When the great rains come their garden is ruined and they are forced to start again. Although each of these characters displays varying levels of inability to adapt to a new culture, perhaps no one has a harder time with the cultural and societal differences than Rachel Price. She portrays the epitome of a xenophobic, narrow minded American.
The Price family members move in different directions and at different speeds in adapting to their new African homes, however, the family member who is most static and acts the most ignorant is Rachel. She is a racist who does not let blacks into her hotel, is materialistic in her want for rich men and their money, and is oblivious to the needs of others. By the time the Price daughters are in their thirties Leah and Addah feel both contempt and sympathy for their big sister. They feel contempt for her shallow and selfish ways and sympathy for her ignorance. On the other end of the spectrum is Leah, she is the most volatile character, and the one who truly adapts to her surroundings. At first she was a true daddy's girl hanging on every word Nathan spoke looking for attention. She slowly changes with Anatole's help and begins to expand her schema of the world. She goes against her father and the village chief's will when she goes hunting. This act and others that follow made her the leader of the family in the eyes of the Congolese who see that it is she who is providing for her family, not Nathan. Leah marries Anatole, a black man, and raises her children in the Congo. She and her husband try to make the Congo a better place to live through their political and social actions. She changes from a Southern Baptist, All-American, subservient, daddy's girl into a feminist-like, highly involved caretaker, intelligent mother, and wife. The jungle also changes Nathan, her father. Though he, like Rachel, changes little. He comes to Africa to save the inhabitant's souls and ends up being killed by the people he came to help.