AFRICA’S CHILD
She was left at an orphanage in the mountains of East Africa when she was only a few days old.
Her name was Mary. She had no mother, no father, no tribe, and no last name. She was barely five years old when she decided that if no one else was going to love her, she would love and listen to her inner self. She called that inner self Fat Mary — her hated name at the orphanage.
Raised in the Don Bosco Orphanage high in the Usambara Mountains of colonial Tanganyika, Maria Nhambu grew up in a world of extraordinary beauty and hidden cruelty. The German Catholic nuns who ran Kifungilo gave her shelter, education, and faith, but made her feel she belonged to no one.
As a biracial child she was bullied, beaten, sexually threatened, and told she was a child of sin. She survived typhoid. She survived a suicide attempt. She survived the brutal treatment of the older girls in charge of her.
And through it all, she danced.
Forbidden to dance the African way at the orphanage, she practiced in secret, learning the power of dance from the neighboring tribal villagers, absorbing the healing pulse of rhythm and drums that would one day become the foundation of Aerobics With Soul®, her internationally acclaimed fitness program.
Africa’s Child is a memoir unlike any other.
It is set inside a world that no longer exists, a German orphanage perched in the clouds of colonial East Africa, run by nuns who built it to house the children that no one else claimed.
It is told with honesty that stings and humor that heals, through the eyes of a girl whose fierce intelligence and unshakeable self-belief carry her from the orphanage to middle school to secondary school — and finally, toward a life beyond the remote orphanage in the Usambara Mountains of Tanzania.
This is the story of a girl who had nothing and chose to love herself anyway. It is a story the world needs.
Perfect for readers who loved I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou, A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah, The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, and Born a Crime by Trevor Noah.
Africa’s Child is Book 1 of the Dancing Soul Trilogy. Continue with America’s Daughter and Drum Beats, Heart Beats.