The Warm Heart of Africa

Kevin M. Denny

• Publisher: eBookIt.com
• ISBN:
  9781456604080
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Historical Fiction
• Index: Literature

The Warm Heart of Africa, fifty years in the making, is the story of Susan, one of the first Peace Corps Volunteers. It is also the story of Peter, a ninety-two year old African who became her salvation. She meets him soon after attempting to quit the Peace Corps...but failing. Peter is at first reticent to talk of his past, for fear of opening old wounds. With time, he learns to trust and slowly shares his stories with Susan, beginning with, "My father was the first man to see Livingstone and he almost killed him!"Later he tells her how Yao slave traders invaded his village when he was six, burning houses and killing the very old, the very young and the weak – those who would not endure the cruel march to the Indian Ocean. He recalls the bitter memory of a slaver dragging his mother from his grasp to be sold for a sultan's harem, never to be seen again.He then shares with Susan how he and his father were auctioned at the slave market of Zanzibar and crammed into an Arab dhow sailing to Yemen, to be sold once again, his only consolation being that his father was still with him. Two days in, a frigate fired a shot across the bow and Arabs began throwing their cargo into the sea in the grim hope of out sailing the frigate. Peter, too small to be of notice, watched in hiding as an ugly Arab hurled his father into the sea. Then a cannon shot from the frigate demasted the dhow, hurling him into the sea. Unable to swim, he survived by clutching the splintered mast until he was plucked from the sea by men in blue coat who brought him back to their frigate where he took his first step in his twenty-one years in the service of the Queen. As major domo to a young officer, Horace Smith-Dorrien, he would come to see battle against Zulus, Afridis, Pathans, Boers and Sepoys, before returning home to start a life in the service of God, a story he slowly and painfully shares with Susan, like him, a stranger in a strange land. The author met Peter and was Susan.

Table of contents

• eBook Cover
• Title Page
• Introduction
• Chapter 1. The Dignitaries Lounge
• Chapter 2. Negotiations
• Chapter 3. First Encounters
• Chapter 4. The Fort
• Chapter 5. The Mzungu
• Chapter 6. Gather Hope...Ye Who Enter Here
• Chapter 7. They Also Serve Who....
• Chapter 8. The First White Woman
• Chapter 9. Trilling Mbumbas
• Chapter 10. The Magic Box
• Chapter 11. The Khaki Dinner Party
• Chapter 12. Strength Through Stroganoff
• Chapter 13. Starts and Stops
• Chapter 14. The Camel-legged Boy
• Chapter 15. The Thaw
• Chapter 16. One More Lesson in Humility
• Chapter 17. The Ambush
• Chapter 18. Rabid Politics
• Chapter 19. Work...Work...Work
• Chapter 20. A Call to Arms
• Chapter 21. Bringing in the Sheaves
• Chapter 22. Will Kindness Kill the Nkwhale?
• Chapter 23. Blood Stained Sneakers
• Chapter 24. African Expectations
• Chapter 25. The Chief's Return
• Chapter 26. Ruined Finery
• Chapter 27. Epiphanies
• Chapter 28 A Loser at Quitting
• Chapter 29 The Dugout Canoe
• Chapter 30. The Wrath of Makanjila
• Chapter 31. The Sting of the Kurbash
• Chapter 32. Marching Naked
• Chapter 34. Demasted
• Chapter 35. A Motley Bunch
• Chapter 37. The Contessa of Mzuzu
• Chapter 38. The Price is Right.
• Chapter 39. A House Call
• Chapter 40. Standing on Principle
• Chapter 41. The Greek Dirge
• Chapter 42. Familiarity Breeds
• Chapter 43. Bending Absolutes
• Chapter 44. The Dear Linda Letter
• Chapter 45 Will the Bwana Be Having Breakfast?
• Chapter 46. Through the Bombay Gates
• Chapter 47. Hobnobbing with the Maharaja
• Chapter 48. The Bumptious Griffin
• Chapter 50. The Need to Chill.
• Chapter 51. The Very Clever Chap
• Chapter 52. Three Eggs Wrapped in Cloth
• Chapter 53. An African Tale
• Chapter 54. Home Sweet Home
• Chapter 55. The Gift
• Chapter 56. Undeniable Yearnings
• Chapter 57. Mlendo…The One Who Came Home
• Chapter 58. Mortality Unveiled
• Chapter 59. Rebirth
• Chapter 60. The Flight of the Gwen
• Chapter 61. The Calling to the Lord
• Chapter 62. The English Garden
• Chapter 63. Bleak Years
• Chapter 64. The Final Place
• Chapter 65. Goodbye to Zanzibari Eyes
• Chapter 66. Off the Precipice
• Chapter 67. A Slithering Nightmare
• Chapter 68. Zagwa Zatha
• Chapter 69. Paradise Soon to be Lost
• Chapter 70. Lessons and Gifts
• Chapter 71. Bundling Loose Ends
• Chapter 72. The Warm Heart of Africa