The Python Trail

Growing up in remote Cameroon, Richard Afuma could not expect to live much past the age of 40, and his chances of any sort of education were slim. But at the age of eight, Afuma found his way to a school run by Baptist missionaries. When he was ten, he saw his first white person who, from his education, he took to be Jesus Christ. He was told that the Land Rovers he saw were made by these same people—Jesuses with supernatural powers—who were uniformly called Americans. In The Python Trail, Afuma portrays the kind of journey that many immigrants have made, but few have described.