My Heart Is Africa

In 1996, Scott Griffin left the comfortable routine of his life as a successful businessman to fly solo to Africa in his single-engine Cessna 180 to work for the Flying Doctors Service, an African organization that flies doctors and nurses to remote areas to administer medical assistance. My Heart is Africa is an engaging personal story of his two-year adventure but it is also the story of Africa -- its problems and people, its landscape and limitations, its culture and courage. Griffin's intrepid flying odyssey takes the reader on a journey across Africa and into the lives of the doctors, nurses, aid workers and eccentric characters that crossed his path along the way. All royalties from the sale of this book will be donated to the AMREF Flying Doctors Service.

A collection of African wisdom gorgeously illustrated by artists from Ghana, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Canada, the United States and more. Aphorisms are universal. They give guidance, context and instruction for life's issues, and they help us understand each other and the world around us. We use them every day, yet never think about where they came from or why they exist. In this beautifully illustrated collection, Eric Walters brings us classic sayings from the places where this shared wisdom began. Ashanti, Sukuma, Akan and Kikuyu: all of these cultures use the portable and easily shared knowledge contained in aphorisms, and from these cultures and more this communal knowledge spread. This book is a celebration of art, of community and of our common history.

This book takes the reader on a delightful journey into Africa and into the world of a little girl called Tippi who tells her unforgettable story on her return from Africa to France at the age of ten. Tippi is no ordinary child. She believes that she has the gift of talking to animals and that they are like brothers to her. Her world is filled with characters like Leon the Chameleon, Abu the elephant whom she calls ‘my brother’, and leopards, snakes, baboons, lions and ostriches ... ‘I speak to them with my mind, or through my eyes, my heart or my soul, and I see that they understand and answer me.’ My Book of Africa contains the words of a little girl who has the gift of reaching out and touching the people and animals of Africa. It s beautifully illustrated with over 100 magical photographs taken by her parents, French filmmakers and photographers, Sylvie Robert and Alain Degré.

I am greeted by the petrifying sight of thirty or sixty or seventy buffalo looming large at a distance, each of them staring at me. Just staring would be okay; I could handle that. But these are also coming at me. I just stand there turned to stone, waiting for something to happen-something other, that is, than having a herd of cape buffalo running toward me. If it weren't for Peter, they surely would have trampled me to death. Fortunately, he recollects himself just in time to yell at me to get my ass behind the tree. The tree. Hmm . . . What tree? I t takes a few seconds of scanning the land around me before I see Peter hugging a tree trunk not more than a foot in diameter. I get there in three gigantic leaps and with such verve that I knock Peter out from behind his tree. I yank him back, of course. Both of us are trying to be wafer thin (not an easy feat, that) so both of us can fit behind the tree. In less than four seconds, the buffalo storm past on either side of our measly cover. These hunting stories abound in thrills and merry moments yet remain truthful to life. The author invites the reader to an enchanted world where anything can happen around the next bush and where often a decision must be made in the blink of an eye. Each event described here becomes instantly tangible and sharply conveys the scents and colors, the sheer magic of the African wilderness. The photos stand as witness of the author's love and dedication to the African continent. I recommend this book to everyone who wants to experience the unrivalled spell of Africa. -Koos Pienaar, big game PH HUntafrica Namibia Safaris

Banff Mountain Book Awards WINNER The spellbinding true story of retracing the extraordinary trek of Ewart "the Leopard" Grogan—the legendary British explorer who, in order to win the woman he loved, attempted to become the first person to cross Africa In 1898 the dashing British adventurer Ewart Grogan fell head-over-heels in love—but before he could marry, he needed the approval of his beloved's skeptical, aristocratic stepfather. Grogan, seeking to prove his worth and earn his love's hand, then set out on an epic quest to become the first man to cross the entire length of Africa, from Cape Town to Cairo, "a feat hitherto thought by many explorers to be impossible" (New York Times). A little more than a century later, American journalist Julian Smith also found himself madly in love with his girlfriend of seven years... but he was terrified by the prospect of marraige. Inspired by Grogan's story, which he discovered by chance, Smith decided to face his fears of commitment by retracing the explorer's amazing—but now forgotten—4,500-mile journey for love and glory through Africa. Crossing the Heart of Africa is the unforgettable account of these twin adventures, as Smith beautifully ineterweaves his own contemporary journey with Grogan's larger-than-life tale of cannibal attacks, charging elephants, deadly jungles, and romantic triumph. SOCIETY OF AMERICAN TRAVEL WRITERS WESTERN WRITING AWARDS WINNER: GOLD PRIZE (TRAVEL) BANFF MOUNTAIN BOOK COMPETITION WINNER: SPECIAL JURY MENTION AMERICAN SOCIETY OF JOURNALISTS AND AUTHORS AWARDS BEST-BOOK WINNER: MEMOIR

Documents the author's journeys through Mali, Mauritania, and Niger, discussing the inspiration for her travels, the women who adopted her into their ranks, and her discoveries about the region's forgotten areas and future promise.

"Little did Kiwi woman Denise Carnihan know that what started as her son's school project on 'family origins' would result in visiting her newly discovered family in South Africa in 2009, and lead her and her family on a completely different life journey, culminating in building a fully functioning school in a poor region of Kenya in 2011. Inspired by her initial adventure, Denise decided to do a volunteer stint at an orphanage in Kenya and after witnessing the poverty and squalor first hand, she understood the enormous importance placed on education in this developing country. "Wouldn't it be cool if we could build a little school in a big slum for say 50 kids was the random comment she made to her husband, Chris when they both returned to Kenya the following year. Incredibly, this became the reality for Denise and Chris Carnihan from a small coastal town in New Zealand. They then literally "stumbled" head first into building and establishing their very own primary school - in a large slum, opening with not 50 children as planned ... but 117. Within 18 months the roll had grown to 380+ children and 12 staff. Denise, talks passionately about her love for Africa and her beautiful African journey. And she describes candidly the joys; the immense satisfaction and the overwhelming drive needed to persevere, together with the enormous challenges, battles, and frustrations in establishing a project in a slum of Kenya, where communication and culture operate in extremes"--http://www.isharemyheartwithafrica.com.

The controversy surrounding the significant "Into the Heart of Africa" exhibit at the Royal Ontario Museum in Canada is explored in this compelling and analytical text. The exhibit has become an international, controversial touchstone for issues surrounding the politics of visual representation, such as the challenges to curatorial and ethnographic authority in multicultural and postcolonial contexts. Asking why the museum's exhibit failed so many people, the author examines such issues as institutional politics, the broad political and intellectual climate surrounding museums, the legacies of colonialism and traditions of representation of Africa, and the politics of irony. By drawing upon anthropological and cultural criticism, the book offers a unique account of the ways in which an ambiguous exhibit about colonialism became the site of an expansiveInto the Heart of Africa."