MY MOTHER`S KITCHEN WAS A BAOBAB: The Story of a Rhodesian Family - Ben Bezuidenhout

Published by Grocotts, 2008

Softcover in good condition - shows a little markings to boards and slight reading wear but otherwise all good. Signed by author.

This book is an autobiographical romance. Ben Bezuidenhout expresses with affection and deep love, the natural and human environment in which he grew up. Here is a narrative of courage and struggle, its ambience one of man's interaction with people and nature. Living in the colony of Southern Rhodesia, Ben's family found themselves functioning as pioneers in a country won for imperialism by questionable consultation and aggressive conquest. Farms needed development, roads had to be built, water systems established, medical facilities made available, education offered to as many as possible and the essential infrastructure of a modern state provided for all.

This adventure works itself through the anecdotal reminiscence of memory. It is laced with humour, acute observation and entertaining appreciation of characters whose work-ethic became second nature. Enterprise and entrepreneurship became their watchwords long before the latter term became trendy.

Whatever the political and moral imperatives of the day, and the latter-day judgement of the twenty first century on the 'scramble for Africa' in the late nineteenth century, time and events have moved on. This book consciously avoids a political interpretation of the colonial experience in Rhodesia, its fifteen years of unilateral 'independence' and recent developments. Its focus is human endeavour, response, suffering and the struggle to respect and relate to an environment rich in natural beauty and challenge.

Please see photographs as they form part of the description.