Dark Star Safari

Half way into his journey through Africa, Paul Theroux is standing by the roadside in northern Kenya, looking, by his own account, a little down-at-heel. Pushing 60, he has a hole in his jacket and a tough journey through Ethiopia behind him. The truck he arrived on has a broken spring and isn't moving. So he asks a couple of passing Americans in a gleaming white aid agency vehicle for a ride. And they refuse. I'm not an aid worker, but I was working in Kenya myself at about the time Theroux passed through. And I have a four-wheel drive, though it's neither new nor shiny. Would I have given him a ride? Maybe. But if he started ranting on about aid workers the way he does in this book, I would have had to suggest that he quieten down and do some research.