Book Review: Notes from My Travels by Angelina Jolie

When I heard that actress Angelina Jolie had published her diaries of some of her trips as a Goodwill Ambassador for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), I was mildly interested. Especially when I read that she went to Ecuador and Cambodia, two countries I've visited myself. So when I saw a copy in the Diamond Villiage library in Lamu, I picked it up and started reading.

As she admits herself, Angelina is not a good writer. She tends to repeat herself and is vague on many of the pertinent details of her trips. What impressed me, however, is her willingness to fade into the background and give the spotlight to UN employees and the refugees themselves. She goes into hellholes that very few of us would be willing to endure and never makes a single complaint - all the name of greater awareness for the plight of refugees.

I don't have the book with me anymore, but a particular passage that has stuck with me is Jolie's mechanism for coping with extremely high temperatures - she simply thinks of opening her refrigerator back home and getting a blast of cold air. I'll have to try that next time I am in the sweltering heat.

An interesting aside - Angelina was recently in Kenya visiting the Dadaab refugee camp for displaced Somalis. The friends I was visiting in Kenya told me that their neighbor, Damien from New Zealand, works with UNHCR Kenya and met Angelina. During a neighborly Sunday cookout he told us about his experience with her and he confirmed that she is genuinely interested in improving refugees' lot, is exceedingly humble, and took time to get pictures with everyone who wanted one. Apparently Damien's picture with her hangs in a special place :)

NOTES FROM MY TRAVELS is available in paperback.