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The Knowledgeable Lion: Poems and Prose by the Unfeeling Doctor in Africa
I have always yearned to visit Africa.
I want to watch lions prowl in their natural habitat. I want to gaze into an elephant’s eyes and witness a wise matriarch who has traversed the continent. I want to sit quietly with the silverback gorillas.
Instead, I finished medical school and residency, got married, and had kids. I dreamed of Africa, but figured it would stay a dream for another decade, until my teacher friend, Becky, said, “My school is going to South Africa. You could come.”
This is a short book of poems, mixed with occasional prose, about my travels in South Africa and Swaziland. From visiting a Mom and Baby clinic and surfing in Jeffrey’s Bay, to dissecting an impala in Moholoholo, to shopping in Swaziland, and culminating in a safari in Kruger National Park. Almost 100 percent as a tourist, instead of as a doctor. And that’s okay. As the African proverb says, “Travel teaches how to see.”
I want to watch lions prowl in their natural habitat. I want to gaze into an elephant’s eyes and witness a wise matriarch who has traversed the continent. I want to sit quietly with the silverback gorillas.
Instead, I finished medical school and residency, got married, and had kids. I dreamed of Africa, but figured it would stay a dream for another decade, until my teacher friend, Becky, said, “My school is going to South Africa. You could come.”
This is a short book of poems, mixed with occasional prose, about my travels in South Africa and Swaziland. From visiting a Mom and Baby clinic and surfing in Jeffrey’s Bay, to dissecting an impala in Moholoholo, to shopping in Swaziland, and culminating in a safari in Kruger National Park. Almost 100 percent as a tourist, instead of as a doctor. And that’s okay. As the African proverb says, “Travel teaches how to see.”
201 pages, Kindle Edition
First published October 20, 2013
About the author
Melissa Yuan-Innes
111 books70 followersI read, therefore I am. I've been reading since my parents used to abandon me at the library.
When I was ten years old, we moved to Frankfurt, Germany, to a relative dearth of English books, and I started writing stories instead.
We moved back to Canada, and I started reading voraciously again, abandoning my pen and word processor for a few years before picking them up again. Nowadays, I read and write whenever I can, although my day/night jobs of emergency medicine and motherhood whisk me away regularly.
When I was ten years old, we moved to Frankfurt, Germany, to a relative dearth of English books, and I started writing stories instead.
We moved back to Canada, and I started reading voraciously again, abandoning my pen and word processor for a few years before picking them up again. Nowadays, I read and write whenever I can, although my day/night jobs of emergency medicine and motherhood whisk me away regularly.
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