Author sharing African insight

A GEELONG woman has written a book about her experiences as a teacher in African.
Former Anglican Church minister Lynne Clarke launched A Place for a Friendly Lion this week.
The book traces her adventures after answering a 2008 advertisement for a teacher of theology in Africa.
She subsequently spent almost three years undertaking two teaching stints in Tanzania.
Clarke said she became “deeply acquainted with the culture and people”.
“‘I hope this simple account of some aspects of a life and culture that is so wonderfully abundant, so rich in joy and thankfulness in spite of deprivations that in the West can scarcely be conceived will open some windows of awareness and understanding.”
Clarke writes about the lives of many of the people she met, particularly the joy, generosity and perseverance many Tanzanians expressed in the face of suffering.
She also expresses her dismay at some aspects of African culture, “in particular the prevalence of wife-beating”.
Clarke said she was selling the book online at afriendlylion.com
Proceeds would help support the her former students in Tanzania, she said.