Swimming With Swallows
A Taste of My Life
by
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The journey from Benin City was fraught with tension. The children were restless, eager to see their new home. I was anxious - wondering if I'd made an enormous mistake. Looking out through the car windows I felt as if I were watching some strange exotic film unroll before me. Nothing seemed familiar. Not the landscape, the chaos, the poverty. All that was familiar was contained within the car. How was I going to adjust?
Soon the great river Niger appeared before us. Children splashed in its shallows, battered cars and lorries were being washed in its muddy waters, goats were herded down to the river' s edge to drink. A huge metal bridge, partly destroyed during the war, spanned the slow-moving waters and we drove carefully across, negotiating the fragile temporary repairs.
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About the Book
Skeletons in the long grass, live bullets in the garden and drunken soldiers roaming the town - this was the writer's first introduction to life in Africa.
Swimming With Swallows is the perfect book for the armchair traveller.It is often funny, sometimes sad but always informative and entertaining. With her vivid descriptions the writer has captured the beauty and horror of Africa and has enabled the reader not only to see, but to taste and smell the reality of life in the cities and on the vast plains.
This delightful book recalls her early days in West Africa with a young family - their magical and sometimes frightening adventures. She shares with us her involvement in a local marriage and funeral, her confrontation with a mad man in her home and the discovery of a murdered body in the town.
About the Author
Georgina Mallalieu began her working life as a copy-writer in an advertising agency. After working for The Guardian newspaper she went on to train as a Marriage Counsellor, becoming a tutor for what is now Relate. She spent three years as a radio agony-aunt and at the same time was appointed as a magistrate. Before retiring with her husband to France she headed the public relations department of a large advertising agency.