A Stone in the Road

Two Years in Southern Tanzania

A single-lane, dirt road, 18 miles long, leads to a secondary school in the deep bush of Southern Tanzania. Jim French and his wife Marlyn, CUSO volunteers, journeyed to the end of this road in 1967 for two years of teaching and unexpected adventure. The only Canadians ever at St. Joseph's College, Chidya, they learned to dodge camel spiders in the bedroom and red ants on the paths, to live with skinks in the attic, and to cope in a region of malaria and poisonous snakes. In dry season they travelled, in rainy they hunkered down with the students and small cohort of staff, trapped by a Chidya road often wrecked by the rains. They witnessed the fine work of missionaries, and engaged with young Tanzanians who competed and celebrated. This Africa memoir is about travel, teaching, beautiful bushland, culture, friendship, growing up – and about the lurking stone.