easily one of my favorite books of this year, and one of my favorite memoirs of all time. it’s flying incredibly under-the-radar currently and i hope that more people read it.
as a kid, i was raised to believe that missionaries and missionary work was all good, amazing even. the thing is, in that kind of environment, you only hear the missionary’s stories. you never hear from the people they left behind.
see, that’s an almost-never though, because as Nemonte shares in this book, her tribe, the Waorani, had contact with missionaries and it only ended badly. the missionaries (mainly, Rachel Saint) accepted money in exchange for letting oil companies onto Waorani land, and would spout pro-oil company propaganda in sermons. they would bribe the children into going to church with toys and clothing.
frankly i’m not surprised at all at this, but Nemontes story of how they (and by extension, the oil companies) affected her village, the neighboring Indigenous tribes, and their way of life is horrifying. please read this. i would also recommend checking out her ted talk, i watched it after getting about 20% into this book and found it captivating https://youtu.be/kZhmuc3L-YI?si=g6eYktBzuFmB4veT