At Home from Afar: From Crocus Coulee to Sumbawanga

Pauline Carey is an actor, playwright, and fiction writer. She is the
author of Magic and What’s in a Name?

More than half of this chatty collection of memories consists of short
pieces about life on the farm in Alberta, which the author shared with
her husband, five children, and visitors from around the world.
There’s a funny story about driving in Red Deer, a peek into an
obsession with crocheting that resulted in 500 blankets sent to
Tanzania, a kindly but clear-eyed view of men and illness, and many
backward looks at a time when blizzards were blizzards, when all
housewives could darn a sock and turn a collar, and when the Eaton’s
catalogue brought the outside world to isolated homesteaders.

Then there is a longer piece about Tanzania. Over their 50 years
together, Betty Kilgour and her husband Bill were volunteers for the
United Nations and CUSO in the Pacific and in East Africa, and recently
Betty returned to Tanzania. The absorbing story tells of her visit to
friends in Dar es Salaam, and of her backbreaking drive in a Land Rover
to the Kilangala Mission to see other friends and to check whether the
goods she had sent over the years were what was needed. She was
delighted to find a used tractor at work since its purchase had given
her much grief—including an appeal to Oprah—until some friends in
Winnipeg donated the full amount of necessary cash. While she invariably
finds everything and everyone around her exhilarating and entertaining,
she also sees things that need to be fixed—and does something about
it.

This very readable book, the latest of several about Betty Kilgour’s
beloved farm and her far-flung travels, tells of a useful and cheerful
life.