Have you ever dreamed about joining the Peace Corps? Unemployed and aching to really make a difference in the world, Theresa Munanga applied to serve as a Peace Corps Volunteer. When she left for her assignment in Kenya, she had no idea what the three years from 2004-2007 would hold. No Hurry in Africa follows the author as she teaches computer skills to Kenyans, some of whom have never seen a computer before, in areas where electricity comes and goes, and where four computers serve to teach up to forty students per class. Riveting journal entries and emails home introduce Kenya as a beautiful country, yet a country of contrasts: where people walk miles out of their way to direct you to your destination. Where men can have multiple wives. Where women wash clothes by hand and carry babies on their backs. A country with friendly, hard working people, but also a country with a lack of safe drinking water, poverty, corruption, and less than adequate medical services in the remote areas.

A fascinating memoir by a free-spirited New Yorker writer, whose wanderlust led her from the Belgian Congo to Shanghai and beyond. Originally published in 1970, under the title Times and Places, this book is a collection of twenty-three of her articles from the New Yorker, published between 1937 and 1970. Well reviewed upon first publication, the book was re-published under the current title in 2000 with a foreword by Sheila McGrath, a longtime colleague of hers at the New Yorker, and an introduction by Ken Cuthbertson, author of Nobody Said Not to Go: The Life, Loves and Adventures of Emily Hahn. One of the pieces in the book starts with the line, “Though I had always wanted to be an opium addict, I can’t claim that as a reason why I went to China.” Hahn was seized by a wanderlust that led her to explore nearly every corner of the world. She traveled solo to the Belgian Congo at the age of twenty-five. She was the concubine of a Chinese poet in Shanghai in the 1930s—where she did indeed become an opium addict for two years. For many years, she spent part of every year in New York City and part of her time living with her husband, Charles Boxer, in England. Through the course of these twenty-three distinct pieces, Emily Hahn gives us a glimpse of the tremendous range of her interests, the many places in the world she visited, and her extraordinary perception of the things, large and small, that are important in a life.

This book is a call on Africans and non-Africans to once more believe in the possibility of a better future for Africa. In these pages, Stan Chu Ilo writes of his experience and the experiences of many young Africans like himself who are disturbed by the present condition of Africa. He writes about the challenges facing most Africans who are growing up in the African continent without any hope of quality education, without any guarantee of adequate food, water, housing, and clothing; without any hope of getting a job, and without any prospect of living in peace with their neighbors. He writes of the sad situation of millions of young Africans who are dying of malaria and HIV/AIDS, and the African women whose fate and fortune have been shackled by a male-dominated society. He questions the bases of the existence of the failed states of Africa, who are caught up in a cycle of violence and disorder and who are not asking the right questions about the future of their nations. He argues that corruption, excessive authoritarianism, a stubborn hold on power, and lack of openness to consensus-building among some African leaders insult the cultural value of Africans with regard to a sense of community, love and solidarity. He also writes of the pain of globalization, the debt burden, immigration and trade restrictions on Africans and African countries, exploitation of ordinary Africans by fellow Africans and Western governments and business conglomerates. He wonders why many Western nations should turn their backs on Africa, when they all share some responsibility in bringing Africa to her knees. However, even though many Africans have become exhausted in the battle for national survival and fora living space to pursue their ordered ends, this book proposes that Africans should not claim perpetual victimhood, rather they should stand up once more and work for a better tomorrow, which is possible, and within their reach. Ilo insists that the imposing mountains of economic and social ruin; the rising moans and groans of numberless Africans, should not weaken the inner energy and ardent hopes of millions of Africans struggling against the untested assumption, that the cracking social, political, and economic foundations of present day Africa, are incapable of supporting the structures of a new Africa. The face of Africa today is ugly, but behind the ugly face is the beauty that has been distorted by historical and cultural factors. The present condition of Africa is only the sign of the urgent need for the peoples of Africa to brace up for the long and hard journey to reclaim their future. Ilo outlines how non-Africans who are interested in the African condition can be involved with the peoples of Africa. A proper understanding of the African continent and her peoples, her history and cultural evolution is a necessary first step for those who wish to be engaged with the Africans. His total picture approach model as the key to interpreting the African condition and in comprehensively addressing the challenges facing Africa, offers a helpful and original tool in understanding Africa. It helps to overcome the stereotypes, prejudices and paternalism which non-Africans apply in their reading of African history and their relation with the African reality. With masterly skills, a keen sense of history, a balanced perspective and objectivity, Ilo identifies the constraints to growth andinnovation in Africa in terms of the low stocks in the human-capital and cultural development. He introduces a new concept in the interpretation of the African condition: homelessness in terms of cultural and existential crises that confront Africans today. His conclusion is that cultural and human development is the irreducible decimal in any proposal for the transformation of the continent; that grassroots village-based action should be preferred over bogus and unworkable national approaches to African development.

This provocative book on The Future of Africa addresses fundamental genealogical developmental challenges of vital concern to Africa's transformation is premised on the orientation that the continent's future is up to Africans, cognizant of the fact that Africans cohabit the same diversified and inter-connected planet with others. The issues addressed include: political, economic, social and technological reconstruction of Africa, the richest but the least developed part of the world; the need to fight the pandemic of inequality and social injustice; chronic corruption; the urgent need to usher the rule of law and of putting in place strategies addressing abject poverty; the empowerment of the female gender and youths; the comprehensive development and proper utilisation of indigenous knowledge systems in partnership with modern science and technology to energize infrastructural development and the industrialisation prowess of the continent. The book unveils vast inadequacies that need to be rectified to give the continent a new face uplift. It is a comprehensive, Afro-centric cross-cutting edge publication that structurally examines outstanding issues plaguing Africa as it advances critical priority policy proposals for the future of the continent. Policymakers, students, organisations and institutions will find the book indispensable for the sustainable transformation of the continent. The underlying message is 'development with a human face' and without leaving anyone behind.

No Hurry is of mixed blessings; of tension, hunger, and challenges of having a body which both thrives and decays.

Leaderships Big Idea is a treasure map and masterpiece, a must-read for anyone leading in the 21st Century. Pro. John F. Shao MD, Msc, Ph.D. Former Vice Chancellor of Tumaini University & Executive Director of Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Center.