this world warmed my heart Sometimes the most riveting stories don't need to be pieces of pure fictional fabrication populated by imaginary characters. In Karen Baldwin, heart-attack and breast-cancer survivor, decided to leave her San Francisco life behind and spend three months in a South African rural village, teaching English at a local elementary school.

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Her life changing experience as the first white teacher among the Zulus started as a humanitarian dream but ended up as a nightmare, unexpectedly and at the hands of the same people who had warmly welcomed and hosted her. Only few weeks after her arrival in the rural village of Zinti, in fact, her journey came dramatically to an end, turning out to be completely different from what she had anticipated.

Karen's struggle with language barriers, her sense of dislocation and isolation, the environmental and cultural hostility, even the abominable "social practices" infants scarification, female genital mutilation, black magic that played in front of her candid outsider eyes, didn't prevent her from bonding with her host Ruby and her family: In the African continent, so often considered the "womb" of the human race, thick layers of ancient traditions, cultural prejudices and discriminations set insurmountable barriers on the way to freedom and justice.

I was deeply touched by this outstanding account of Karen Baldwin's true life experience in the heart of traditional Africa. In the form of a daily journal, her well-paced and fluid narration opens a window on the ongoing tragedy of a continent torn between taboos, gender inequities, power struggles and shifting loyalties. Not only Karen's memoirs put in a new perspective our own starry-eyed views in matter of human rights and democratic society, they also teach that with bitterness and tragedy comes the powerful seed of hope. A real jaw dropper Thought-provoking, suspenseful, engaging at all times, this excellent book was effortlessly well-paced and executed with a captivating and vibrant writing style.

View all 6 comments. Apr 08, Renee rated it really liked it. When I first started this book I loved it. I couldn't put it down. But the ending is sooo frustrating. Why would anyone think for a minute they could change hundreds of years of traditions in a few months! Especially traditions that are as horrendous as those that the author described.

I totally get that her experience was life changing but to think she could change a culture so rich in tradition is just laughable. Then she asks that we don't judge! I would like to When I first started this book I loved it. I would like to say in her support, kudos for going to another country like Aftrica all by herself. I understand her wanting to help kids that are under-nurished and in poverty, but you don't have to go to the other side of the world for that.

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Nov 07, Anne rated it really liked it. This is a true story — a memoir that reads like a suspense novel. Author Karen Baldwin, it tells her story of how at 52, after surviving a heart attack and breast cancer, she decided to abandon her career in civil engineering in favor of a spiritual calling.

She became a hospital chaplain, and then followed a dream and a spiritual calling to become the first white teacher in a rural Zulu elementary school. She arrives in South Africa alone, her bags stuffed with books and art supplies for the ch This is a true story — a memoir that reads like a suspense novel.

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She arrives in South Africa alone, her bags stuffed with books and art supplies for the children she will be teaching. She finds the children eager to learn and their teachers anxious to step into the present day, despite the fact that their lives are still governed by strong tribal traditions, including infant scarification, female genital mutilation and the rulings of the witch doctors.

She also learns that in South Africa, there is still an imbalance of power between the sexes. Unless a woman is married, she has no rights to property, a job or freedom. And even if she is married, she is still subservient to her husband. Travel with Karen to Pietermaritzburg, South Africa with Karen and get to know the students and teachers at Zinti Primary, including Ruby Ndlela, at whose home she stays, and school principal, Phyllis Zondi.

This is a trip you will not soon forget. The book is well-written, and the story is true though all the names have been changed. Once you start reading, you may not be able to put it down. Karen Baldwin says this was an experience that changed her life. And reading it just may change yours.

Oct 25, Melissa rated it it was amazing.

Ruby's World My Journey With the Zulu by Karen Baldwin

What an amazing story! Karen Baldwin left the comfort of her life in America to be a teacher for a rural school in Africa.

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The things that she witnessed while there were funny, heartwarming, heartbreaking and appalling. There was a clash between the modern world and the traditional customs of the Zulu people as people who carried cell phones and visited Internet cafes and malls also believed in witch doctors and spirits. Her relationships with the children, some of the staff at the school and Rub What an amazing story!

Her relationships with the children, some of the staff at the school and Ruby's nephew, Thulani, were ones that I know she will cherish forever. I've never met them, but they touched my heart through her words.