Eric de Jong and his wife, Jenny plunged into parenthood when they adopted three siblings from the children's dying mother. The new family set about living happily ever after in their rambling farmhouse outside Harare. But ever after proved short lived as Zimbabwe's small window of stability closed in on them quickly when Robert Mugabe unleashed a war on white farmers and opposition party members, launching an era of economic, social and political turmoil which eventually saw the family fleeing the country for fear of being killed.

Eric well knew the cost of conflict, but his fierce love of his country and his principles saw him immersing himself in the dangerous opposition politics of the day where elections were rigged and fellow party members were tortured and murdered.

Eric de Jong's irrepressible sense of humour bubbles throughout this absorbing, honest and deeply personal account of a growing family, of love, entrepreneurial success and failure, mental illness, political exile, and the distressing and often absurd collapse of a beautiful African country and stoicism of its people.