Review
From the book jacket: Foreign correspondent Neely Tucker and his wife, Vita, arrived in
Zimbabwe in 1997. After witnessing firsthand the devastating consequences of
AIDS on the population, especially the children, the couple started
volunteering at an orphanage that was desperately underfunded and
short-staffed. One afternoon, a critically ill infant was brought to the
orphanage. After a near-death hospital
stay the ailing child was entrusted to
the care of Tucker and Vita. Within weeks Chipo, the girl-child whose name
means gift, would come to mean everything to them.
Still an active correspondent, Tucker crisscrossed the continent, filing
stories about the uprisings in the Congo, the civil war in Sierra Leone, and
the post-genocidal conflict in Rwanda. At home in Harare, Vita was nursing Chipo back to
...
Beyond the Book
Zimbabwe (formerly known as Rhodesia) is a landlocked nation in the southern
part of Africa surrounded by the countries of Zambia, Botswana,
Mozambique and South Africa.
According to the
CIA
Factbook, its population is approximately 12 million. Per capita
income is $1,900 and the % of those with AIDS/HIV is 34%. The official
language is English with an adult literacy rate of 90%.
In 1965 the country declared its independence with the first free elections
held in 1979. Robert Mugabe (a committed Marxist) has
been the nations first and only ruler since then, surviving through a canny
combination of dirty politics and intimidation including a bit of ethnic...
