This book is an unbelievable story of survival. Deo arrives in New York City from Burundi's horrible civil war with $200.00. He speaks no English and knows no one. The story is survival in New York and the harrowing stories of war he survived in getting to New York. He attends Columbia University and returns to Africa to build medical facilities. Tracy Kidder does an amazing job of chronicling Deo's life. On a visit to New York tos return to places Deo had lived they visit St John the Devine Church. Deo says, "I can't tell you how many times I came here. It is so peaceful. Your mind is so open. You know, I really have been successful in finding my own peaceful corners. On my own."
It is an amazing story and a book to promote peace. The woman who comes to his aid while escaping to the Rwandan border is a Hutu and Deo is a Tutsi. She helps him anyway. She says,"But I'm a woman and I'm a mother." That, she said, was her ubwoko, her ethnicity. When he returns to Burundi in 2006 to build a medical clinic, he forms a men's committee and a women's committee. The women's committee managed the realtions between the clinic and the village. Deo found that if he didn't have separate committees the women had no voice.
The book ends with Deo saying, "Let's work on the clinic. Let's put this tragedy behind us, because remembering is not going to benefit anyone."
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