Why Did You Come If You Leave Again?

One of the rare occasions where an ethnographer bares himself to reveal how he came to learn about and understand the people he studied. Since an ethnographer is the only person to witness on a people and their culture, the author writes about his findings on the Anyuak civilization and culture from the perspective of a novice learner. He prefaces the reader about his own background and writes about the person behind the observations. One of the readers of the manuscript described this as a delightful effort to humanize the rigor of academic analysis of indigenous populations so the author could share with others the remarkable experiences that led to his fascination with the Anyuak people. The memoir is both a document of past times, of nature and people; a moving description of life in the wilderness and a people's fight for human dignity. The book differs from other travel autobiographies in its poetic, clear and suggestive language that allows readers to participate in the discovery of a foreign culture and to become a friend to hitherto unknown people. It opens philosophical and spiritual dimensions and reflects on the humanity of the Anyuak, the author and the attentive reader.