Reading about the near disasters of a transatlantic flight in a single-engine Cessna while you yourself are making the same flight, albeit in the relative comfort and safety of a Boeing, is probably not recommended. But that speaks to the merits of a good book, one that grabs you by the propellor shaft and pulls you into the clouds, where you forget, ignore, or don't care about what is happening around you. All that matters is the book.
That's "My Heart is Africa" in a nutshell. Scott Griffin's tale of his two year African sojourn halted my life on page one, and didn't let it start again until the covers closed for the final time. Maybe it had something to do with the jet-lag or the excessive amounts of excellent wine one consumes in Italy, but one of the best books I've read this year has been by a mere businessman!
Griffin and his wife, Krystyne, spent two years based in Nairobi, Kenya, while he worked to reorganize The Flying Doctors Service, an organization that provides emergency medical and evacuation services to East Africa in its entirety. They also flew various missions and out-trips around Africa, Griffin's personal goal for his journey being to circumnavigate the African Continent.
Brilliantly written, superbly paced, and inescapably intringuing, "My Heart is Africa" paints an accurate and refreshing picture of life in every corner of the Dark Continent, from Arab North Africa to white dominated South Africa, black Nairobi to politically unstable . A clear-headed view of the people living on the world's most impoverished continent is also presented: foreign aid workers and organizations, black Africans, white Africans, various military personas, the UN, and a host of other tasty characters all appear in this magnificent cross section of Africa.
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