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Drawn from the author's personal experiences and told in a humorous and anecdotal fashion, it tells of the dramas and humour involved in working over a period of fifteen years in more than a dozen countries all over Africa-from Nigeria, Ghana, and Francophone and countries such as Senegal and Ivory Coast in the west; to Egypt, Tunisia, and Algeria in the north; and Kenya, Uganda, and Zambia in the copper belt in the east.
All the Beautiful Strangers is a book for old Africa hands, aspiring Afrophiles and those who want their fears about travelling in that continent, especially by air, reaffirmed.
Interspersed with descriptions of sites of natural beauty, such as the sacred place of a river god in Nigeria to the modern reproduction of St. Peter's in Rome in Yamoussoukro, it describes being held at gunpoint at Kinshasa airport by unpaid military in Zaire, of arrest by police in Nigeria, and gunfire in Algiers at the start of the civil war. In between these dramatic episodes, there are tales telling of the drama of everyday life for the vast majority of Africans who continue to suffer from the economic disadvantage that is endemic in the region and the impact it has on them. We journey from the source of the Blue Nile in Uganda
to the wonders of Cairo, through which it runs on its journey to the sea, and from the spectacle of the Victoria Falls to the arid safari scenery in Kenya.
It is meant to be an entertaining read for those who love to travel as well as those who like to read about travel and adventure. All the Beautiful Strangers will draw nods of recognition and smiles from those who will recognise the situations, places, and people described.
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Paul Thompson was born in Bedford in the United Kingdom at a time when overseas travel was not as common or as easy as it is now. The third of four children, family holidays were always at a premium and tended to be spent on the North Norfolk Coast. "It was the only time we saw the sea", Paul recalls.
Paul went to Bedford School in Bedford courtesy of a County Scholarship andgraduated from the University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield Polytechnic as it was then called, in 1972 with an Honours Degree in Microbiology. After a brief flirtation in the field of Toxicology, career change took him into Cosmetics and Toiletries as Company Microbiologist.
Paul launched a contemporaneous career as a local politician in 1980 and following his election in 1982, he served as a local Liberal Democrat Councillor in St Albans until his retirement in 1998.
It was during this period that Paul's former wife encouraged him to look for a career change and in 1986 he left Vaseline Hand Creams behind him and moved into the world of Soft Drinks with the world's oldest brand Schweppes. It was at Schweppes that his travelling adventures began, first as a Microbiologist and then later as Technical Manager in the Africa Division.
In 2002 another career change took Paul to New Zealand where he now lives with his wife and daughter. Being an older parent inspired him to write down his adventures in Africa, "All the Beautiful Strangers."
