Most journalist or expatriate experiences in Africa make a good read, but lack one thing: heart. Lisa French Blaker's book is full of it and had to be written.

An experienced nurse with MSF (Medecins sans Frontieres), she was posted to Darfur in 2005 for nine months. MSF's first principle is to "provide assistance to populations in distress"; in Darfur she found plenty of that. But more: the posting helped her discover herself as she worked not only under harsh physical conditions of heat and the threat of attack, shortage of time and equipment, but the deliberate brutality and malice of the janjaweed and Sudanese government soldiers. She had scathing words too for the African Union whose officials were never helpful and could have relieved the suffering of the local people, but didn't because their mandate was only to "observe".

The book's quality is found in the simplicity and candour of her account, whether her frustration at her own imagined incompetence or the brief but few moments of relaxation and company she enjoyed with co-workers. She describes too her moment of personal crisis as she watches a baby, the result of an induced abortion, left to die. Couldn't she have done more to help?

Her words on friendship are deep and apt, given the circumstances. The beauty of friendships, she writes, "lies in their honesty. In true friendship we can reveal our hearts, our fears and our failures knowing that we are safe from shame and judgement. In....times of trial we let our masks slip in the rush to survive..." And regarding women: "Women hold the key to every community...But men still have the power." Often offered a husband or protector by concerned elders to keep her safe, she wryly comments: "Curious, given that men seem to refuel the war around us."

What touched her most were children, the real victims of war. The shame of war was in their tears. Why, she asks, was no-one listening to them? And the elderly: an old man weeping because his camels had been killed and another who lost his prize possession, a brown-nosed donkey, and couldn't be comforted.

Her greatest joy and astonishment was the hospitality of the Sudanese. Whether they were homeless and living on the run, or an Oomda (local leader) on a throne of old sack cloths, they shared what they had. When people had neither tea nor food they offered water in old, battered bowls. They weren't asking for sympathy, she writes, or trying to win favours. Their tradition and pride required them to share, regardless of what they had. And they did so with grace.

Lisa's dream had been to make a difference in the world, to make it better, and to fight off the emptiness she felt in her comfortable New Zealand home. By writing this memorable book she will have done much good. It is not a political account, but if you want to know what is really going on in Darfur, read this.

Author: Lisa French Blaker

Publisher: Hodder books, 2007

Volume: 348 pages

Price: Shs 28,000

Reviewer: Martyn Drakard

Available from Aristoc