Long Road to Zaire

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When thirty seven year-old Australian dentist, Graham Toulmin, told his bank manager in 1985 he was selling his practice and moving, with his wife Wendy and four young children, to a remote location in Central Africa to try to set up a pioneering dental service within the Anglican Church, the response was, ‘Toulmin, you’ve got rocks in your head’!

Long Road to Zaire, told with compassion, insight and more than a dash of humour, is the inspiring story of the Toulmin’s journey that led to this family of six leaving Australia and arriving in the bustling African town of Butembo in the mountainous region of eastern Zaire.

Looking back over half a lifetime, Graham addresses the question that their bank manager raised, a question that some of their children, now adults with children of their own, have also jokingly raised: ‘Mum and Dad, what were you thinking’?

This is the story of ‘why’ and ‘how’ Graham and Wendy embarked on their long road to Zaire, beginning for Graham when, growing up as a boy in the town of Wollongong, south of Sydney, he was forced to make an emergency trip to the dentist.