Out of Africa

I am in Johannesburg but I feel like I am out of Africa, already. After two weeks of conducting key interviews with various government officials, members of Parliament, environmental consultants and other stakeholders involved in the Makgadikgadi fence issue in Gaborone, Botswana's capital, I'm now visiting my friend Jayne in Jo'burg before Daniel arrives and we head off on our 3 week holiday together.

Gaborone was a shock enough with its government embassies, fancy cars, and shopping malls, but it is a city that has just emerged out of the bush, and the signs are still there--pot-holed roads, tin-roofed tuck shops, scrubby acacia trees and the dusty red earth. Here on the other hand, I feel thoroughly out of place, in some alter-ego city of Los Angeles, maybe. A mud-splattered dented old Land Rover gets funny looks from city folk in their zippy Golfs and BMWs, as does a girl exclaiming over the all the different types of espresso drinks available at a local swish cafe. Its a huge city, with 8 lane highways and sprawling shopping complexes, but I must say I feel cramped in. Going to a shopping mall with Jayne was a very surreal experience and its funny to think that in just 6 months I could have become so distanced from this concrete jungle world that I should know so well, after 22 years of it. I keep thinking about the contrast between here and up around Maun, and how once upon a time you would have been able to get a sense of the lay of the land here too, the geography of this place, before big roads and buildings masked the natural terrain. I am sure it sounds naive, but I don't think I had ever thought before to really visualize the original landscape of surburban San Mateo, or to imagine what cities like San Francisco and New York must have looked like a few hundred years ago. No San Franciso resident is unaware of its steep hills, and the ever-present fog makes it hard to forget you're by the ocean, but how often do you consciously stop to think about what it would have all really looked like, if say, things had been turned around and Yosemite made a city, and the Bay Area kept undeveloped? Its a strange thing to think about, I think. Not good or bad, just a new perspective.

It is however, wonderful to see Jayne and her family and to have a break from heat (well no that last part is not totally true because I'm freezing here!), and to re-live all our fun times in Maun together. She prevented me from buying a very expensive piece of luggage (as good friends should do) and is taking me to get a haircut tomorrow--the first one in almost 6 months!
Expect more updates to come...perhaps a joint one from Daniel and I on the beach in Mozambique!

visions of africa

Hi all! I had been meaning to put up a post about my truly fantastic Easter weekend, which was actually quite similar to my Christmas experience here, but this time in the bush, at the McNutt's Wild Dog Camp! Instead though, I came across this quote out of Mirella Ricciardi's book, "African Visions: The Diary of an African Photographer", which I thought I'd share with you. It's quite harsh, she left Kenya bitter and sad, but it touches upon a few points and paints lifestyle images that have parallels here in botswana (especially the description in the first paragraph), although not nearly so extreme.

"On one of my last trips to Kenya to pack and ship out my belongings, I shared some farewell moments with people I had grown up with, whose offspring had become my friends and fans, and who all still live much as they always have done, in lovely homes surrounded by lush gardens, with servants, dogs, Landcruisers, light aircraft and safari adventures in the bush, living the lifestyle of the white settler more or less as they always have done. Their roots have sunk deep into the African soil, some two and three generations deep; they have grown used to and adapted to the Africa of today. Their children grow up tough and fearless, with an obsessive love of the outdoors and a deep regard for nature. Their women are strong and able to cope in all circumstances. They have little regard for the more frivolous factors of the world; things like fashion, stylish interiors, expensive furniture and paintings, manicures and hairdressers.

It is the very rawness of Africa that attracts certain kinds of people, they are either crushed by it or find something deep inside their souls that responds to the grandeur and the untamed tangible beauty...Many of them, resolute, stubborn and hard-working, live off large tracts of land, either as cattle ranchers, wheat growers, horticulturists or floriculturists, others as safari guides or consultants to aid organizations. A special breed of people, those for whom Africa has worked, who have chosen to live on the edge, in a country of extremes, where life and death walk hand in hand, who are not crushed or frightened by the lurking violence and seem to thrive on the danger and the unexpected. People who want and need freedom more than anything, who have broken with convention, who refuse shackles of the industrialized world and in exchange are now prepared to live behind the barred windows and locked gates of their homes...so entrenched are they in the seductive easy-going lifestyle of servants, balmy weather and social freedom, devoid of restrictions of any kind, they cannot imagine living anywhere else. They are a resilient lot who, unlike me, are prepared to confront, solve or resolve any controversy that poses a threat to their easy lifestyle. Some rely on the ever-ready sundowner at night to numb their insecurities and help them slip into oblivion so that they can face the next day without having to face themselves. It is telling to note how many whites who live in Africa turn to drink. There must be a reson for that. This is not white man's country."