A Bluebird in a Baobab is a unique selection of vignettes chosen from the author's journals reflecting her periodic stints over an eleven-year expanse as a volunteer homeopathic clinician and teacher in Botswana, Ghana and Eswatini, formerly Swaziland. This former Pan Am flight attendant (“bluebird”) has lived on four different continents, but the winds always lead her back to Africa, landing in Africa’s iconic baobab tree.
This book is a love song about Africa and her people as observed from the “tree of life’s” branches before migrating back to nests in distant lands. Chronicling the changes in these countries over her visits and marveling at the strength of community, values and purpose these people possess – reminiscent of the America of her youth – she contrasts these with what are slowly becoming distant memories in the lives of many in the Western world.
It's a book about stepping into the unknown, sharing your knowledge, volunteering and simply saying “yes”. It’s about going somewhere to teach and recognizing you were always the student with an abundance to learn from people whose life experiences have made them infinitely wiser than you. These stories will make you smile, laugh, weep and ponder. If they lead you to travel to Africa to experience life there, fantastic. If it gives you the wind beneath your wings to simply volunteer at your local soup kitchen or to tutor students with your life’s accumulated knowledge at a nearby school, the author has reached you.
