A journal of two weeks of travel in Sub-Saharan Africa: South Africa (Sabi Sand, Cape Town), Kenya (Nairobi), and Tanzania (Serengeti, Ngorongoro, Zanzibar, Dar es Salaam)
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The Real Africa Journal
1. The REAL Africa Journal
LIONS & TIGERS & BOERS, OH MY!1
February 11‐28, 2011
By David Berkowitz
Table of Contents
SOUTH AFRICA .......................................................................................................................................... 3
KENYA ..................................................................................................................................................... 30
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TANZANIA ............................................................................................................................................... 33
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Appendix: 28 Books for Your Africa Reading List ‐ Safaris, Politics, Culture, History, and More ......... 100
1
There are no wild tigers in Africa. I still had this as the original title of my handwritten journal and couldn’t toss it
entirely.
5.
3:40pm
Djuma Vuyatela sitting room
The Rules
1. Lock your doors when you leave. The monkeys could otherwise enter and have a monkey party.
2. Do not go around alone at night. The reserve is secure from elephants but not lions and
cheetahs.
3. Really, watch out for the monkeys.
4. Duck under the electric elephant wire.
5. Don’t stand up in safari vehicles as it can frighten animals by breaking the profile of the Land
Cruiser.
At Djuma Vuyatela, we’re not exactly roughing it
38. ‐ Jackals
‐ Elephants in the distance
‐ Hyenas
‐ A little monkey
‐ Ostriches
‐ Crowned cranes (fave)
‐ Black ___ (lunch birds)
‐ Guinea fowl
‐ Bustards
‐ Lots of others
A hell of a show, and so fortunate to see it all.
Only downside was Milinga’s overly defensive attitude at the end of the day – really unprofessional. And
the picnic lunch was fun but an underwhelming spread. Had potatoes, pasta salad, local bananas.
53. Serengeti is really something, and our luck today couldn’t have been much better, thanks to Milinga’s
animal spotting:
‐ Lions – a whole pride of them, and more hidden
‐ A group of elephants
‐ Thousands of zebras among the park’s combined 2.8 million zebra and wildebeest
‐ Quite a number of wildebeest – like the zebra, part of the great migration, though rain patterns
here have prevented all the migration to happen at the same place
‐ A leopard high up in a tree, stalking prey from her branch
‐ Dozens of giraffe, some right up close (saw great ones leaving Ngorongoro too)
‐ Hartebeest, eland, Thomson gazelle, larger gazelle
‐ A couple cheetahs on a rock
‐ Crown cranes
‐ Superb starlings with blue metallic coat at Serengeti entrance
‐ A hippo family – one yawning wide
Truly superb starlings
65.
Then, following an explanation of tradition by a Canadian balloon pilot, we had a champagne toast, and
then traveled by car to a shady spot for an English breakfast – mimosas included. At our table were:
‐ A Tasmanian balloon pilot having the time of his life
‐ Four Danish folks
‐ And… a young Japanese newlywed couple honeymooning with… their little big‐eyed doll, Edina?
Whoever she was, none of the 3 spoke much English, but they were quite insistent that the doll
was their friend. It reminded us of the 30 Rock episode where James Franco dotes on a life‐sized
Japanese body pillow Komiko (I’m laughing hysterically just writing it). After feeding Edina
biscuits, the doll disappeared during breakfast as we munched on bacon, at which point I noted
to Cara that Edina’s best friend is a piggy bank. We could barely look over their way again. Way
to lvie up to a stereotype.
After breakfast, waiting to leave, C told me to look at something and I looked up, expecting the blue‐
balled vervet monkey in the tree. Then she said, “James Franco” and I saw Edina’s latest photo shoot.
So yes, two memorable experiences for the price of one!
82. Then a brief look at how dhows are made before heading back to the room. (Oh, we also saw some
underwhelming, poorly maintained Portuguese ruins.)
A lot of the fun came from Shaban’s insights and explanations:
‐ He’s been leaving here since before the ’64 revolution – well before. His father was born here
and his grandfather came here from the mainland.
‐ The most tourists come from Italy since they were the first to offer flights when tourism got
going in the 80s. The Italians run several hotels, tour companies, and other businesses.
‐ Italians still aren’t loved here. They’re way too loud, and they walk around naked (presumably
on the beach) or in skimpy swimsuits (the men).
‐ The richest Italians here are mafia and profit from racketeering.
‐ The British think everything’s too expensive but otherwise aren’t too bad.
‐ The Germans are so‐so.
‐ The French are generally pretty miserable. We have yet to meet a guide who likes the French,
and this was the closest one came to saying anything nice about Germans.
83. ‐ The new up and comers are the Russians.
‐ Americans are generally liked. We tip well because we understand the plight of poor people (go
us!)
‐ The most drab area around Stone Town – really, depressingly drab – includes blocks of prison‐
style cement buildings. Guess who built them? The East Germans, in the 70s. SO fitting. People
like them though, as they replaced ramshackle hovels, so without the East Germans it could all
be a giant slum.
Why live it up with naked Italian racketeers when you can enjoy this luxurious East German housing?
We talked a lot more – politics, religion, economy, healthcare, education, etc. They don’t have a movie
theater on the whole island. They do have paved roads though, and a very comfy van with AC. Shaban
was great – highly recommended.
Oh, another highlight from Shaban:
There’s a visible Rastafarian subculture here that’s really all about people’s love for Bob Marley. They’re
not really Rasta – they just have the dreds and knit hats and Marley t‐shirts. Apparently a few mzungu
women have fallen in love with them and married them, taking them back home. It can’t be many, but
85. ‐ A spread of tons of seafood and meats, much in kebab form – and each spread was the same as
every other (bafflingly dumb)
Went to Silk Route for Indian food. Pretty good Indian, with pretty poor service. The menu listed 5
specialty cocktails but didn’t say what was in most of them. Descriptions were cut off. I asked the server
what was in a Kamasutra. She had no idea. I asked her what was her favorite. She said the Kamasutra.
100. Appendix: 28 Books for Your Africa Reading List
‐ Safaris, Politics, Culture, History, and More
In February, I traveled through South Africa and Tanzania, taking part in a few safaris while
exploring Cape Town and unwinding in Zanzibar. Along the way I also spent a night in Nairobi,
Kenya and got a brief tour of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. To prepare for the trip and expand my
horizons while away, I read about 30 books on Africa. As I've done before with reading lists for
Egypt and South America, your reading list for Africa is below, this time with 28 reviews and
recommendations. Feel free to share other recommendations in the comments.
I need to thank two sources in particular that helped with this list. One is Amazon, from its
references to the Kindle. With the flights to Zanzibar I could only take 33 lbs of luggage for a
17-day trip through varying climates, and the Kindle made reading so many books possible.
Highlighted passages below all come from Kindle versions. The other is Idlewild Books, a
Manhattan bookstore specializing in international books, and I picked up at least 10 books there
from this selection alone; most weren’t available on the Kindle, and the staff there is extremely
sharp.
101. South Africa
Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela
If you only read one book about Africa, this is it. Mandela's the hero, the change agent, the
revolutionary, the larger than life inspiring figure you want him to be. The only thing more
incredible than his autobiography is that when reading anything else about Africa, Mandela
remains unblemished. This is also a book that anyone interested in leadership needs to read.
Highlight:Of so many great quotes from Mandela, here's one that stands out: "Education is the
great engine of personal development. It is through education that the daughter of a peasant can
become a doctor, that the son of a mineworker can become the head of the mine, that a child of
farmworkers can become the president of a great nation. It is what we make out of what we have,
not what we are given, that separates one person from another."
Country of My Skull by Antjie Krog
This one will rank up there in terms of books that keep you up at night. Krog covers the Truth
and Reconilliation Commission hearings in South Africa in the 1990s, and you feel the torture
Krog endures by hearing and relaying the horrors and atrocities that happened in her country.
Highlight: We all want to resign. We all yearn for another life. At Tzaneen a young Tswana
interpreter is interviewed. He holds on to the tabletop; his other hand moves restlessly in his lap.
“It is difficult to interpret victim hearings,” he says, “because you use the first person all the
time. I have no distance when I say ‘I’ . . . it runs through me with ‘I.’ ” “Now how do you
survive it?” “I don’t. After the first three months of hearings, my wife and baby left me because
of my violent outbursts. The Truth Commission provided counseling and I was advised to stop.
But I don’t want to. This is my history, and I want to be part of it—until the end.
Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton
This is one of those books that I felt so privileged to read. If I hadn't gone on this trip I might
never have found it, and it's undoubtedly one of the world's great works of poetry.What makes it
chilling is that it was written right before the advent of apartheid, so it's this snapshot of South
Africa before the country spirals even further downhill.
Highlight: We do not know, we do not know. We shall live from day to day, and put more locks
on the doors, and get a fine fierce dog when the fine fierce bitch next door has pups, and hold on
to our handbags more tenaciously; and the beauty of the trees by night, and the raptures of lovers
under the stars, these things we shall forego. We shall forego the coming home drunken through
the midnight streets, and the evening walk over the star-lit veld. We shall be careful, and knock
this off our lives, and knock that off our lives, and hedge ourselves about with safety and
102. precaution. And our lives will shrink, but they shall be the lives of superior beings; and we shall
live with fear, but at least it will not be a fear of the unknown. And the conscience shall be thrust
down; the light of life shall not be extinguished, but be put under a bushel, to be preserved for a
generation that will live by it again, in some day not yet come; and how it will come, and when it
will come, we shall not think about at all.
Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee
All you really need to know about this one is that it's like reading a Philip Roth novel set in
South Africa. It's about a professor who can't control his prick (a term Roth would use, so it fits)
and whose attempts at escaping his problems only cause more misery. It's less about South
Africa than human nature, but that's also part of the fun of it - reading a book that's not a history
lesson.
Favorite African Folktales edited by Nelson Mandela
You can often learn a lot about a country from its folktales, and the scope here is far wider than a
country. It's a fun mix, but nothing here is as striking or well written as Kalila and Dimna from
the Egypt roundup. If you're at all interested in folklore, go with Kalila - and if you're not, you
might be after reading it.
The Pickup by Nadine Gordimer
This is an odd book by one of South Africa's best known writers. Here, Julie falls for a Muslim
mechanic and leaves her Sex and the City set for a life of Islam, Arabie, and destitution. While
it's an interesting story at times, I never really got why Julie was acting the way she was - it
seemed a little forced at most major junctures.
Zanzibar
Revolution in Zanzibar: An American's Cold War Tale by Donald Petterson
If you go to Zanzibar, or if you love Cold War history, you have to read this. You meet divinely
inspired coup leaders, womanizing ambassadors, and world leaders as Petterson shares his first-
hand experience from serving in the American consulate on Zanzibar during these revolutinoary
days.
The Sultan's Shadow by Christiane Bird
Zanzibar's a surprising, even magical island, albeit with quite a few dark spots in its history. It
was the capital of East Africa's slave trade, which picked up once the scion of an Omani dynasty
discovered the riches from the islad's spice plantations, and slaves were needed to supply the
103. island. The most ambitious of the island's sultans had a daughter who was quite the renegade, as
running off with German men wasn't exactly de rigeur at the time for an Omani Zanzibari
princess. Along with following the sultan and princess, we meet infamous black African slave
trader Tippu Tip, British Christian anti-slavery crusader David Livingstone, and other leading
figures of the day. While the narrative is all over the place, as a reader I felt enriched by having it
cover so many angles.
Paradise by Abdulrazak Gurnah
While the book isn't set in Zanzibar, the author hails from there. Though you won't see this in the
Amazon description, the story is remarkably similar to the biblical story of Joseph. The
protagonist is even named Yusuf, and he's similar to his namesake in appearance and can
interpret dreams. His father sells him into bondage (instead of Joseph's brothers - but really, it's
the same plot line), and you know you can expect trouble when you meet the woman who
resembles Potiphar's wife.
General History: Colonial Period (starting around 16th/17th centuries) until Independence
(around 1950s-60s)
King Leopold's Ghost by Adam Hochschild
Belgium's King Leopold II is one of the world's least known genocidists, a mass murderer few
can compare to, and one few heard of before Hochshild's best-seller. Edwin Morel, the hero of
the book, was a British shipping executive who noticed a disparity in some records that led to a
global anti-slavery crusade. Horrifying through and through, Hochshild is such a great storyteller
that perhaps it's a little too much of a page-turner.
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
I hadn't read this until this trip, and by the time I did, I had read so much about it that the novel
itself was anticlimactic. Real life villains like King Leopold II are far scarier than anything in
here. While the story itself's essential reading, I'm more impressed by what Conrad did and
inspired than the work itself.
Exterminate All the Brutes by Sven Lindqvist
Lindqvist journeys into Africa to explroe the meaning of the Heart of Darkness phrase,
"Exterminate all the brutes." Where did that ideology originate, to treat people as animals or
lesser evolved humans? How did it influence Hitler, and why do we focus on the Holocaust
while ignoring other mass killings? There aren't easy answers but it's a thouhtful thought
experiment.
104. First Footsteps in East Africa by Sir Richard Burton
Sir Burton is clearly an outsized personality. Often, he's intoerably bigoted, putting down anyone
and any tribe he meets with as he shares his theories of civilization. And yet, he has his
moments, such as his understanding the dangers of pitting one tribe against another - this kind of
action caused irreperable harm as the colonial powers left africa. It's great to have access to this
work, but tough to swallow.
Highlight (well, more of a typical passage - hardly a highlight): The natives of the country are
essentially commercial: they have lapsed into barbarism by reason of their political condition--
the rude equality of the Hottentots,--but they appear to contain material for a moral regeneration.
As subjects they offer a favourable contrast to their kindred, the Arabs of El Yemen, a race
untameable as the wolf, and which, subjugated in turn by Abyssinian, Persian, Egyptian, and
Turk, has ever preserved an indomitable spirit of freedom, and eventually succeeded in skaking
off the yoke of foreign dominion
Diamonds, Gold, and War: The British, the Boers, and the Making of South Africa by Martin
Meredith
While well reviewed, this book of the Dutch history of South Africa was a bit of a slog for me.
The basic history is important, and I enjoyed the character sketch of Cecil Rhodes, among others,
but perhaps I was a little historied out by the time I read this.
Modern Politics (post-colonial area, focused generally on 1950s-present)
The Fate of Africa: A History of 50 Years of Independence by Martin Meredith
This was the first sweeping work I read about Africa's modern history. You read the same story
in country after country: Colonizing power props up a seemingly non-threatening but charismatic
lackey; colonizing power makes a hasty exit before there are even a few hundred black Africans
in the entire country with college degrees; former lackey pillages the country for his personal
gain while playing Cold War rivals against each other to gain global standing; some kind of civil
war, coup, and/or genocide ensues. A few break that pattern, usually with an educated leader
who takes their responsibility more seriously (see Ghana, Botswana, Tanzania, and ultimately
Mandela in South Africa) but not always successfully (Tanzania's Nyerere, for instance, took his
socialist ideals too far, but at least he was one of few leaders to step down voluntarily when the
economy crashed). This was the first such sweeping tome I read on Africa's modern history, and
it was confusing to no end, but after a few such works I got the hang of it and can even put a few
of these countries on a map. Yay.
105. Highlight: By the end of the 1980s, not a single African head of state in three decades had
allowed himself to be voted out of office. Of some 150 heads of state who had trodden the
African stage, only six had voluntarily relinquished power.
The Challenge for Africa by Wangari Maathai
An incredible Kenyan woman who has served her country and continent in goverment, on
foundations and through her writing, Maathai ultimately focuses on the Millennium
Development Goals for Africa and why they won't be met by 2015. Especially powerful is when
this 'green party' hero focuses on the environment and she makes a case for the positive ripple
effects that stem from sustainability.
Highlight: Before the arrival of the Europeans, Mount Kenya was called Kirinyaga, or “Place of
Brightness,” by the people who lived in its shadow. The Kikuyus believed that God dwelled on
the mountain, and that the rains, clean drinking water, green vegetation, and crops, all of which
had a central place in their lives, flowed from it. When Christian missionaries arrived in the area
toward the end of the nineteenth century, they told the local people that God did not live on
Mount Kenya, but rather in heaven, and that the mountain and its forests, previously considered
sacred grounds, could be encroached upon and the reverence accorded to them abandoned. The
people believed this and were persuaded to consider their relationship with the mountain and,
indeed, nature itself as primitive, worthless, and an obstacle to development and progress in an
age of modernity and advances in science and technology. This did not happen only, of course,
to the people who lived around Mount Kenya. Over the next generations, the reverence and spirit
that had led the communities to preserve specific species of tree, like the wild fig, and the forests
on Mount Kenya died away. When the white settlers and then the local communities themselves
cut down the trees to plant coffee and tea and other agricultural products, encroaching farther and
farther up the mountain, there was little resistance. From then on, they were seen as commodities
only, to be privatized and exploited.
Africa: Altered States, Ordinary Miracles by Richard Dowden
As great as this book is - the writer is a gifted wordsmith while focusing on many of the salient
stories and perspectives that make this modern history lesson so memorable - I wish there were a
few more ordinary miracles. As in so many of Africa's histories, they proved hard to find here.
Highlight: As John Robertson, a Zimbabwean economist, says, `We imagine corruption to be
like a tick on a dog. There are some places in Africa where the tick is bigger than the dog.'
Highlight 2: Shakespeare would have found it easier to talk with modern Africans than modern
Europeans and Americans who have no sense of anything beyond the physical realities of
Western urban culture. Africans understand Shakespeare's woodland inhabited by sprites and
fairies or by ghosts of dead fathers and other mystical apparitions. Living in harmony with the
other world is important.
China Safari by Sege Michel Michel Beuret
This was the first book I read in this crash course on Africa, and it's one of the best. It shows the
complicated nature of the Chinese helping to build Africa while not letting morals get in the way
of business decisions.
106. Highlight (proverbs):
China: "When a tree is moved, it dies. When a man movies, he can make a fortune."
Mali: "If you see a goat at the mouth of the lion's den, fear the goat."
Memoirs
When a Crocodile Eats the Sun by Peter Godwin
Beautifully told, a reporter reminisces about his life primarily in Zimbabwe, where his parents
survive endless diffuclties while staying attached to their country. There's also a memorable
subplot, not to be disclosed here, as Godwin discovers the truth about his own heritage.
Highlight: I feel like weeping. Weeping at the way Africa does this to you. Just as you’re about
to dismiss it and walk away, it delivers something so unexpected, so tender. One minute you’re
scared shitless, the next you’re choked with affection.
Highlight 2 (because I love folkore, and hippos): Of all the theories for the hippo’s antisocial
behavior, my favorite is the one offered by the San, the Bushmen with whom I have recently
spent so much time for National Geographic. They believe that the hippo was the last animal to
be created and was made of parts left over from the construction of other beasts. When the hippo
saw its reflection in the water, it was so ashamed of its ugliness that it begged the creator —
Kaggan — to allow it to live underwater, out of sight. But Kaggan refused, worried that the
hippo would eat up all the fish with its huge mouth. The hippo promised that it wouldn’t eat any
living thing from the water, and Kaggan relented. A deal was struck that the hippo must return
each night to the land to eat and to shit so that the other animals could examine its dung to ensure
that there were no fish bones in it. The regular humiliation of public fecal inspection could well
account for the hippo’s irascibility.
The Zanzibar Chest by Aidan Hartley
This is two memoirs in one. Half of the book has Hartley recounting the story of his Scottish
father who 'went native' in Arabia and then East Africa, where he came to feel at home. It's
intertwined with the author's autobiography of surviving as a journalist in some of the most
hellish, war-torn conflicts.
Whatever You Do, Don't Run - True Tales of a Botswana Safari Guide by Peter Allison
It's not saying much to call this the funniest book I read about Africa, and one of the least
depressing. If I got any nightmares reading about this, then they were about Japanese tourists.
While the book starts off rough, fortunately Allison matures just enough with his experience as a
guide to strengthen the narrative while sharpening the humor.
107. Highlight: Honey badgers belong to a group of only four animals that lions tend to avoid. The
other three members are elephants, rhinoceroses, and hippos.
African Fiction (general)
Gods and Soldiers: The Penguin Anthology of Contemporary African Writing by Rob Spillman
This is a useful guide to modern African writers. I bought a few of the books in this roundup
after reading excerpts here, including Minaret and Half a Yellow Sun. I guess the con of the book
is also a pro - a lot of the works were underwhelming, but that also meant I didn't have to read
more from every writer in here.
Highlight (from an introduction to the section on Mozambique and Angola, by the former's Mia
Couto): I am a biologist and I travel a lot through my country’s savanna. In these regions, I meet
people who don’t know how to read books. But they know how to read their world. In such a
universe where other wisdoms prevail, I am the one who is illiterate. I don’t know how to read
the signs in the soil, the trees, the animals. I can’t read clouds and the likelihood of rain. I don’t
know how to talk to the dead, I’ve lost all contact with ancestors who give us our sense of the
eternal. In these visits to the savanna, I learn sensitivities that help me to come out of myself and
remove me from my certainties. In this type of territory, I don’t just have dreams. I am
dreamable.
Petals of Blood by Ngugi Wa Thiong'o
A teacher, a socialist, and a prostitute walk into Abdullah's bar - no, not the beginning of a joke,
but the setting for the Kenyan novelist's dark story about a fictional town that becomes a city, but
with many sacrifices. We meet everyone from local robber barrons to colonialist missionaries. It
picks up the pace considerably as it progresses. While I wound up loving this, I couldn't get into
Thiong'o's other seminal work WIzard of the Crow, though if you read its reviews you'll see I'm
in the minority
The Gunny Sack by MG Vassanji
Dubbed "Africa's answer to Midnight's Children, it's a fantastic romp through a couple family
histories spannign India, Zanzibar, Eastern Africa, and a bit of teh west. And times it's too
similar to Rushdie's work, and it lost me, but it's often lyrical and playful. While I enjoyed it, it
wasn't as memorable for me as most of the others.
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
This was, I'm embarrassed to admit, the only book from this list I read before planning the Africa
trip, thanks to my Mamaroneck High School teacher Shannon Turner-Porter (if you're Googling