Helen Bergan's life took an unexpected turn when she received an offer for a librarian position in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in 1965.  Always up for an adventure, Helen accepted and enjoyed three years working at a Lutheran World Federation short-wave radio station there.  Climbing Kilimanjaro describes the trip she took throughout Africa when she left Ethiopia at the end of that contract.

     Helen grew up on a farm in Northwestern Minnesota.  When she was twelve, she had polio and has walked with forearm crutches since.  Despite this, plus the snow and ice she trudged through in Minneapolis, she graduated from Augsburg College and received a M.A. degree in library science from the University of Minnesota.

     The offer of a job in Ethiopia came when Helen was working as a public librarian in Yonkers, New York.  She had just seen the Broadway musical Hello Dolly that includes a song with Dolly's comment, "I'm going to get as far away from Yonkers as a girl can get."  Hmm, I think that is speaking to me, thought Helen. She accepted the offer in Ethiopia and flew off to Addis Ababa.

     Following the trip detailed in her book, Helen returned to the States in 1968. She worked for over 20 years at the District of Columbia Public Library in downtown Washington, located between the White House and the Capitol.  While chief of the Biography Division there, she wroteWhere the Money Is: A Fund Raiser's Guide to the Rich.  It describes prospect research at nonprofit organizations as part of the fundraising process. The book is considered a "classic" for beginning fundraisers. 

     Following retirement in 1990, partly due to further weakness due to post-polio syndrome, Helen did a new edition of Where the Money Is and wrote Where the Information Is: A Guide to Electronic Research for Nonprofit Organizations.

     Climbing Kilimanjaro is Helen Bergan's first travel book. In the photo above, she stands on the deck of her Nigerian cargo ship as it sailed through the English Channel near the White Cliffs of Dover. Her African odyssey was about to end. 

      It is not surprising that her book includes comments on African cuisine with authentic recipes.  Helen collects cookbooks and reads them as a pleasurable past time. She lives in Alexandria, Virginia.

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