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Thanks to Bryan Christy—the smartest person I know—for reading every word of this book and for always making my words sharper.

Thanks to Katie Pierce for talking and walking this book out of me; and for putting mind, body and soul back together when they fell apart.

Thanks to Susie Rauch to whom I could always retreat when I most needed intelligent life, or a walk with too many dogs (which may amount to the same thing).

Thanks to David Shlim, who figured out what was ailing me and fixed it, and for compassion and encouragement.

Thanks to Terry Tempest Williams for knowing this territory so well and without whom this would have been a much lonelier work.

Thanks to Robin Binckes for help with translations (any errors are my fault entirely) and to Piet Smit for help with translations and also for reminding me that love of land is our African disease and our souls’ cure.

Thanks to Carly Suek and Katie Thomas for providing a crucial pillar of support. Also thanks to Kate Healy.

Thanks to Melanie Schnizlein who quietly and calmly restored my home to tranquility so that I could write.

Thanks to my beloved Auntie Glug and Uncle Sandy for love and support and for all those days and nights in the nursery-comfort of Langlands.

Thanks to my sister, Vanessa Fuller Wootton-Woolley, for unflagging love, for protection and support, and for knowing.

Thanks to my children, without whom I would be lost: Sarah, for picking up the pieces and for providing endless humor and inspiration; Fuller, for abiding wit and kindness, for plates of scrambled eggs, for cups of tea; Cecily, for her sustaining lightness of being.

Thanks to my husband, Charlie, for forbearance and love.

But above all and always, I am indebted to my matchless and wonderful parents—Nicola and Tim Fuller—for their resilience, their humor, their compassion, their example and their generosity.

APPENDIX

Nicola Fuller of Central Africa: The Soundtrack

Mum with Papa Doc and Le Creuset pots. Zambia, 2010.

“Come Fly with Me”—Frank Sinatra

“The Skye Boat Song”—Robert Louis Stevenson

“Fly Me to the Moon”—Frank Sinatra

“The Bandit”—Cliff Richard and The Shadows

“I Never Promised You a Rose Garden”—Joe South (Lynn Anderson)

“From Russia with Love”—Matt Munro

“Sentimental Journey”—Doris Day

“God Save the Queen”—BBC Symphony Orchestra

“Shanghai”—Doris Day

William Blake’s “Jerusalem”—BBC Symphony Orchestra

“Smoke Gets in Your Eyes”—The Platters

The Hallelujah Chorus from George Frideric Handel’s Messiah

“The Banana Boat Song”—Harry Belafonte

“Everybody Loves My Baby”—Doris Day

“You Picked a Fine Time to Leave Me, Lucille”—Kenny Rogers

“The Last Farewell”—Roger Whittaker

“Dammi i colori . . . Recondita armonia,” Tosca—Giacomo Puccini

GLOSSARY

A Guide to Unusual or Foreign Words and Phrases

amore (Italian)—love

antbear (Oryceteropus afer)—aardvark

arrivderci (Italian)—good-bye

asante sana (Swahili)—thank you very much

ayah (Hindi)—children’s maid

baas (Afrikaans)—boss

baobab (Adansonia digitata)—an enormous and iconic tree with a shiny bark reminiscent of elephant hide

batman—an officer’s orderly or personal servant

boma—a chief’s enclosure; a district government office

bywoner (Afrikaans)—sub-tenant or farm laborer; tenant farmer

cent’ anni (Italian)—(may you live) a hundred years

choo (Swahili)—latrine (pronounced “cho” as in “know”)

che bello (Italian)—how beautiful

ciao, come stai? (Italian)—hello, how are you?

dit is jou perd (Afrikaans)—this is your horse

eucalyptus—see gum tree

fynbos—shrub land of mixed, hardy plants occurring in a small belt in the Western Cape

gum tree (Eucalyptus bicostata)—from the myrtle family, Myrtaceae, also known as eucalyptus. A diverse genus of flowering tree primarily originating in Australia but cultivated all over the tropics. The particular trees referred to here are commonly known as blue gums.

hadeda Ibis (Bostrychia hagedash)—a large dark brown ibis, common throughout much of east, central and south