African Journal

By Leslie Price

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0936625732
• ISBN13: 9780936625737
• Release Date: January 1990
• Publisher: New Hope Pub
• Length: 156 Pages
• Weight: 0.05 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Journey to Ogbomosho

Having just read "Things Fall Apart," by Chinua Achebe, my interest was aroused concerning Nigeria and its wealth of cultures, languages and religions. I went to sources that described its land and people, and came away amazed that so much diversity in geography, climate and population has been marked off as one country. Remembering that Leslie Price had written a journal describing her five month stay at a Baptist missionary hospital in Ogbomosho, I read "African Journal" for a second time with a new interest. The airport at Ibadan is famous for its crowds and heat. Leslie and her husband Theron, both visiting to teach at the seminary and hospital mission in Ogbomosho, squeezed through the crowds there to board a jeep and travel for hours over rutted roads to the friends who had invited them to share their knowledge and experience with the Nigerians and seminary staff. As I read the journal, I was continually impressed that Leslie had managed to write in the journal every day, in spite of the heat that sapped her strength, the classes that she taught, and the traveling that she did both with and without her husband. Her descriptions of the seminary, the staff, the students, and the crawling creatures that shared her home and its surroundings give the reader a foreigner's view of life among very old cultures that developed in environments very different from those in which she was more comfortable. It was a new kind of life for her, which gave her an opportunity to learn more about herself. Fortunately, the Prices did a lot of traveling during the five months they were in Nigeria. They saw the tropical coast with its lush rain forests, the Niger River valley and its heavy rainfall, and the arid northern regions with savannas and incredible wildlife. They rode in jeeps and cattle trucks, and traveled on foot down long and dusty roads. They learned about the Hausa, Yoruba and Ibo tribes, and the problems unique to each. They worked with the seminary missionaries who cared for Nigerians in the hospital, and who taught their patients about nutrition and other ways to improve their health. This is a fascinating country with wonderful people with many challenges confronting them in a land where droughts follow monsoons. Living in this country is an experience that many people are unable to share. I enjoyed reading this journal because Leslie Price's daily descriptions of her travel to markets, wildlife refuges and the homes of Nigerians made it possible for me to imagine what this land must be like, and learn just a little about the people who live there.