1 comments about Kilimanjaro Map by ITMB.

1. This was my second purchase of this map and I had hoped the ITMB would have updated it. The route details are still poor and in some case incorrect. Unfortunately as this is the only recent map of this area climbers have little choice.
   Recommendations: place history details on the back, expand map area coverage to include all entry gates; place an expanded coverage of the Kibo peak on the back on a larger scale with greater and important details.

1 comments about Swimming to Angola: ... And Other Tips for Surviving the Third World.

1. So, I was in Old Town, San Diego, just minding my own business, you see, when this tall, gregarious, self-confident guy strolled toward me with a book in his hand. I knew he was going to try and sell it to me. And I am very glad he did. Christopher Blin writes just the way he presented himself that day -- easy going, straightforward, light-hearted, but confident and determined.
   
   Before I bought the book, I was thinking, "Okay, how can I politely get out of this? Maybe my wife and daughter will finish their shopping quickly." But it turned out that the subject matter of the book is something that interests me, which is traveling the world, especially Africa. Occasionally I'll visit LonelyPlanet.com just to see if the world has gotten any less hostile, so I can go. But I probably never will.
   
   Luckily for me, Blin has gone, and he's visited many places. Along the way he made friends, and helped others, and always left a little part of himself to try and improve the lives of those he met. He writes about his travels in such a way that you feel you're with him. In fact, now that I know him better by his writing, I'd like to go back to Old Town and sit and talk with him for a while, but that was a few weeks ago and he's no doubt moved on by now.
   
   If you have any wanderlust in you at all, or just enjoy reading about someone who does, I think you'll enjoy this book.

No comments about Things Japanese: Being Notes on Various Subjects Connected with Japan. For the Use of Travellers and Others.

3 comments about Lonely Planet the Gambia & Senegal (Lonely Planet the Gambia and Senegal, 1st ed) (Loneley Planet the Gambia and Senegal, 1st ed).

1. Highly recommended! We just returned from our fourth trip to Senegal, and we found the Lonely Planet guidebook to be highly accurate and easily usable. It is well written and includes much helpful cultural information in addition to all the necessary facts. Don't leave for Senegal without it!!!!



2. I would also have to agree that this book was very well written, with a great deal of relavent information on The Gambia. I highly recomend this book.



3. The most comprehensive travel guide I've seen. Hundreds of useful practical hints, explanations of cultural background and important things to remember for "whites" in order not to hurt or offend the traditional, mythical or religious beliefs, which are all very strong over there. I have travelled in West Africa myself, before reading this book, and found that it really shows the most important details to consider. Framed boxes in the text make it easy to find the essential tips. It is also valuable, that it shows how to travel cheaply, nothing about the luxurious hotels, more of the budget type of stuff.

5 comments about Across the Red River.

1. This book was an incredible read. It follows the author, journalist Chris Jennings, through his times in Rwanda, Burundi and the Congo during what must have been the darkest days these countries would ever have seen. As well as giving the reader the facts on what went on throughout the nineties, Jennings also goes into the history of the conflicts, clearly demonstrating that European colonialism has a lot to answer for. The book will at times make you cry and at times make you laugh. Jennings obviously found that the best way, if not the only way, to live through what he saw was to keep his sense of humour alive. There are harrowing accounts of unthinkable attrocities, but don't let that put you off. Reading this book will put your problems in perspective and hopefully disturb and shake up your 1st world pettiness.



2. It was tempting to preface this review with "The horror, the horror...." but that would be too obvious.

   Christian Jenning's "Across the Red River" presents the reader with a harrowing catalogue of horror, atrocity and inhumanity. Jennings is the quintessential observer and the relentless bodycount and descriptions of cruelty are presented in a matter-of-fact, unemotional manner that never loses its impact. He achieves this through an honest reportage, describing events with an almost photographic sensibility. Although the events he describes are gruesome, there is an objectivity and lack of gratuity that lends credibility and above all, gravity to his story.

   His reportage is accompanied by an analysis of the political, social and sometimes personal circumstances surrounding wars, genocides and murders. This analysis is often bewildered as we learn through Jennings the labyrinthine complexities of Central African Real Politik.

   All this is tempered with a careful humour. While Jennings can often find an amusing anecdote to relieve the grimness of the carnage, the humour is always directed back at himself. He never makes light of the horror inflicted on the innocent (and perhaps not so innocent).

   He pulls no punches when it comes to the involvement of Europeans (particularly France and Belgium), Americans and in particular, the UN. Though loath to criticize individuals (save a few), he points out with righteous anger the systemic failings in UN policy and execution which have, through inefficiency and a sometimes callous disregard for the charges in their care, resulted in over a million deaths and the displacement of many more. He does not, however, tar everyone with the same brush. Some organizations (for example Medicine Sans Frontiers) he recognizes as having played a significant, if not heroic part, in attempting to limit the suffering.

   He also recognizes that this is not an African problem, but a problem faced by the whole world as he watches the crises in Kosovo and Chechnya.

   This book provides a valuable insight into the chaos of the late 20th century, long after it has slipped from the front pages and out of the CNN consciousness.




3. As a grad student of international relations I have read much about the nation state and human rights. However, Jennings puts the charnel house into very basic terms. Something that most academic texts papers over. I am glad to see that such an account is out there.



4. I must admit I haven't read the book but I've read Jenning's other work "A Mouthful of Rocks" and, if he lies and exagerates like he does in that work, then I'd question the veracity of what he writes about here.
   One of the other reviewers talks about Jennings honesty? I served with him in the Legion and his account is far from honest.
   Don't get me wrong. I'm not for one minute attempting to belittle what went on in Rwanda but Jennings may not be the best man to report on it.



5. There are better books about there on these subjects. However, Jennings has written an eye-opening book although it is seriously undermined by poor editing and some inaccurate facts.

No comments about Guide to Tanzania (Bradt Guides).

5 comments about There Is No Me Without You: One Woman's Odyssey To Rescue Africa's Children.

1. I like what the story is about, however the book has so much detail it is hard to get through the first chapters.



2. This was a wonderful book! Having myself been to Addis Ababa recently (July 07) with my daughter to pick up her adopted Ethiopian baby boy (4 months old), you can just imagine how this story of one woman's love for so many orphans resonated with me. The book is a quick read -- something interesting in every chapter. The author intertwined Haregewoin's up and down story with bits of Ethiopian history and the unwinding spread and theories of HIV-AIDs plus added her own experience with H. and the adoption her own Ethiopian children -- which made the reader come away with a true cultural experience. H. is truly a "Mother Theresa" figure and an inspiration to all women. Thank you, Melissa, for introducing us to her. I really enjoyed having the photos of many of the children and their adoptive families to relate to. I will be sure that my daughter reads this book and I have suggested it to my book club in Boulder, CO which will read it in the fall. -- Gayle Weiss



3. Melissa Faye Green is an excellent writer. She is a true artist painting a vivid picture of scenes, and weaving historical, political and social aspects of the deadly HIV/AIDS epidemic. This is an incredibly powerful book. It is not easy to read due to the difficult emotional toll it can take on one, but I felt morally obligated to read it, so that I wasn't just shutting out the devastating misery suffered by so many millions. She portrays the human face of this awful disease with poignancy. It is an inspiring and human story of one woman's efforts to alleviate her own and others suffering. God bless Melissa for opening our eyes.



4. Author Melissa Fay Greene, who is the adoptive mother of two Ethiopian children, relates the story of Haregewoin Teferra, an Ethiopian mother who becomes the foster mother for a multitude of AIDS orphans during the height of the pandemic. Greene truthfully tells the tale without painting Teferra as a "modern day Mother Teresa," but rather as a very real and human woman who is asked by clerics to take in one abandoned orphan after another. A grieving mother whose adult daughter died from AIDS, Teferra discovers that helping the children provides her with a means of overcoming her grief. The individual stories of these "lost children" who arrive on Teferra's doorstep are riveting, as is Greene's account of the assimilation of her adoptive children into her family. Accompanying photos show children shortly after they arrived in very bad shape at Treferra's compound and then later with adoptive American families.
   Greene spares no one as she rails against the pharmaceutical companies that withheld AIDS medications from third-world countries at the height of the pandemic, causing the loss of a whole generation of parents. Despite having no drugs to help the children, hit-or-miss medical care, and scarce food for all, Teferra does her best to feed, clothe, house, and educate the orphans put in her care. Although one might think that this book is a "downer," it is a very uplifting page-turner that relates the indominable spirit of one Ethiopian woman and her many foster children.



5. I'm writing this as the mother of an adopted Ethiopian child- I bought this book after a random search and it has been the most valuable book of our whole adoption journey. It's loaded with helpful background info on the AIDS & Orphan crises in Ethiopia, history of Ethiopia, insight into the cultural perceptions of adoption (especially by affluent, white Westerners!) and the very moving perspectives of the orphans themselves, and their Ethiopian caretakers. The heroine of this story is very real, and her character development was deep and insightful. I laid the book down several times to have a good laugh (or cry!) but could hardly keep from turning the pages. Whether you are adopting yourself, supporting someone who is, or just interested in learning more about Ethiopia and this heroine's story, I know you will come away inspired.

1 comments about Kenya from the Air.

1. This book is packed with stunning shots of aerial views of the countryside, the wildlife parks, the mountains, (e.g. the Mt Longonot crater) and the lakes & islands. Even for one like me who was born and bred in Kenya, the clarity, angle and panoramic view of the shots is simply stunning and taught me that there is amazing beauty all around me...I'm just not tall enough to see it all!

No comments about Las Reinas De Africa.

3 comments about The Silence.

1. Having last week been in Kigali, Rwanda as half a million refugees returned from exile in Zaire, I found this book to be extremely important to help me understand the trauma lying under the surface of these people. The photographs are stark and brutal as was the situation. This is a must read for anybody planning to work in Rwanda



2. The images are breathtaking, they leave you unsettled and wondering about the inhumanity of the situation in Rwanda. For people new to the topic, this book is not necessarily for you. The genocide was complicated, and this book, as a collection of images, does not explain the full story. There is no text in this book except for the chronology at the end, which is decent, although selective and somewhat incomplete.

   The photographs, while powerful, have no captions, and therefore the guilt and the innocence of the people being photographed is ambiguous. In fact, that is why I give this book four stars rather than five. To look at this book with no real knowledge behind the genocide, all you see is a great deal of human suffering. The reality is that the images at the beginning are of the tutsi massacres by the genocidaires, whereas the images toward the end are of the terrible conditions of the refugee camps where the killers fled to escape the advance of the RPF. What one must know and understand clearly is that those people at the refugee camps were, for the most part, the perpetrators of the genocide. The ambiguity in his images of clearly distinguishing between victims and killers can be misleading.

   If you have done research on the genocide and feel compelled to have a visual to accompany the stories, then this book is a worthwhile one to use for that purpose. But otherwise, the sight of so much indiscriminantly photographed human suffering can be really distracting to the cause of determining guilt and innocence. It's important to look through this book with a discerning eye.




3. The books serves as an indictment against those who committed the atrocities during the Rwanda genocide, against those that stood by(most everyone), and those that stood in the way(the French).

   It also serves as a silent memorial for those who died and for all the other innocents caught in the middle and forced into refugee camps.

   A highly recommended accompaniment to "I wished to inform you that we will be killed tomorrow".

   This books stands with "The House of Bondage" by Cole, an indictment of Apartheid, and "Amin's Bloody Rule", an obvious indictment of Idi Amin, as the best photo documentaries of the hardest of times in Africa. (Amin's Bloody Rule is impossible to find, published in Uganda).