Leaving Before the Rains Come
Alexandra Fuller, 2015
Penguin Group (USA)
272 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781594205866
Summary
A child of the Rhodesian wars and daughter of two deeply complicated parents, Alexandra Fuller is no stranger to pain. But the disintegration of Fuller’s own marriage leaves her shattered.
Looking to pick up the pieces of her life, she finally confronts the tough questions about her past, about the American man she married, and about the family she left behind in Africa. A breathtaking achievement, Leaving Before the Rains Come is a memoir of such grace and intelligence, filled with such wit and courage, that it could only have been written by Alexandra Fuller.
Leaving Before the Rains Come begins with the dreadful first years of the American financial crisis when Fuller’s delicate balance—between American pragmatism and African fatalism, the linchpin of her unorthodox marriage—irrevocably fails. Recalling her unusual courtship in Zambia—elephant attacks on the first date, sick with malaria on the wedding day—Fuller struggles to understand her younger self as she overcomes her current misfortunes.
Fuller soon realizes what is missing from her life is something that was always there: the brash and uncompromising ways of her father, the man who warned his daughter that "the problem with most people is that they want to be alive for as long as possible without having any idea whatsoever how to live." Fuller’s father—"Tim Fuller of No Fixed Abode" as he first introduced himself to his future wife—was a man who regretted nothing and wanted less, even after fighting harder and losing more than most men could bear.
Leaving Before the Rains Come showcases Fuller at the peak of her abilities, threading panoramic vistas with her deepest revelations as a fully grown woman and mother. Fuller reveals how, after spending a lifetime fearfully waiting for someone to show up and save her, she discovered that, in the end, we all simply have to save ourselves.
An unforgettable book, Leaving Before the Rains Come is a story of sorrow grounded in the tragic grandeur and rueful joy only to be found in Fuller’s Africa. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—March 29, 1969
• Where—Glossop, Derbyshire, UK
• Raised—Central Africa
• Education—B. A., Acadia University, Nova Scotia, Canada
• Awards—Winifred Holtby Memorial Prize; Lettre Ulysses Award
• Currently—lives in Wilson, Wyoming
Alexandra Fuller is an author who was raised in Central Africa and currently lives in the U.S. state of Wyoming. She was born in the town of Glossop, England, but moved with her family to Zimbabwe (then Rhodesia) in 1972 and was educated at boarding schools in Mutare and Harare.
Fuller received a B.A. from Acadia University in Nova Scotia, Canada (receiving an Honorary Doctorate of Letters from the same institution in 2007). She met her American husband, Charlie Ross, in Zambia, where he was running a rafting business for tourists. In 1994, they moved to his home state of Wyoming but eventually divorced in 2012. They have three children. She currently spends much of her time in a yurt near Jackson, Wyoming.
Her first book, Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight, a memoir of her childhood in Africa, won the 2002 Winifred Holtby Memorial Prize. It was a New York Times Notable Book for 2002 and a finalist for the Guardian's First Book Award.
Scribbling the Cat, her second book, was released in 2004. An unflinching account of the repercussions of the Rhodesian Bush War, it won the Lettre Ulysses Award for the Art of Reportage in 2005.
In her third book, The Legend of Colton H. Bryant, Fuller narrates the tragically short life of a Wyoming roughneck who, in 2006, fell to his death at the age of 25. He was working on an oil rig owned by Patterson–UTI Energy.
Her second memoir (and fourth book), Cocktail Hour Under The Tree of Forgetfulness, was published in 2011 and tells the story of her mother, Nicola Fuller.
Her 2015 memoir, Leaving Before the Rains Come, recounts the disintegration of her marriage.
Fuller's articles and reviews have appeared in numerous publications including The New Yorker, National Geographic, Granta, New York Times, Guardian and Financial Times. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 1/26/2015.)
Book Reviews
Much of Leaving Before the Rains Come concerns itself with the familial histories of both Fuller and her husband (whose background, amazingly, almost equals Fuller’s in its extraordinariness). Consequently, the book is longer and more diverting than in a sense it ought to be, while at the same time the incompatibility of these two narratives...creates a sense of uneasiness at its core.... Fuller is far from depleted: This book perhaps marks the beginning of her journey toward an unassailable possession of mind, and toward a new kind of freedom.
Rachel Cusk - New York Times Book Review
I've loved Alexandra Fuller's other books, particularly Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight, a rich, marvelous memoir brimming with details of her romantic Rhodesian upbringing, and Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness, which traced her mother's history. But Leaving Before the Rains Come, the story of her crumbling marriage, is even better than those two books, one of the gutsiest memoirs I've ever read. And the writing—oh my God, the writing. It's more than a little daunting to review a book so gorgeously wrought that you stop, time and again, just to marvel at the language (Grade A).
Entertainment Weekly
In her newest memoir, Fuller insightfully explores the contrasts between the different landscapes [of Africa and America's West] and their corresponding mind-sets.... [T]his book also attempts to tackle...a sad, drawn-out divorce.... [T]he rich narration of Fuller’s upbringing, sensibility, and loneliness make clear that she remains one of the most gifted and important memoirists of our time.
Publishers Weekly
In books like her award-winning debut, Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight, Fuller gives us an indelible portrait of Africa as it has defined her personal life. Here she continues in that vein, detailing the breakup of her marriage to an American she met in Zambia, where he ran a rafting business.
Library Journal
Powerful, raw, and painful, Fuller’s writing is so immediate, so vivid that whether she’s describing the beauty of Zambia or the harrowing hours following a devastating accident, she leaves the reader breathless. Another not-to-be-missed entry from the gifted Fuller.
Booklist
[A] wry, forthright and captivating memoir. The focus is on the slow unraveling of her marriage to a man [Fuller] thought would save her from her family's madness and chaos.... [F]inancial pressures...and her own loneliness gradually took a toll.... To reclaim her life, she insisted on divorce.... Fuller's talent as a storyteller makes this memoir sing.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
(We'll add specific questions if and when they're made available by the publisher.)
It Was Me All Along: A Memoir
Andie Mitchell, 2015
Clarkson Potter/Ten Speed/Harmony
249 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780770433246
Summary
A heartbreakingly honest, endearing memoir of incredible weight loss by a young food blogger who battles body image issues and overcomes food addiction to find self-acceptance.
All her life, Andie Mitchell had eaten lustily and mindlessly. Food was her babysitter, her best friend, her confidant, and it provided a refuge from her fractured family. But when she stepped on the scale on her twentieth birthday and it registered a shocking 268 pounds, she knew she had to change the way she thought about food and herself; that her life was at stake.
It Was Me All Along takes Andie from working class Boston to the romantic streets of Rome, from morbidly obese to half her size, from seeking comfort in anything that came cream-filled and two-to-a-pack to finding balance in exquisite (but modest) bowls of handmade pasta.
This story is about much more than a woman who loves food and abhors her body. It is about someone who made changes when her situation seemed too far gone and how she discovered balance in an off-kilter world. More than anything, though, it is the story of her finding beauty in acceptance and learning to love all parts of herself. (From the publisher.)
See Andie Mitchell's TEDx Talk.
Author Bio
• Birth—January 25, 1985
• Where—Boston, Massachusetts, USA
• Currently—lives in New York City, New York
Andie Mitchell is a writer, recipe developer, and lover of cake. Her popular blog, CanYouStayForDinner.com, shares the inspiring story of her successful weight loss and continued passion for good food. She lives in New York City, where she is the social media director for ShriverReport.org. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
In a moving new memoir, It Was Me All Along, Andie Mitchell describes how her life became a prison of calorie-counting, cravings and self-consciousness until she found a comfortable weight.
Daily Mail
A charming memoir about weight loss and self-discovery.
People
The book’s biggest surprise is how relatable it is: Beneath the extreme eating scenarios Mitchell describes some universal truths about how women connect and clash with food. …It Was Me All Along is the perfect book to read in January, because Mitchell’s total bluntness will inspire you to have a more honest year.
Glamour
Anyone embarking on New Year’s resolutions of eating healthier and losing weight will be humbled by reading Andie Mitchell’s memoir, a poetically written, honest account of her struggles with binging, obesity and the traumatic childhood that led her to seek solace in food.”
StyleBistro.com
[T]he strikingly honest story of one woman’s long journey to self-acceptance. It’s a must-read memoir for anyone who has used food to numb the pain rather than nourish the body.
BookPage
A young blogger shares the story of how she overcame a lifetime of bad eating habits....a symptom of a far deeper problem.... [S]he had to learn to love herself and her body, understand the meaning of life-balance.... A candid and inspiring memoir
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
Also, use these talking points to help get a discussion started for It Was Me All Along:
1. Does any part of Andie's experience mirror your own struggle with weight? Are there any parallels? If so, which parts of her story do you relate to?
2. What are the ways in which you both connect and clash with food?
3. To what degree is food an addiction? Or is over-eating, especially bingeing, more a matter of self-control?
4. Talk about Andie's depression after her huge weight loss. What does she discover about herself?
5. What role did Andie's particular family dynamics play in her over-eating? What about your own early years?
6. Should society be more accepting of heavy people? Are we wrong to place so much emphasis on food consumption, appetite control, and slender bodies?
(We'll add specific questions if and when they're made available by the publisher.)
A Long Way from Paris
E.C. Murray, 2014
Plicata Press
280 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780990310211
Summary
IIn this searing true story named one of KIRKUS BEST BOOKS of 2014, EC Murray discards her dream of being a famous writer in Paris and hitchhikes by herself to the south of France where she winds up herding goats on a remote mountain farm.
Living with a non-English speaking family (she speaks little French) she carves a life without running water, heat, and only two electric light bulbs. Struggling under the watchful eye of the harsh matriarch, this city girl fails at farm chores. She can’t carry buckets of water, milk goats, or work fast enough making goat cheese.
Murray recently lost sixty pounds, so her body is stiff and unused to the rigor of mountain life. Still, she feels a spiritual calling to this remote Languedoc farm, west of the Mediterranean, north of the Pyrenees. Life eases when a young English speaking shepherd joins the family.
Together, Murray and Randy laugh and eke fun where they can. He teaches Murray how to tend the goats, sheep, and ornery pregnant cow. As Elizabeth slides into her role as goatherd, she spends hours at a time alone with her animals, reading, meditating, and mulling over the classic books she never read in school—Anna Karenina, Pride and Prejudice, The Reivers.
Murray yearns for the boy she left behind, her first love. He captured her heart, but lived a self-destructive lifestyle. She remembers her days doing drugs and partying, and in contrast, relishes the clarity she finds up in the fresh air and open sky of the countryside.
Throughout this riveting book, Elizabeth reflects on her days at an elite New England prep school, her wilder days as an Oregon hippie, and her student days as a philosophy major. When tragedy strikes the family and the matriarch departs, Murray realizes her metamorphous as she runs the farm with new strength, confidence and competence.
Author Bio
• Birth—N/A
• Where—Holyoke, Massachusetts, USA
• Education—B.S., University of Oregon, Washington; M.S.W., University of Washington
• Currently—lives near Seattle, Washington
Although EC Murray wrote her first play, Lilly and Milly Go to Mars, in second grade, decades passed before she returned to writing. In the interim, she roamed from her conservative New England home to the west coast, and on to Europe, Asia, Africa, South America, and Australia. Her jobs ranged from being a cocktail waitress to telephone book deliverer; from wedding hostess and to goatherd; from retail clerk to bureaucrat. Eventually, she earned a Masters in Social Work, and worked with people with developmental disabilities. Romance struck, then marriage, child, and all the accoutrements: soccer tournaments, dance recitals, cross country meets, family fun.
As empty nesting approached, she returned to school to learn the craft of writing: the University of Washington, Richard Hugo House, and Southampton Writers Conference. She founded and publishes The Writers Connection, a newsletter and Web site for readers and writers, and today, writes, tutors, and teaches at Tacoma Community College.
Works
- The Paralympic Games, Vancouver—2012 Strokes and Spokes
- Be a Tourist in Tacoma – Seattle’s Child
- Lady Gaga’s Bus Tour; Bus Reduction – Tacoma Volcano
- When Mom is Puking – Hybrid Mom
- Be a Tourist in Gig Harbor – Seattle’s Child
- Transit Cuts for People with Disabilities—Tacoma Volcano
- Paralympics Vancouver – ABILITY magazine
- Life Kind of Sucks—Published by The Writers Connection, 2014
- "The Urban Goatherd" –Wilderness Literary House Review (nominated for a Pushcart
Award award and Honorable Mention for New Millenium Writings.)
(Author bio from the author).
Visit the author's website and The Writers' Connection.
Book Reviews
A riveting read. Murray engages the senses every step of the way.
Scott Driscoll, University of Washington, author of Better You Go Home
Murray is both a sharp observer of the local color and a cartographer of her own internal geography, making A Long Way from Paris as richly textured as fromage de chèvre.
Langdon Cook, author of The Mushroom Hunters
[EC Murray] beautifully explores her deep awareness of the land, an unfolding appreciation of hard work and the importance of family. The result is a fascinating journey filled with wisdom, grace and compassion.
Carlene Cross, author of The Undying West, Fleeing Fundamentalism
EC Murray brings the reader to the haunting, godforsaken beauty of the French Pyrenees…living a life stripped down to the basics, her senses, intuition, and heart must take over. It is a thoughtful, heartwarming journey…that leads…to the core of life.
Beth Corcoran, Lévis-Lauzon College
Written with beauty, candor and wit.
Wendy Hinman, author of Tightwads on the Loose
Totally engrossing and imbued with both humor and heartbreak. Murray has infused the everyday with meaning and adventure.
Carol Wissmann, Freelance writer, editor, and speaker.
Anyone who’s struck out on the road to find themselves (and those who’ve wanted to!) will surely see themselves in E.C. Murray’s lovely and nicely rendered A Long Way from Paris.
Theo Pauline Nestor, author of Writing is My Drink.
Every woman—and her daughter—should read this book, brimming with gentle insights and strength of spirit, as sometimes we, like the author, mistakenly believe ourselves bereft of both.
Carol Wissmann, Freelance writer, editor, and speaker.
[A] young American woman backpacking through Europe.... A Long Way from Paris recounts [the author's] jarring transformation from footloose vagabond to live-in, language-deficient goatherd for a family in the mountains of Languedoc.... Flecked with humor and bittersweet candor, this account captures the essence of coming of age.
Bellingham and Kitspa Sun
A rich, lucid debut memoir of an American hippie’s adventures on a goat farm in southern France in the early 1980s, pieced together from the author’s journals.... A welcome memoir of France that offers a complex mosaic of memories (a Kirkus Best Book for 2014).
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Murray is shocked at Jacques eating like "an eagle coming in for the kill" because she grew up with a rigid idea of acceptable table manners. How important are manners and etiquette? Do you adhere to the manners you grew up with or have you incorporated new ones?
2. How did Murray’s relationship with her herd change and foster her growth? As Murray reflects on her family’s behaviors, she sees some she values, some she shuns. In what way is she "re-parenting" or "reinventing" herself out on the hillside?
3. Murray writes, "when you have 'it'—a true spiritual connection, there’s no need to broadcast it or put it on bumper stickers." Do you think it’s important to reveal to others your spiritual beliefs? Why or why not?
4. George Eliot writes in Adam Bede that "people living closest to nature are the ‘purest,’" a phrase Murray mulls over. Do you think this is true? Why? How did the books Elizabeth read influence her understanding of life with the Fontaines?
5. Murray reflects on losing weight saying, "I lost weight in my body, but not my mind." What does she mean by this? Do you think this is why many people gain their weight back after losing it?
6. A Long Way from Paris is filled with many courageous moments. What took more courage—withstanding the physical isolation; learning a new way of life; being far from friends and family? In what ways was Murray courageous and what ways was she reckless?
7. Murray describes her relationship with Garner as being fraught with contradictions. Have you ever found yourself in an unhealthy relationship? What did you do?
8. What do you think of the "back to nature" movement which captured the imagination of so many people in the seventies? How would you do living in such primitive conditions?
(Questions courtesy of the author.)
Twinkle: A Memoir
Angela K. Durden, 2015
Self-published
218 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781500966638
Summary
One, lone double agent in the unrelenting cold war that was her family.
Analyzing strengths and eccentricities of the enemy while offering herself to evil to save a weak mother and younger siblings.
Twinkle is the exceptional telling of an all too common story of one girl’s unrelenting pursuit of survival, her self-sacrifice, and the need to feel God’s love.
Author Bio
• Birth—1957
• Raised—in the states of Georgia and Texas, USA
• Education—N/A
• Currently—lives in Decatur, Georgia
Author of 6 published books. Working on series of novels featuring recurring characters. Editing and writing screenplays. Ghostwriting. Editing of others works. Songwriter. Also, through her music publishing companies, Durden is representing works by domestic and international singer/songwriters and songwriting teams to other artists, record labels, film production companies, and advertising agencies. The Recording Academy, Georgia Music Partners, and Georgia Production Partnership. SESAC affiliate, and member of ASCAP and BMI.
Since 1992, owner of WRITER for HIRE!, managing the life cycle of words from picking to placing to producing. Since 2013, founder and CEO of technology startup Notes2Bucks LLC. Dale M. Sizemore, COO and co-founder. Member of ATDC (Advanced Technology Development Center) in Atlanta, Georgia. (From the author.)
Visit the author's website.
Follow Angela on Faebook.
Book Reviews
Let this review serve as this book's warning label. In a series of in-the-moment snapshots covering decades, Twinkle tells a larger tale of incredible and unrelenting cruelty. It also tells a larger story of an exceptionally bright little girl who survived appalling abuse to become an incredible woman. The writing proves Angela K. Durden is unbelievably talented as well. She probably did not set out to create an inspirational book, but that's what came out. Reading this will change your life.
Tom Whitfield - Amazon Customer Review
Angela Durden tells her incredible life story in the pages of Twinkle. She holds nothing back in this moving story of her far less-from-perfect childhood and proves—to all willing to read and learn—that where there is faith, there is the ability to overcome even the worst actions inflicted upon us by humanity.
Kimberly Williams - Amazon Customer Review
Angela is my hero! She survived a hidden war that most of us never see or have to endure! Her prose lands you smack in the middle and won't let go. By the last page, you will feel her pain and triumph and see the world around us with clearer eyes!
William Farmer - Amazon Customer Review
Discussion Questions
1. How effective is the author in drawing the reader into her world with descriptions of scenes, including internal thought processes? Do you find her writing style unique? If yes, in what way?
2. Think about your most memorable vignette in the book. How would you have responded or handled the situation?
3. When you first saw the book and read its description, did you feel a disconnect between the description and title/cover picture? Did that disconnect resolve itself upon reading?
4. How did Durden’s omniscient narrator’s telling of her story alter your perceptions of the scenes?
5. What is your opinion of Beloved Mother’s role in the girl’s life? Why?
6. How do you feel about the girl’s need to be remembered?
7. After you read the Afterword, did your opinion of the author change? If yes, how? Why?
8. What is your opinion about why the author wrote her story?
9. If you were to write your own life’s story, what would you hope to learn about yourself?
(Questions courtesy of the author.)
The Black Mzungu
Alexandria K. Osborne, 2015
Niyah Publishing
222 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780982221570
Summary
When Alexandria "Nur" Osborne applied for a short fellowship in Tanzania, she never imagined that 6 months would turn into a lifetime; and that the bush of East Africa would teach her about love, identity, and courage.
The Black Mzungu is the vivid, candid account of how Nur, an African American Muslim expat, and Saidi, her Tanzanian husband whom she met during the fellowship, breathe life into a beautiful 92 acre homestead vacated four decades earlier by Saidi's family.
Living there on the coastal southern region of Lindi, Tanzania, Nur's perceptions of how things "ought" to be are often challenged. From the dangerous natural wildlife to locals who view them as outsiders, she and Saidi must learn to navigate both natural and man-made obstacles. Still, through personal triumphs, they forge a way to give back to the land they now call home.
Mzungu is derived from the Swahili word "kizunguzungu," which means dizzy. When Europeans came to East Africa they were always getting lost and wandered in circles. Indigenous people gave them the name "mzungu" because they wandered in circles to the point of making someone dizzy.
Mzungu has evolved to mean the "wanderer." Now it is used to mean someone of European descent. However, it is also commonly used to refer to any non-Swahili speaking foreigner. As an adjective it is used to mean a certain lifestyle (e.g., that mzungu house or "do not charge me a mzungu price").
Recently I have been feeling more like a real mzungu; that is, a wanderer. As friends and family from the life I had known for 5 decades move, change jobs, or even die, I wonder "where is home?" As an African-American residing in sub-Sahara Africa I had resisted the term mzungu, even sometimes feeling insulted. Now I realize I am mzungu, the WANDERER, looking for a place to call home. (From the author.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1956
• Where—New York, New York, USA
• Education—B.S., Pratt Institute; MBA, Western Michigan University; PhD, Walden University
• Currently—LIndi, Tanzania
Alexandria Osborne was born in 1956 in Harlem, New York, and graduated from the Bronx High School of Science. After earning a B.S. in Chemistry from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York, Alex accepted a position at a global pharmaceutical company in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Michigan brought about many life changes including marriage to a Libyan American and converting to Islam. It’s also the place Alex raised her daughter, Zubayda with whom she would often travel to Libya. Finding it difficult to say Alex, her in-laws in Libya gave her the name Nur, a name she adopted as her own. It was the beginning of a dynamic, cross-cultural life.
In 2005, Nur earned a MBA in Management from Western Michigan University and later began her studies for a PhD in Management with a specialty in Leadership and Organization Change.
In 2009, she made her first visit to sub-Sahara Africa to begin a six-month fellowship for an international NGO in Tanzania. That same year, her research study conducted at Tripoli Medical Center in Libya was approved, earning her a PhD from Walden University.
During her fellowship, she met her current husband, Saidi, and returned to his homeland in the coastal southern region of Lindi, Tanzania. In 2013, she founded the Lindi Islamic Foundation of Tanzania–LIFT (www.tanzania-lift.org).
She now lives in Tanzania with her husband, their chickens and other farm animals where she enjoys starting off each morning with a good strong cup of Tanzanian coffee. (From the author.)
Visit the author's website.
Follow Alexandria on Facebook.
Book Reviews
Charming, funny, heart-warming and interesting. This book is a very enjoyable read!
Karen Wentland (Ohio, USA)
A reminder of the luxuries of first world living through an open and honest telling of leaving home, and the familiar, to start a new life halfway across the world, definitely worth reading.
Leanna Abdelmaged (Abu Dhabi, UAE)
Fresh voice, engaging subject, arresting realities.
Mary Ann Mitchell (Michigan, USA)
I really enjoyed reading The Black Mzungu; it was very interesting to see this part of Africa through the eyes of an American expat. There is rich detail about the people, animals and surroundings which is fascinating. Osborne is not shy in sharing her experiences: good, bad, ugly and beautiful.
Barb VanEseltine (Michigan, USA)
Discussion Questions
1. What type of events in someone’s life might make someone move to another part of the world?
2. What factors would determine the level of acceptance of someone who lives among people from a different culture? What should someone do to gain acceptance?
3. What risks did the author consider when she decided where she would reside?
4. What burden do African Americans carry that make some consider a connection to a continent they never visited Should they?
5. What common bond is more important in forming friendships: religion, color, language, socio-economic, nationality?
6. What skills are needed to navigate a new environment?
7. What comforts could you sacrifice to make a new life? And, what would you need to replace those comforts?
8. Trust is an important factor in forming relationships. Who betrayed the author’s trust? How can someone gain your trust in a new environment? Is it the same factors in the West and developing world?
9. Do you think the author will live out her life in her new home? If not, what would cause her to return back to the States permanently?
10. What void did the foundation fill?
11. Was the change the author made in her life revolutionary or evolutionary? Why?
12. What compromises, if any, did the author make in her own values?
13. What are the possible repercussions of reporting an illegal activity that seems systemic and accepted by society?
14. What boundaries would you set with you neighbors? When do you give and when do you decline? Are you more apt to give if someone asks?
15. Retirement is a major life event. How different do you think the author’s life would be if she retired in the States instead of Africa?
16. Which institution or sector of society has the biggest impact on the lives of people?
17. Africa is rich in resources. Why has its wealth not improved the lives of the masses? What changes, if any, need to be made for the people of southeast Tanzania to benefit from the discovery of natural gas?
18. Do non-profit organizations and international aid help or hinder development?
19. How do you think the people of the author’s village felt when she moved next door?
20. When is wildlife something to be marveled? And, when is it something to be feared? What measures would you put in place to live among the wildlife?
(Questions courtesy of the author.)