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|summary=A fifth great tale from Ian Mathie. This time he rescues an old couple, is initiated into a tribal family, harvests orange oil and encounters sorcerers and witch doctors, all in the cause of his work as a water engineer in Africa.

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Ian Mathie worked for the UK government as a water resources engineer in several North and West African countries. At this time, most of his subsistence farmer partners had never seen a white man, for the obvious reason that communications were infinitely worse forty years ago than they are today. This single fact explains the necessity of being able to fly a light plane, including clearing landing strips, or mending any part of a Land Rover from the tools he carried on board, quite apart from the daily inventivenss needed to bring water to dry areas. Think on, this simple fact also made complete self-sufficiency a given for his forays, by which I mean carrying enough water, food, medical supplies, tools and spares for weeks in the field at a time. Ian’s style was to pick over every scrap of help he gleaned from indigenous or educated sources. He doesn’t actually tell us much about his meticulous planning, but we can learn from his pragmatic attitude and humanitarian mindset. This book better prepares us mentally to face floods, storms and whatever else the weather throws at us in the next few months and years.

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