I recently read Tim Bascom’s book “Chameleon Days: An American Boyhood in Ethiopia.” I gobbled it down in one afternoon it was so good, like a mini visit to Ethiopia.
When I was working as Press Officer for World Vision UK I helped lead a group of supporters to visit Ethiopia. I remember practicing complicated Amharic verses before our travels but when we arrived in Ethiopia we were tickled to find that everyone greeted us “Ciao,” a leftover from a brief Italian occupation.
In Addis we stayed in the Hilton before flying north. There was a gift shop and a pizza place but the smell of incense and strong coffee overwhelmed the familiar space and made it feel exotic. The hotel attendants would race ahead of us to push the elevator buttons, and we quickly realized that it was the only space where they could speak privately to us.
Bascom has a recommended reading list in the back of his book which includes other gems of stories about Africa, particulary from the perspective of missionary kids. I am not a missionary kid, I was completely unprepared and unversed in the ways of missionaries when I arrived. My experience is more like “The God’s Must Be Crazy.”
Here are some other recommendations from Bascom:
“The Scent of Eucalyptus,” Daniel Coleman; “Swimming in the Congo,” Margaret Meyers; “God’s of Noonday: A White Girl’s African Life,” Elaine Neil Orr.
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