5 comments about Dead Men Don't Leave Tips: Adventures X Africa.

1. "Wild, pristine beauty surrounded us as we drove to the base of remote Djomba to establish camp. Towering green peaks sprouted out of ripe clusters of lush vegetation. Massive pyramidal volcanoes rose of the verdant floor suggesting its prehistoric past. Churning, whitecapped rivers cascaded over mountainsides into translucent pools below, and its beauty didn't end with nature." ~ pg. 146
   
   Brandon Wilson is an expert storyteller who masterfully weaves a story of a seven-month odyssey across Africa. His exciting writing style keeps you on the edge of your seat as you journey to the heart of Africa. The detailed descriptions bring the story alive with the sounds, scents and sights of a real-life adventure.
   
   Brandon Wilson is an award-winning writer and photographer who has spent his life exploring the world. He is also a keen observer of human nature and deftly describes the human drama that is ever present in the stories of the overlanders and exotic locales. There are a few photographs to compliment this journey but the writing captures scenes in seconds and transports you to a different time and place.
   
   As Brandon and his partner travel from Mororcco to Cape Town you are invited to vicariously experience every nuance and challenge experienced by independent travelers. He and his partner have a passion for adventure and are inquisitive about the local peoples and unique cultures. They maintain their sense of humor throughout and press on, undaunted towards their final goal. Some of their adventures include:
   
   Hunting with Pygmies
   Climbing Africa's Highest Mountain
   Meeting Mountain Gorilla
   Horseback riding in lion territory
   Sitting out underneath the stars by campfires
   Watching Antelope and Cape Buffalo graze
   Visiting Serengeti National Park
   Watching Hippos in Zaire
   Experiencing village life and living with locals
   Surviving Torrential Rains
   Sampling local foods and finding restaurants
   Swimming and rafting in African rivers
   
   
   Through vibrant prose and the eye of an artist, Brandon Wilson paints his recollections with startling clarity. His writing unleashes an immense longing for the experiences he describes. There is a profound beauty of freedom in the way he travels. As they reach Gillman's Point on Mt. Kilimanjaro you can't help but cheer them on to even more exciting adventures like surviving a rafting trip down the Zambezi river.
   
   I can also highly recommend Yak Butter Blues: A Tibetan Trek of Faith. Brandon Wilson's writing is the best travel writing I've ever read and his adventurous spirit is inspiring.
   
   ~The Rebecca Review



2. I purchased this book for my husband who only reads non-fiction. He stated that it is "dry" and written like a diary. It is not engaging nor funny. I hope he picks it back up to finishe reading...or I guess I will to feel we got our monies worth.



3. I bought this book following Amazon's reader reviews but found it a pain to read.
   From the start the author can't bear the way he chose to travel (overlanding with a group) and his fellow travelers... well, when on a low budget, stay graceful! If one can't stand other human beings AND can't afford a way to travel suitable to both his arrogance and means, why do it anyway?
   
   The "traveler" seems to wander through Africa with American centered prejudices and poor references of a narrow minded background.
   The reader is continuously faced with his self centered obsession for his own boring motives (if any) that he thinks anyone cares about. He makes the reader witness all his irritations and frustration of a pure misanthrope, "forgot" to check the proper geography and history and spelling of the names of the countries he goes through, remains ignorant of the world, cultures and people and till the end totally misses the whole point of traveling.
   
   Everything, even the slight excitement he seems to feel when encountering wild animals is awkwardly written, in dry insensitive words without style.
   
   Oh, those hundreds of dull phrases in italic! Those infinitely repeated "burro" like donkeys have Spanish names in Africa, "black" like there's a need to remind us of the color of Africa's inhabitants.
   What is Lake Kiva? Lake Tanzania? Are there really "caimans" in Africa? What is a "wild west town" to anyone not American? When were there only 700 black rhinos left? "Zaire, these days, after years of war, known as DRC": check exactly when the name changed? Victoria Falls, the world highest cascades? Since when does Michelin rate up to five stars? Any need to be condescending and transcript everyone's accent again and again while oneself has no clue about foreign languages? Any need to be rude, pushy and obnoxious when addressing people?
   
   In this long boring account of what seems to have been an ordeal to him that we are forced to share, the only human encounter that seems to have somewhat pleased the ever complaining author are... another white couple traveling and Whites in South Africa.
   
   This is a shallow disappointing report that would disgust anyone who wishes to travel to Africa.
   Thanks God we know better.



4. All through Brandon Wilson's Dead Men Don't Leave Tips: Adventures X Africa one idea kept coming to me. Parallax! That's not a word that comes to mind every day. In science, it means getting better or more complete information about displacement or movement by collecting data from two points of view that are not in a straight line with the thing you are examining or learning about.
   "After all those months of struggle, doubts of sanity and infinite challenges," Wilson writes near the end of the book, "we'd fulfilled our dream. We'd crossed the length of Africa from Ceuta to the Cape." All along the rugged, often road-less road dotted with rare moments of genuine rest--sarcastically (?) called "pure luxxxurrry"--Wilson pursues the parallax view of everything everywhere at every opportunity. He studies his fellow travelers and their motivations and observations like Margaret Mead recording the lives of Papua New Guineans. That, however, is nothing but technical practice for the real work of genuinely absorbing dozens or hundreds of African cultures.
   To get in touch with "real Africa" and to understand lives as they are lived, Wilson talks with people who are not in the business of guiding and informing (and even listens to those who are in the overland/travel business). Sometimes the informant is a person eking out an existence in, say, the Central African Republic. When it is, he inquires of two or more people in different situations and observes still more. Sometimes he collects information from a Peace Corps worker or an Embassy employee. And always, he reports his own direct observations and often those of his intrepid and obviously longsuffering wife as well.
   Parallax, for Wilson, is clearly a method for chipping through individual biases and official "facts" toward the precious truth which, over and over, turns out to be that misery and joy, dreams and wishes, family feelings and love are the same for us all no matter where or how we live. Fortunately, Wilson never stops treasuring the differences from culture to culture in Africa, and he never becomes numb to the differences between African cultures and his everyday life on Maui.
   We, the readers, have the added dimension of our own experience and ideas. With luck, we are able to hold our untested perspectives gently enough that, once disproved, they can be let go painlessly.
   Wilson's trek "X Africa" is not all pain and gain. As Wilson puts it, "Often you run into weird, but welcome coincidences traveling." World travelers have long known that if you spend the day on the Champs Elysées in Paris, you're sure to meet someone you know. Apparently, if you spend several months crossing Africa the long way, you're going to run into both other travelers whose paths crisscross with your own and people removed from yourself by slight degrees. "One night... we happened to share a table and talk with two U.S. Marines... one of them came from my small childhood town and the other had attended my Southern alma mater."
   Coincidences are everywhere in Dead Men Don't Leave Tips, but the tale moves forward and finds its depth in the triumphant surprises. Frequently, these scenes of human contact start with someone reaching out to help himself by "helping" Wilson, then saying, "Don't worry." Often enough, the phrase introduces a series of events about which someone really should have been worrying. Then there are the other moments: the aunty with a gracious guest house, the discovery that being white isn't always a handicap in South Africa so long as people know he's not an Afrikaner, the magic of one kind of "pole-pole" travel hold-up meshing seamlessly with another.
   Africa's pole-pole is a real-life opposite of Hawai`i's never very serious wiki-wiki, it means at the speed of... well, Africa.
   I was swept away by the drama and the storytelling in Wilson's book. Still, it is only my second favorite travel book from the past century or so. Maybe Wilson won't mind that so much if he hears that his "adventures X Africa" are second only to his earlier Yak Butter Blues.
   Even if you normally can't stand to read a travel book, give Wilson a chance. He'll win you over.



5. It is hard to believe how somebody can describe such an exciting trip in such a boring way. Describing some of the marvels of Africa takes the author one or two paragraphs, the whining about his fellow passengers on the other had can go on for dozen and dozens of pages. Also, it is woefully out of date. Zaire hasn't been Zaire since 1997, Mozambique has not been in a Civil War since 1992. It is somewhat unclear whether the trip took place before then or whether the author didn't bother checking his facts (similar to the Caiman that showed up in Malawi). In short, annoying to read.

No comments about Kenya: Identity of A Nation.

No comments about Africa's Top Wildlife Countries: Botswana, Kenya, Namibia, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia & Zimbabwe (Africa's Top Wildlife Countries).

No comments about Fodor's The Complete African Safari Planner, 1st Edition: With Botswana, Kenya, Namibia, South Africa & Tanzania (Full-Color Gold Guides).

5 comments about Ethiopia: Peoples of the Omo Valley.

1. 
   I hated to shell out the big bucks, but I've hit rock bottom and I admit I'm a junkie for books on places where I've been in tribal Africa. So I had to do it--and I'm glad I did.
   
   It's hard to imagine having any books at all on tribal life anywhere in the world and not have this two-volume set. The photography and its richness of color as printed on the page just can't be topped. Is it just me, or are more people "discovering" the Omo Valley these days? It's in southern Ethiopia, where people still live much as they have for centuries--they still compete against nature for sustenance, tribes still fight each other for grazing land, women still wear goat skins and the men of some tribes still consider the most minimal of clothing optional. It is one of the few places in the world where tribal attire and body painting is the real, every-day thing--not something put on for tourists. Silvester represents it well in this set. And unlike so many coffee table books, in which any kind of meaningful narrative is catch as catch can, Silvester's narrative is informative and engaging--more anecdotal than a scholarly treatise.
   
   Good news: no thumbnails in the back, where you have to go for captions. Captions are with the pictures, but I wish more of the pictures were captioned.
   
   I was apprehensive about the second volume. The editorial review can be interpreted as meaning photos of the body paintings have been turned into abstract art. I didn't really want to pay for something like that. But again, I wasn't disappointed. The second volume is just photos, not photos reworked into abstract art. The art on their bodies already is abstract art. I swear, I have seen far less impressive paintings hanging in art galleries, commanding many thousands of dollars! Page after page, you will say aloud, "This is amazing!"
   
   Some will hate Silvester's work. As we've seen in other reviews of books covering tribal Africa, there will always be some who seem embarrassed by all the nudity. They will angrily denounce such books as somehow "false," claiming such Africa no longer exists. Weird wishful thinking, I suppose, probably having something to do with internalized racism. This 2-volume set, then, is not for them. This photographer does not select for publication only those shots where an elbow or a leaf just happens to shield the viewer from prudish sensitivities. And that gives you a sense of honesty about the work. You don't feel manipulated as you might if you felt the photographer had an agenda or was trying to be gentle with you. You don't have a vague sense of wondering what else he doesn't want you to know.
   
   The lives and culture of the Omo Valley peoples are so different from ours in the West that we can find them shocking at first take. Sylvester addresses this. "When you see how these people live, you can't help asking: 'What is a savage?' What do we understand by the term 'primitive'?" I wouldn't have used the word "savage," not even in the context of the question, because it might imply the people really are more or less savage unless granted some kind of special, sympathetic interpretation of the depiction. I would not want to remotely suggest they could be seen as "savage." (Perhaps the translation from Silvester's German wasn't the best in this instance.) In any case, once you spend time with these people--in his case, I think it was 9 trips over 3 years--the mystery and the oddities quickly become not so odd or mysterious. Should the photographer, then, produce a work that carefully considers Western unfamiliarity and shock, or a work that caters more to authenticity? He goes for the authentic.
   
   Check out Giansanti's work, and Beckwith & Fisher. Those are great too. But don't come up short without this one, either. It will take you on a wonderful, close-up journey into the harsh but beautiful land, and the hard but beautiful lives of the people of the Omo Valley.



2. This is a best vision of the people of the Omo Valley.
   Ethiopia is a anknow contry with marvellous people.



3. i had been to ethiopia but,unfortunately,not to the omo valley
   very magnificent photos to see cultural images of people of the omo valley even though in a book,i recommend everyone to purchase this item
   definitely you will appreciate it



4. I had been looking for a book about tribal Africa, when I stumbled by chance upon this 2-volume set. I browsed the web in search of some pictures taken from the book and as soon as I laid my eyes on them, I knew this was the book I was looking for. Apart from the pictures, which are truly gorgeous (I can't honestly imagine anything better about the subject), this set is awesome in every aspect (size, quality of the paper, colors, binding, make-up, even the font chosen is very elegant - being Italian, I couldn't help noticing that the set has been printed and bound in Italy) it's very clear that the publisher has gone a long way to produce quality stuff, and not just another book on Africa. If you are remotely interested in anything African, this book is for you. Swept away by the beauty of some pictures, you'll probably end up, as I did, asking yourself questions about our own civilization and its alleged "superiority" over the South of the world. But this is another story.



5. Totally under-valued and under-appreciated... the story is told literally, with the camera and expressed in photo imagery.
   
   I suspect in the years to come, this volume will become an investment- expensive to "price-less"...

5 comments about North of South: An African Journey (Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics).

1. North of South describes Shiva Naipaul's journey through Eastern Africa as it emerged from colonialism several decades ago. Optimism and energy prevailed alongside a blind faith in imported philosophies which pundits failed to translate meaningfully to the impoverished, illiterate masses around them.
   
   Naipaul is a witty, bold writer with a gift for sharp imagery and an uncanny radar for subtle undercurrents in human interaction - the hypocrisy of the black elite, the jittery desperation of the settlers, the paranoid clannishness of the Asians. He also vividly portrays the deepening poverty and decaying infrastructure that underscored the failure of well-intentioned socialism in Tanzania.
   
   While some racists may use it to justify their beliefs, the book is more a compassionate, humorous look at pre-industrial populations trying to forge national identities from scratch.
   
   While today's poor countries may not have to follow the painstaking, centuries-long process that western countries did, this is still a reminder that there is no shortcut to institutional development.
   
   For Africans, this nostalgic book shows how far we have come, but is also a challenge to craft a fresh vision for the long distance still left to travel.



2. This is a wonderfully written book; Naipaul's proses flows effortlessly across the page, the connexion between thought and word is seemless. The comparatively small body of work Naipaul produced before his tragic early death has been neglected in favour of that of his less talented, but longer lived, brother (a Nobel Prizewinner). However in this one work, Naipaul's prosody surpasses anything produced either by his brother, or by other twentieth century travel writers like Thoreau. That said, some of the other reviews here are ludicrously jaundiced and do a disservice to the book itself. This is no crude work of 'anti-pc' nonsense (an American political term that the archly European Naipaul would have shuddered at). The prose is not illiberal (in the American sense of the term) but rather aristocratic, in the best tradition of Evelyn Waugh (the writer Naipaul most resembles). Like Waugh, Naipaul's caustic observations rip into the heart of human weakness and frailty, exposing the hypocrisy and cant from all sides. The pretensions of ghastly businessmen disgust him as much as the crudity of the black 'socialists'. Those who seek to defend either Marxism or any form of business enterprise system face Naipaul's perfectly expressed derision. I personally found Naipaul's lack of human feeling at the extent of Africa's poverty a little shocking but it is a rapturous pleasure to be so shocked.



3. Shiva Naipaul's _North of South: An African Journey_ is the most cynical book I've ever read. It is a travelogue of the author's visit to three postcolonial African countries in the 1970s: Kenya, Tanzania and Zambia. Naipaul is a Hindu, born in Trinidad, and he pays attention to the role (and plight) of South Asians (Hindus, Pakistanis, Sikhs, Parsees, etc) in East Africa. He also focuses on the black-white relations in Africa as well. Naipaul gives Africa and everyone involved in its affairs (whites, blacks and Asians) no credit whatsoever. Declining European colonial powers gave their African colonies political independence in the 1960s and a variety of demagogues like and Julius Nyerre in Tanzania who took power spouting third world varieties of socialism and Marxism. Despite claims of social and economic progress, Africa remains as backward as ever. Naipaul freely writes of his disgust with the countries and its deceived leadership from the first page of the book until the last. This book, like another reviewer noted below, certainly is not going to make it into a black studies program anytime soon. It is a relief from portraits of Africa that classify it as a tropical paradise, a land of innocents exploited by evil Europeans, or conversely an AIDS infested human disaster. Naipaul's cynicism shows Africa the way it really is-struggling, corrupt, deceived, but at the same time Afroca is chugging along optimistically in some areas, with idealism and occasional realism, and attempting to do as well as it can to develop itself. No dry textbook prose here; the book is short, easy to read, engaging and very well written.



4. ~North of South: An African Journey~ is succinct and controversial travelogue by an Indian expatriate to the African continent. The author Naipaul presents a cynical, if not lampoonish travelogue of his odyssey through Africa in the 1970s: in particular, he visits Kenya, Tanzania and Zambia. His book reflects upon the socialist ideologies advocated by the various regimes, and how in spite of their lofty ideological ideals, they only partake of corruption and misery. Central Africa is a region synonymous with bloodshed, corruption, plight, and poverty. Naipaul comments frequently about loose morals, laziness, and rank corruption. The more things change, the more they stay the same. Naipaul also illustrates how deeply ambivalent native Africans are to Asian immigrants, mostly from India. The issue of race is quite an odd one. The legacy of colonials left Africans ambivalent against foreigners, but strangely dependent on them. As Naipaul notes the few mildly affluent Africans would rather have their children educated by Westerners than by their own people.
   
   A July 04, 2005 interview with a Kenyan economist in the German newspaper Spiegel offered some hard-hitting truth that the world needs to hear about Africa. Socialism in Africa, reinforced by naive western powers and the United Nations, is at the root of Africa's problems. It held true in the 1970s. And it holds true in the twenty-first century. Intervention inculcates weakness, saps market vitality, and props up despots and dictators. In 2005, the Kenyan economics expert James Shikwati says that foreign aid to Africa does more harm than good, declaring, "For God's sake, please just stop." He elaborated, "Such intentions have been damaging our continent for the past 40 years. If the industrial nations really want to help the Africans, they should finally terminate this awful aid. The countries that have collected the most development aid are also the ones that are in the worst shape. Despite the billions that have poured in to Africa, the continent remains poor." Spiegel then queried, "Do you have an explanation for this paradox?" Shikwati retorted, "Huge bureaucracies are financed (with the aid money), corruption and complacency are promoted, Africans are taught to be beggars and not to be independent. In addition, development aid weakens the local markets everywhere and dampens the spirit of entrepreneurship that we so desperately need. As absurd as it may sound: Development aid is one of the reasons for Africa's problems. If the West were to cancel these payments, normal Africans wouldn't even notice. Only the functionaries would be hard hit. Which is why they maintain that the world would stop turning without this development aid." Spiegel then queried, "Even in a country like Kenya, people are starving to death each year. Someone has got to help them." Shikwati declared, "But it has to be the Kenyans themselves who help these people. When there's a drought in a region of Kenya, our corrupt politicians reflexively cry out for more help... It's only natural that they willingly accept the plea for more help... before long, several thousands tons of corn are shipped to Africa ...and at some point, this corn ends up in the harbor of Mombasa. A portion of the corn often goes directly into the hands of unscrupulous politicians who then pass it on to their own tribe to boost their next election campaign. Another portion of the shipment ends up on the black market where the corn is dumped at extremely low prices. Local farmers may as well put down their hoes right away; no one can compete with the UN's World Food Program. And because the farmers go under in the face of this pressure, Kenya would have no reserves to draw on if there actually were a famine next year. It's a simple but fatal cycle."



5. As an East African Asian, I was really looking forward to reading this book. Unfortunately, I didn't enjoy it quite as much.
   The author is very cynical and sharply critical of almost EVERYTHING. It doesn't seem that he likes ANYTHING about East Africa.
   Also, he often provides more details than are necessary on mundane things, like unexpected meetings with strange people.
   
   Overall I would say that the author has done injustice to East Africa, and particularly the Asians of East Africa.

5 comments about Dear Exile : The True Story of Two Friends Separated (for a Year) by an Ocean.

1. This is about as perfect as a book can be. I won't recap the concept; plenty of other reviewers have summed it up. But I want to express my unbounded admiration for this book. I would never have imagined that a set of letters between friends could make for fascinating, hard-to-put-down reading, but this set of letters does. In spades. These women's lives are just plain interesting--Kate's, in part, because she's in a situation most of us know little or nothing about and Hilary's, in part, because she's in a situation most of us know all too well. There's more going on here, though, than just the fact of being interesting. The friendship between these two comes alive on the page; the insights about the world and about each other that the women reveal are meaningful; the wit each writer possesses is sharp and on target. I loved the book. I'm giving it to everyone I know for Christmas because they're all going to love it, too.



2. A great book. I loved reading the letters between the two friends and their different styles of writing. I hope their friendship will always endure. I look foward to reading more by both. I've already read Candy and Me by Hilary. I hope to hear more from K8.



3. A great book. I loved reading the letters between the two friends and their different styles of writing. I hope their friendship will always endure. I look foward to reading more by both. I've already read Candy and Me by Hilary. I hope to hear more from K8.



4. I'm going through the process of applying with the Peace Corps. I loved the candid nature of this book, and I found that it said a lot about friendship as well as the Peace Corps. This book is a quick read, and hard to put down. I appreciated having a window into one person's PC experience. And, I enjoyed identifying with the close friendship shared by these two women.



5. This is a great book. I don't read very much. It is hard for me to find a book that is really interesting to me, but this one kept my interest, and it kept me turning the pages. I really wanted to keep going to know what happens next.
   
   This is a great gift too. After reading it, I sent it to my girlfriends because I think it says a lot about friendships.

5 comments about African Nights: True Stories from the Author of I Dreamed of Africa.

1. I was quite offended by this white settler's life of endless parties, adventures, gourmet foods and travel around the world and throughout the stunning countryside of Kenya. Based on the colonial legacy of British, one of the many brutal European powers that profited from the domination of Africa, Gallmann was able to purchase 100,000 acres of land, stolen through the colonial system. All of Africa is in fact the birthright of the African people themselves. Gallmann's book is full of idealized and romanticized stories in which she is the central star. For a more realistic view of Kenya where nearly 60 percent of the people still live on less than $2 a day with a life expectancy of only 45 years, see, for example, Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain's Gulag in Kenya by Caroline Elkins. This is the story of the British slaughter of the Kikuyu people of Kenya in the 1950s who were put by the millions in concentration camps and murdered when they were rightfully struggling for the liberation of their homeland.



2. How she does it I don't know. She's incredible, seeing beauty in everything, painting vivid pictures for all to delight in. Presuming it to be only remnants from her perfect book I Dreamed of Africa, I doubted the caliber of this work. I was skeptical but willing - but Gallmann has proved that everything she touches illuminates in melodious detail. Whether it is the amplification of a salmon pink sky, silhouettes at dusk, a tree that appears imbued with knowledge, or a night sky saturated with the sounds that are Africa, Kuki's awareness and ensuing stories are exceptional - encroaching inspirational. There is something in every story that appeals to heart and soul. I almost wanted to frame each story separately as if it were a sapphire or quartz rarity, explicit, precious and real. I'm so impressed by her writing and the lighted manner in which she takes in Africa. It's wonderful.
   
   I liked this book.



3. My family and I visited Kenya last year and were utterly overwhelmed by the experience. Following that trip we read several books on Africa and amongst them was firstly "I dreamed of Africa" and latterly "African Nights". On a subsequent trip to Oman, I was reading the former book on the plane and had to stop, lest the flight attendants and fellow passengers witness me breaking down in tears. (Kuki's words at her son's funeral service). The spirit and the eloquence of her writing and indeed of her very experiences touched our hearts deeply. So much so that we traveled this year (August 2007) to Likepia, to her 'ranch' (now a conservation area), as a kind of pilgrimage to an Africa that has mostly vanished, swallowed up in commercialism, in over-grazing and exploitation. What did we find? An incredibly special place where conservation efforts harmonise with nature; where people are valued. Where students from all over the world come to research 'projects', encouraged by the owner of the land - Kuki. We met a variety of people, both African and otherwise. Pokot Tribespeople. Belgium guides. Eastern European Photographers. Kenyan Musicians. Village children at the custom built school... An eclectic mix of people with a common passion - for Africa, for its people and for its land. All inspired by one person. An author of two books.
   
   The grammar in Kuki's second book may, according to several reviews, not be immaculate or even American, but given the life that Kuki has led, and indeed continues to lead, I believe that people should simply get past such utterly insignificant details and try to feel the reality that the author describes.
   
   Kuki tells her story her way, and obviously leads her life her way. She has suffered loss and tragedy, but this is an author who has 'moved on', in control of her destiny and embracing change with a passion and an artistry that the vast majority of us could not hope to emulate.
   
   Perhaps her sentences may be deemed a bit long by some. But when she describes a vignette of her family, of Africa.... you are there with her: With her husband at the coast. With her son catching snakes by the lake... And in being there through her writing, you are actually the closest you'll likely come to a very special part of Africa. A part that isn't on the tourist trail. A part that is rapidly encroached by charcoal burning; by agriculture, by population explosion. But a part that is still home to both Elephant and to Lion and to a very special community.
   
   Put criticism of grammar or sentence structure behind you. These matters do not rate for much in the overall tapestry of life. And it is that tapestry that Kuki so artfully weaves, allowing you to enter her world, and become a part of her life by doing so.



4. When I finished this book, I felt I had learned something, or perhaps been reminded of something I already knew. What struck me was the author's capacity to love, to suffer, and ultimately to find strength and see the beauty in her experiences. I admire this woman's spirit and her unique spirituality. The connection that she finds with the land and the animals and the people that pass through her life make me think, "wow, that is a life well-lived and worth reading about."



5. I did volunteer work at Kuki's Ol Ari Nyrio in 11/07 and it was the most amazing experience of my life. I also had dinner with Kuki and she is an artist- attentive, creative, intelligent, and misses nothing. Africa is a place like no other-you cannot expect the norm - truth is always more interesting & stranger than fiction, remember. Kuki is an amazing person and the work she has done for the people & animals in the area, without spoiling the natural habitat or trying to change the people's ways, is well told. The death of her son and husband, so tragic, has led her to different levels in life, where so much work has been done for the good of generations to come. Read her books-they are wonderful!

No comments about Back from Africa.

1 comments about Kenya - Culture Smart!: a quick guide to customs and etiquette (Culture Smart!).

1. I spent three months in Kenya living with people from the Kikuyu tribe working at an orghanage in Dagoretti Market. I wish I had read this book before going. Now I have a better understanding of Kenya and it's wonderful people. When I go back next year I will take the book and hopefully improve my ability to integrate closer. I still know very few words in Kikuyu!
   
   Thank you for the information in this well written book.