One of the things about being raised British in Africa is that you get this double whammy of toughness. The continent in place itself made you quite tough. And then you've got this British mother whose entire being rejects 'coddling' in case it makes you too soft. So there's absolutely nothing standing between you and a fairly rough experience.

The rains are rhythmic, coming religiously in the afternoons (after lunch has been eaten but before tea, so that the nights are washed clean-black with bright pinpoints of silver starlight hanging over a restless, grateful earth).

What is important is the story. Because when we are all dust and teeth and kicked-up bits of skin - when we're dancing with our own skeletons - our words might be all that's left of us.

I love my mother so much, because I see the whole of her.

You learn not to mourn every little thing out here, or you’d never, ever stop grieving.

I had the constitution of a missionary.

Surely until all of us own and honor one another's dead, until we have admitted to our murders and forgiven one another and ourselves for what we have done, there can be no truce, no dignity and no peace.