One Year Under Weeping Mountain

A year in Africa as a volunteer teacher. The vision draws Richard Stokes, a young man just out of university, to escape. Fed up of his drab life in Britain of the 80s and filled with dreams, he finds them somewhat dashed in the harshness and beauty of his new posting. Grandeur and tragedy seem intertwined in Batsaola, a southern African country still scarred by a bitter independence struggle.

Ndara, the mission he lodges at, suffered a mysterious massacre in that war. Decades on, people are reluctant to speak of it. Yet these are the early 1980s and there are new battles, including the resurgence of old grudges and witchcraft in the villages and the rise of a little known illness that is attacking people in their prime. After overcoming culture shock, Richard Stokes grows to love the place, befriending an albino orphan, a senile priest and others. Has he found what he came for? Has he escaped what he left? This is the story of his year.