Living with Strangers: Healing a Wounded Heart in a Distant Land--A Memoir

A debut memoirist's hopeful and brave coming-of-age story of surviving a turbulent youth--neglected first by her father, then as a teen in foster care--and going on to find a sense of belonging and a new lease on life in a semi-nomadic Kenyan community.

Eager to leave her life as a foster child behind, Robin Rosenbluth travels to a remote village in northern Kenya called Songa in 1973. As a white college student, she arrives in a desert-like environment to teach elementary school to Samburu and Rendille children. While befriending the residents, she learns to live in a mud hut, survive without modern conveniences, skin a cow, and kill a chicken for dinner.

Robin weaves stories about the challenges she faced growing up--her mother's early death, her father's abandonment, and her years in foster care--with her account of her time in Songa. As the only Jewish resident in a village influenced by Christian missionaries, she strives to fit in: adapting to the intense heat, endless insects, and close encounters with wild animals. Over time, she develops close friendships with a local teacher and a woman who becomes her surrogate mother, participates in local customs, and makes a place for herself in Songa.

Offering vivid insight into why a love-starved nineteen-year-old from New York City would choose to relocate to the other side of the world, Living with Strangers is a poignant chronicle of one young woman's search for a place to belong.

Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: She Writes Press
Published: 10/27/2026
ISBN: 9798896361886
Pages: 320

Review Citations: Kirkus Reviews 08/15/2026