School Days in Africa
1977-1984

1979: House Guests

With their belongings packed, their house rented, and their dogs adopted to other families, the Eldons are reluctantly ready to return to London. At the last moment, Mike is offered a permanent job in Kenya. Kathy continues working at a series of self-invented and creative jobs: hosting American tourist groups in the backyard of their house, writing cookbooks and introductory guides to Kenya, organizing events for the national museum, and writing columns for Nairobi’s main newspaper, The Nation. Visitors keep the family busy; friends of friends from the U.S. and Europe arrive at odd hours, often unannounced. Dan and Amy become accustomed to coming home from school to find a stranger sleeping in their beds.