Susan wood was the first white baby born in central Africa in 1819.With baby Susan in a hammock, her parents made the long foot safari from the Congo River to the Nile. Not long after this trek, Susan was left for a number of years with grandparents and aunts and uncles while her parents continued their missionary vocation in the Belgian Congo. Educated in England, Susan became a nurse during the world war two and married Michael Wood-a newly qualified surgeon. When the war ended they journeyed to Kenya with their two tiny children and Michael practiced surgeon before starting the flying doctors service of east Africa which grew into the African Medical and Research foundation (AMREF). During the 1950s they survived the Mau Mau crisis and became activists for political change in the 60s, leading up to the independence of Kenya. In the years following Susan managed the family farms on the slope of Mt. Kilimanjaro and was active in social work which included the movement for social change across Africa as championed by the Capricorn group. When the woods were brought out by the Tanzanian government, Susan and her family returned to Nairobi and she started an industry making ceramic beads. For the next 25 years Susan did the designing of this growing business which employed disadvantaged women. Lady wood M.B.E was well known as shushu , the kikuyu word for grandmother which she was eight times over, and great grandmother which she was six time over. 

A truly remarkable woman, this book reflects life-hers and the lives of many in Africa, her home. Lady Wood has written seven books and passed on in retirement in 2006 at the home she and her husband built in Karen on the outskirts of Nairobi.