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Posts from the ‘Expat Africa’ category

Front cover of And Then I Came Here by Lynne Kay

Maria’s Story (Part Three)

“Tthere’s nobody who’s crossed my path and I’ve thought, ‘Oh gosh, he’s good-looking and seems very intelligent and is not committed, maybe I should go for it’. Lilongwe is a small town when you think about who your potential partners are.” The last of three excerpts from the book And Then I Came Here by Lynne Kay.

Flag of Malawi

Maria’s Story (Part Two)

“You see so many young women selling vegetables by the side of the road … you’d hear the same stories – ‘My teacher used to ask me to come and clean his house, and he started having sex with me and then I got pregnant. I got kicked out of school and now I’m sitting here selling vegetables…'” Another excerpt from the book And Then I Came Here by Lynne Kay.

Front cover of And Then I Came Here by Lynne Kay

Maria’s Story (Part One)

“I’m a pretty confident person. I didn’t have a lot of anxiety about packing up my life and going to a place where I knew nobody and just starting up by myself. And then one month into being here, I was robbed at gunpoint and handcuffed to my housekeeper in the toilet.” New Yorker and sexologist Maria describes her life and experience in Malawi in the first of three excerpts from the book And Then I Came Here by Lynne Kay.

Driving in Uganda

Driving in Uganda has been described as a “series of near misses”. Unfortunately this trend has now altered and we are seeing more and more accidents/collisions…

Going out in style

“‘I wanted my son to have an evening that he’ll never forget – you only have one matric farewell and you can get married several times.’ This sad comment on modern marriage is one of the reasons that some wealthy South African families spend the same kind of money on the end of a child’s school career as they do on weddings.” Mike Kingdom-Hockings takes a look at a South African rite of passage – the Matric Ball.

Flags of France and Botswana

One foot in each camp

“We don’t set out deliberately to live in two places at once. It’s just that when it looks like happening, we don’t make a serious effort to stop it. We can’t bring ourselves to abandon one place in favour of the other. An East African childhood gives you big horizons.” Mike Kingdom-Hockings writes about his life in Botswana while his wife is based in France.