Just Another Mzungu Passing Through by Jim Bowen

Set in Kenya in the late 1990s, Mzungu follows the experiences of Griff; a young, naïve farmers’ son from west Wales, as he settles into a teaching job in a failing school in Nairobi. Griff’s divorce papers have just come through and he is still reeling from the shock of one of his pupils in Cardiff pulling a knife on him. He has had enough – and decides to leave it all behind for a teaching job in east Africa. He accepts a job at Greenfields school as a games teacher, and soon realises there is a much bigger game going on – that of survival.

Griff witnesses mob justice first hand as he watches the madness around him. Griff watches how the El Niño floods, slum clearances, street justice and corruption affect the Kenyan people, and is horrified how his own attitude to life and the people around him changes. He travels around Kenya, from the Indian Ocean coast to Kakamega Forest, the last piece of rain forest in East Africa, and grows to love the country and empathize for the people within it.

The poverty is overwhelming, and the contrast between rich and poor startling, yet the dignity and determination of the average Kenyan move Griff beyond measure. As a mzungu (white man) he is wealthy and a target, and as the country becomes destabilised around the 1998 elections, the threat to the safety of all becomes all the more apparent.

Based on real experience, Just Another Mzungu Passing Through is an honest and gritty look at the life of a white teacher in Nairobi, will leave the reader spellbound by its intricate depictions of an African way of life that’s so very different from our own.

Reviews of Just Another Mzungu Passing Through

	13 October 2008
Reviewed by customer: jacob waugh
I am amazed that this book has not received better coverage than it has. I lived in Kenya in the 1990s and heard about it through a friend. The writer captures the African zeitgeist perfectly. It is well written, fast paced and covers all aspects that I remember about Kenya at that time. Bowen almost predicts the troubles that Kenya suffered after their elections this year. A very good read for anyone interested in Africa. jacob waugh
	27 April 2008
Reviewed by customer: Anita Kelleher
Impressive and realistic view of Africa in the late 1990's with it's graft and corruption and the hardship of being black and a privileged white person coming to grips living in a 3rd world country. A very good debut novel that doesn't gloss over the terrible facts but has a quirky sense of humour. Anita Kelleher

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