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Paperback: $20
Hardback: $35
In 2001, Dr. Scott and Carol Kellermann left a comfortable life in California for the remote Bwindi region of southwest Uganda. There began a deep friendship with the Batwa tribe, rainforest dwellers until they were displaced by gorilla trekking tourism. At first the Kellermanns ministered to the Batwa and their Bakiga neighbors in mobile medical clinics, hanging IV drips for critically ill patients from Ficus trees. Through prayer, respectful and loving engagement, and innovative problem-solving, they gathered a coalition of churches, local leaders, and American friends to establish Bwindi Community Hospital.
In honest and gripping prose, sprinkled with pathos and good humor, Dr. Kellermann describes the struggles faced on this remarkable journey, and carries the story to new heights, as the hospital has become a thriving medical complex, added an acclaimed school of nursing, and enhanced regional public health, especially for the Batwa, whose future is brightening.
Reviews
Scott Kellerman’s An African Gift is a moving story, in darkest Africa, of “the practice of medicine in its rawest form."
Ficus, a fig, often becomes a shelter and makeshift clinic, where he and his wife, Carol, did what they could with great compassion. The Batwa pygmies of Uganda were primitive, uneducated, often thought subhuman, and lived “in constant survival mode,” hunter-gatherers among the imperiled mountain gorillas in “the Bwindi impenetrable forest.”
I myself once saw several dozen of those mountain gorillas, possibly the rarest of African primates, postponing my trekking trip a year because of the 1999 kidnapping, torturing, and killing of tourists in Bwindi by Congo terrorists. My guides carried automatic rifles to protect me, as they said, not against the gorillas, but against the guerillas. Kellerman has trailed such terrorists to give medical help, remarking that he learned nothing in med school about helping a plundered village.
In 1991, the Batwa were evicted and relocated to save the gorillas, and placing the Batwa on poor lands, in peril for their own survival. They were promised government help, which never came. They were desperate for better land. Kellerman has managed to help the Batwa community acquire property that is still forested, where they can experience some of their traditional cultural memories, skills, and folk medicines. They have learned how to grow nutritious food on their barren lands.
Once Kellerman was robbed, beaten, thrown in a ditch, and left for dead. Surviving, he created a foundation, which, over the decades under his leadership, with many disappointments, inept officials, and surprising gifts, engaged the Batwa community solidarity to build and operate one of the finest hospital clinics, and the best nursing school in East Africa, training hundreds of nurses serving a million people.
Before, the Batwa, especially the children, were dying in large numbers from malaria and other diseases they could not distinguish from malaria, as they had been for centuries. Now, wary of their traditional curses and spells, they are learning modern medicine and using bed nets. They can treat tuberculosis.
The Batwa are always singing in the midst of their darkest sorrows, living in the moment. They know their own dignity, and Kellerman constantly witnesses this. In their dilemmas, the Batwa are the real pearls in Uganda, the “pearl of Africa” (Churchill).
—Holmes Rolston III, PhD, renowned author and recipient of Templeton Prize
Reviews
Scott Kellerman’s An African Gift is a moving story, in darkest Africa, of “the practice of medicine in its rawest form."
Ficus, a fig, often becomes a shelter and makeshift clinic, where he and his wife, Carol, did what they could with great compassion. The Batwa pygmies of Uganda were primitive, uneducated, often thought subhuman, and lived “in constant survival mode,” hunter-gatherers among the imperiled mountain gorillas in “the Bwindi impenetrable forest.”
I myself once saw several dozen of those mountain gorillas, possibly the rarest of African primates, postponing my trekking trip a year because of the 1999 kidnapping, torturing, and killing of tourists in Bwindi by Congo terrorists. My guides carried automatic rifles to protect me, as they said, not against the gorillas, but against the guerillas. Kellerman has trailed such terrorists to give medical help, remarking that he learned nothing in med school about helping a plundered village.
In 1991, the Batwa were evicted and relocated to save the gorillas, and placing the Batwa on poor lands, in peril for their own survival. They were promised government help, which never came. They were desperate for better land. Kellerman has managed to help the Batwa community acquire property that is still forested, where they can experience some of their traditional cultural memories, skills, and folk medicines. They have learned how to grow nutritious food on their barren lands.
Once Kellerman was robbed, beaten, thrown in a ditch, and left for dead. Surviving, he created a foundation, which, over the decades under his leadership, with many disappointments, inept officials, and surprising gifts, engaged the Batwa community solidarity to build and operate one of the finest hospital clinics, and the best nursing school in East Africa, training hundreds of nurses serving a million people.
Before, the Batwa, especially the children, were dying in large numbers from malaria and other diseases they could not distinguish from malaria, as they had been for centuries. Now, wary of their traditional curses and spells, they are learning modern medicine and using bed nets. They can treat tuberculosis.
The Batwa are always singing in the midst of their darkest sorrows, living in the moment. They know their own dignity, and Kellerman constantly witnesses this. In their dilemmas, the Batwa are the real pearls in Uganda, the “pearl of Africa” (Churchill).
—Holmes Rolston III, PhD, renowned author and recipient of Templeton Prize
In this remarkable journey of a dedicated and visionary physician we read both the personal and professional memoirs of Dr. Scott Kellerman who left the comforts of a successful practice to impact the lives of tens of thousands without proper health care.
Through a series of recollections, powerful stories of people and a compelling narrative we are transported to one of the most remote parts of the world, The Bwindi Impenetrable Forest, where a whole people, the Batwa Pygmies, were uprooted and left with few resources to deal with massive health as well as other survival priorities.
Dr. Kellerman explains his motivations, vision and dedication, along with his wife Carol, to bring modern health and public health to a whole community. The reader will be moved by the many personal recollections of individuals whose lives were saved and a whole population moved towards the eradication of some of the most pervasive public health problems such as childhood malnutrition, Malaria, HIV, childhood and maternal mortality among many others.
Not only are we told about modern health care delivery but about Dr. Kellerman’s understanding of looking upstream to poverty, lack of clean water, inadequate food and housing which needed novel solutions. In addition, understanding the culture of the Batwa and working with healers and leaders in the community, he gives great insight into both the obstacles as well as the methods of overcoming those obstacles to achieve success.
Through that decade a transformation occurred with the building of a modern hospital and clinic facilities as well as educational programs to leverage knowledge.
This book interspersed with both joy and sorrow is a must read for all with its easy style and compelling messages.
—Jeremy Lazarus, MD, AMA Council of Ethical and Judicial Affairs