Geography was one of my favourite subjects when I was in high school. I loved poring over maps, thinking about all the strange and exotic places that existed in the world, and wondering about the people who lived there. I never got further than Western Europe, but my forays into Greece, France, Italy and the UK allowed me to consider myself well-traveled.

Well, think again, Taylor. Raymond Lemoine and his wife, Madeleine Mulaire, have got you beat by a country mile. And what a country!

In the summer of 2010, Lemoine and Mulaire left their comfortable home in Port Moody, BC, for a distinctly uncomfortable residency in one of the poorest and most politically unstable countries in the world. Guinea, on the coast of West Africa, was experiencing a period of turbulence, something all too familiar after decades of government corruption. A coup d’etat in 2008 resulted in military rule, with the people’s hopes pinned on the upcoming presidential election, the first free national election held in Guinea since it gained independence from France in 1958. As the blurb for this book states on the back cover, the country was in a state of increcdible upheaval, a challenge “even for well-seasoned travelers like Raymond and Madeleine”.

So why did Lemoine agree to take on the directorship of the Americn School in Conakry, with Madeleine by his side as teacher and all-round support? There’s no simple answer; frequently, throughout this deeply engrossing memoir, the author finds himself questioning that decision. Life-long educators, they had previously lived and taught in Germany, Belgium, and Saudi Arabia, as well as right here in Canada. They were adventurers, and their nomadic experiences had convinced them that the positives of a global lifestyle outweighed any inconveniences. They weren’t naive, and they weren’t do-gooders: they were simply two professionals with a mission to educate, and to help where they could.

Maple Leaves in Mango Trees is the result of a series of blogs Lemoine posted during their two-year stint in Guinea. The difficulties are myriad: armed military police roam the streets, the school’s electricity generator fails -again – during a week of searing heat, a trip to Nairobi to attend a conference is derailed by a severe bout of malaria. But throughout these challenges there are stories that illustrate the strength and resilience of the Guinean people. One of my favorite moments in the book is their visit to a child rescue centre, where abandoned babies are cared for until they can be placed with a family. They’re each handed a baby to hold and when Lemoine asks the baby’s name, he’s told that abandoned babies are named after the first visitor who picks them up. So the rescue centre now has a little Raymond and a little Madleine. Like the author, I felt my eyes welling up.

And there is humour. Lemoine has the gift of being able to see the humorous side of almost any situation, and he offers up some delightful digressions on the impact of the full moon on adolescent girls and his attempts to be the highest jumper in a traditional Maasaii dancing contest. (The winner, as it’s explained to him, is awarded as many girlfriends as he can handle; it leads the author to wonder what might have happened if he’d actually won.)

I found this book completely engaging. I learned an enormous amount about a country I’d practically never heard of – so much for my high school geography lessons – and I gained a thorough respect for two Canadian educators who truly made a difference in the lives of their students. And I learned a new acronym: WAWA – West Africa Wins Again, a sort of Murphy’s Law used to jokingly express frustration when plans change in ways that are out of your control. I plan to use it if I ever get a chance.

Maple Leaves in Mango Trees: Finding Home in West Africa, by Raymond G Lemoine, is available on Amazon.