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his artist wife. Deo then worked his way through Columbia's School of General Studies (he clinched the calculus entrance test) and then moved to the Harvard School of Public Health. There, he met Paul Farmer who hired him as a PIH research assistant. Inspired by Farmer's work at PIH, Deo went to Dartmouth Medical School and then returned to Burundi in 2006 to found Village Health Works. Its medical clinic treated 28,000 patients in its first year, largely free of charge.
Kidder then goes back in time to detail Deo's harrowing escape from Burundi where Hutu and Tutsi were slaughtering each other in a ghastly civil war. Only with the help of a fellow medical student's family was Deo able to escape to this country. But Kidder also describes the many other fine people who repeatedly saved Deo from instant slaughter before his trip to New York.
Mountains and Strength tell gripping true stories of extraordinary human beings. Kidder's vivid prose not only inspires us with the examples of Farmer and Deo, but also helps us to grasp the misery of so many other people around the world.
Dr. Deo Niylzonkiza
Dr. Paul Farmer