Echoes of My African Heart: An Odyssey of Life and Adventure in a Fabled Continent

This twelve year odyssey is a collection of my personal experiences and reflections: volunteer work at the Kenya Museum Society, memorable safaris and travels in eleven African countries. I came face to face with trumpeting elephants, was stalked by a pride of lions and a huge baboon hopped into a car beside me. I traveled from the Indian Ocean to the South Atlantic and to the Mediterranean by truck, canoe, raft, camels, mules and sometimes on foot. Each journey enfolded me into the culture and life of the people. My years in Africa encapsulated my dreams of wildlife, fossils, and ancient civilizations where humankind began and took their first steps to inhabit the earth.

Roberta grew up in Rhode Island where she excelled as an equestrienne and figure skater. She competed nationally and internationally in the skating world. She was a silver medalist in National Novice and Junior Championships, and a gold medalist in U.S. figure skating tests in School Figures and Free Skating. Roberta went on to marry a Hall of Fame Olympic figure skating coach, Edi Scholdan. After her husband’s and son’s tragic deaths in 1961, along with the U.S. World Figure Skating Team, she moved to Austria for 18 years where she coached aspiring young figure skaters, worked in a Catholic Convent Hospital, and raised her younger children. When she returned to the United States she worked in a hospital emergency room in Rhode Island until her retirement. In 1989 Roberta went on her first African Safari where her inspiration for this book began. She currently lives in Issaquah, Washington.