About 1967 Heather Benson, a strikingly blonde University student, fell in love with
Joe, a very personable Ugandan who was studying in Wellington. She was fascinated by
his stories of "the Pearl of Africa" as well as by his personality. They married in New
Zealand and she followed him to Uganda after he had returned there. The book reveals
in vivid and revealing manner the vicissitudes of Heather's relationship with her husband, who is a Muganda. She bore Joe three children during her six years in Uganda,
but their romance, which had flourished for three years in New Zealand, gradually fell
apart as her husband reverted to the lifestyle of many Ugandan men. He excluded her
from much of his social life, spent long evening hours drinking with his cronies, refused
to share responsibility for domestic affairs, and eventually took unto himself a mistress.
This account of the undoubted joys and increasing tensions of their personal relationships
is accompanied by a close-up and perceptive description of the stormy, and often
harrowing, events of the last year of the first Obote regime and the first five years of
Amin's reign of terror. The impact of the events of these years upon the life of the couple,
the lives of their friends, and the people living around Kampala, is portrayed with
poignancy and candour. Some incidents are unforgettable - the warm welcome given to
Heather by Joe's family in their home among the plantain groves. Heather arriving one
morning at the door of the nursery school, which she ran, to find the body of a man
murdered by Amin's soldiery, Heather accompanying her threatened husband to the
dread Makindye prison, and her final departure from Uganda with her children under the
pretence that she was going to New Zealand only for a holiday.
Heather Benson writes well. The book is well organised and not overloaded with
explanatory material. It contains several references back to life in New Zealand, which
help to bring out contrasts in lifestyle. The book has been well received in New Zealand,
but should appeal to a wider readership and certainly to many who have African
experience.
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