Answers to the Weekend Book Quiz

#1. They took us in the Land Rover, Mike and me, with Kim Buck driving. We had planned to leave that morning, as it was a good four hours’ drive, although it was only about sixty miles from Mbeya. An African Season by Leonard Levitt (Tanzania 1963-65)

#2. I got my Peace Corps application at the post office in Red Bluff, California, put it on the table in the kitchen, and walked around it for ten days without touching it, as though it were primed to detonate—as indeed it was—trying to convince myself that for a forty-eight-year-old farmer the idea of Peace Corps service was impractical and foolhardy. Living Poor by Moritz Thomsen (Ecuador 1965-67)

#3. The widow opens my door without knocking. A trail of Flying Horse-brand cigarette smoke enters behind her. An old cotton cap hides coarse, mortar-colored hair, brushed back from her brow to reveal a gold loop in each ear. The Last Days of Old Beijing by Michael Meyer (China 1995-97)

#4. At nine A.M., the doorbell rang. I couldn’t see who it was because of the high wall surrounding the house, but after a moment’s debate whether I shouldn’t just ignore it, I picked up the crowbar we’d been keeping handy and started across the courtyard to the security door. Whiteman by Tony D’Souza (Cote d’Ivoire 2000-02, Madagascar 2002-03)

 #5. Start here, on Mount Windsor, locally known as Ooah Mountain, where the brakes went out on Miss Defy, Isaac’s taxi, on the way to pick up Johnnie at the airport. Swimming in the Volcano  by Bob Shacochis (Eastern Caribbean 1975-76)

#6. A single lantern filled the room with flickering light, throwing Fanta’s shadow toward the door. The glow bronzed her tight cheekbone, her deflated breast, her moving stomach. There was not a cushion in sight, not a sheet, a bar of soap, not a bucket of water. Nine Hills to Nambonkaha by Sarah Erdman (Cote d’Ivoire 1998-2000)

#7. Two days before he was released forever from el Panóptico Prison, in La Paz, Bolivia, Roger the stone cowboy became aware that he had been talking to God. Stone Cowboy by Mark Jacobs (Paraguay 1978-80) 

#8. I had a farm in Africa too. My farm was not in the Ngong Hills but on even richer land about eighty miles west of Nairobi. Ahmed’s Revenge by Richard Wiley (Korea 1967-69)

#9. Like an African, the white doctor came to work on foot, along a road that lined the port of Dar es Salaam. Antonia Saw the Oryx First by Maria Thomas (Ethiopia 1971-73)

#10. Denton and Esther Jordan were stopped at the gate by a young man in army uniform, his cheeks red and raw under the harsh searchlights. He held a machine gun around his waist. The Climate of the Country by Marnie Mueller (Ecuador 1963-65)

#11. I was born poor in rich America, yet my secret instincts were better than money and were for me a source a power. My Secret History by Paul Theroux (Malawi 1963-65)

#12. The Doué, a tributary of the Senegal River, flows inside its red-tan banks past a small village of clay houses with thatched roofs. Under the Neem Tree by Susan Lowerre (Senegal 1985-87)

#13. You should have seen us when we had our act together, top of our game, toast of the town, walking and talking miracles and—you’d better believe it—the real American thing. Biggest Elvis by P.F. Kluge (Micronesia 1967-69)