The idea for this book hit me while drinking a cup of coffee in Lusaka. It was the end of an Oxfam trip to Zambia, and the European politician Glenys Kinnock was standing on the other side of the room.
In a few hours she would be boarding a plane to London. I was about to make my way back to Wales via Uganda and Kenya. We said at the same moment: "We should do something together."
More than half a decade has passed since then. My passport is on the couch where I tossed it two days ago. Every page has now been stamped. It's finished, and in a few days, this book will be at the printers.
There isn't an emotion I haven't felt while putting this work together. That its production has survived the forces of excitement, sadness, loneliness and wonder that have swirled around me on the journey amazes me. But Africa is a story of incredible things happening against all odds.