I Had The Constitution Of A Missionary.

There Aren't Enough Doctors In Africa. Those Who Choose To Become Doctors Here Don't Do It For The Money Or Because They Want To Do Good. They Do It Because They Have To Heal, The Way Most People Need To Breathe Or Eat Or Love.

Fbi Girl Is A Gorgeous, Sumptuous Book. Conlon-mcivor Takes A Subject (herself And Her Family) That Might Have Sunk In Other Hands, Beats Egg White Under Her Words And The Whole Thing Rises Like A Dream. It's A Love Story For Her People And For A Time And Place. Read It.

I Always Knew Mum Loved Me - Tough, Look-after-yourself Love, As If She Knew She Wouldn't Always Be There.

But I Plucked A New, Different, Worldly Soul For Myself -- Maybe A Soul I Found In The Spray Thrown Up By The Surge Of That Distant African River As It Plummets Onto Black Rocks And Sends Up Into The Sun A Permanent Arc Of A Rainbow.

The Land Itself, Of Course, Was Careless Of Its Name. It Still Is. You Can Call It What You Like, Fight All The Wars You Want In Its Name. Change Its Name Altogether If You Like. The Land Is Still Unblinking Under The African Sky. It Will Absorb White Man's Blood And The Blood Of African Men, It Will Absorb Blood From Slaughtered Cattle And The Blood From A Woman's Birthing With Equal Thirst. It Doesn't Care.