I Always Knew Mum Loved

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.

You Learn Not To Mourn Every Little Thing Out Here, Or You’d Never, Ever Stop Grieving.

I Had The Constitution Of A Missionary.

Once, I Discovered The Skulls Of Two Impala Rams, Their Horns Locked Into An Irreversible Figure-of-eight; The Two Animals Had Been Trapped In Combat, Latched To Each Other During The Battle Of The Rut. The Harder They Had Pulled To Escape From Each Other, The More Intractably Stuck They Were, Until They Had Fallen Exhausted, To Their Knees, In An Embrace Of Hatred That Had Killed Them Both.

One Of The Things About Being Raised British In Africa Is That You Get This Double Whammy Of Toughness. The Continent In Place Itself Made You Quite Tough. And Then You've Got This British Mother Whose Entire Being Rejects 'coddling' In Case It Makes You Too Soft. So There's Absolutely Nothing Standing Between You And A Fairly Rough Experience.