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PART V
Shades of Africa
Chapter 24
THE UPS AND DOWNS OF EGYPT
"...that old land that knew all which we
know now, perchance, and more…"
Mark Twain
The Innocents Abroad
Into that old land (and this chapter), the innocents are still coming. Losing their
innocence as their travels mingle, they include: Don and Murray, the Canadian adventurers
and martial arts buffs who are motorcycling to South Africa; Rainer, the free-wheeling
German whose motorcycle dies in Cairo and for whom all Egypt is "perfect
madness"; Dolores and Andy, the loving, beleaguered couple from Belfast whose
motorcycle also dies; and Audrey, the troubled bombshell from Australia with whom the
author… There’s just to much to say here except, what did any of them know?
This chapter presents the
beginning of the African adventure – travel at its finest with all those unexpected
discoveries (things brochures won’t cover), comedies (dealing
with locals) and disasters (mechanical and social). These things are heaped one upon
another like an inverted pyramid until it collapses under its own weight – eventually
scattering all the participants to distant places. These things occur amid some of the
world’s greatest ruins, in a land described by Mahmoud El Kholy, the Secretary
General of Cairo, as "the heart and history of civilization."
It is a troubled heart – into this chapter some of its miseries are
woven. In modern Egypt, I see society clinging to its past while progress spins its
wheels in the sand of insane bureaucracy. It appears to be a crumbling congested
country being eroded by overpopulation (58 million people are packed into the delta and
the slim green corridor of the Nile – Egypt is 97% desert). Egypt seems home to
a people who lost their innocence with the demise of the Pharaohs and the coming of the
invaders. Their hope seems hopelessly tied to their antiquities.
The spectacular artifacts are a
world treasure and they bring in much-needed hard currency through tourists. But
pollution and even the sweat of increasing hordes of tourists have caused more damage in
the last 100 years than in the last 4,000. They are rapidly falling apart –
like the mutilated Sphinx, which nobody seems to know how to save. Who is truly
responsible for Egypt’s treasures?
Like most Muslim countries, Egypt
is still very male-dominated. It can be a dangerous place for a woman to travel
alone, as Audrey discovers. But I find most Egyptians friendly and welcoming:
"Where are you from?" "Ah, Canada, number one!" To another
questioning local, I respond that I am from the United States. "Ah, America, number
one!" I meet locals like cameleer Farage who says, "Money? No problem. If
you are happy, I am happy." And Amer Abu Khamis, a guide even to royalty and a
true friend to foreigners – he helps this troubled traveler a few times.
There
are loads of adventures: meetings with high officials including chauffeured wild
goose-chases in Port Said; a perfume merchant who offers hospitality that "you can
choose, but not refuse" (the likes of Mohamad Ali chose to accept); romance and
disaster in the Sinai where even partially requited love would have been nice.
Above: Cairo and the Nile as seen from
Cairo Tower
Right: the camel market in the Imbaba district of Cairo
Maybe Rainer has it right –
Egypt is "perfect madness" and "perfect bullshit". Its ways can
be bizarre and irritating. In this chapter, I learn how to observe, adapt and
actually enjoy such a place – with good humour – for to do otherwise courts
disaster.
So goes Egypt, and this
chapter, which covers my six weeks there. Melawend and I are compelled to ride the
length of the Nile three times, visit Alexandria twice, ride the length of the Suez Canal
twice and ride to and climb Mount Sinai twice. And there is a confrontation with an
Arab that turns into understanding. In all, not your average tour of Egypt.
Above left: Sunrise atop Mount Sinai
Above right: educational confrontation in Asyut
In the long run, Egypt becomes
splendid preparation for the road ahead. I am defeated in efforts for sponsored
onward travel by ship or air. Against the embassy’s advice, I decide to continue
overland - and head for the war-fractured world of the Sudan.
Chapter 25
CROSSROADS TO KHARTOUM
Winston Churchill was delighted
that he had maneuvered himself into the Sudan Campaign of 1898 that was to crush the
Dervish Empire and avenge the death of General Gordon. He rode the 400 miles from
Wadi Halfa on the Egyptian border, across the Nubian Desert to Atbara on the Nile on the
railway newly built by General Kitchener’s advancing forces. He would file this
report: "It’s scarcely within the power of words to describe the savage
desolation of the regions into which the line and its constructors plunged."
After abandoning the
"tracks" to ride Melawend directly across the virgin desert to the new Wadi
Halfa, we ride that bizarre railway all the way to Khartoum, on what seem the very remains
of Churchill’s train. As one of only two kwadga (white
person) on the overcrowded train, I travel third class – where you climb in through
the windows to get to your seat. Melawend gets covered with dust in the rickety
baggage car, as I ride the bum-biting seats of first class with "the boys from
Khartoum" (they entertained passengers on the Lake Nasser ferry). I also go up
on the roof to ride with the non-paying passengers – perhaps the best ride of all.
Left: the road to Wadi Halfa
At night, with no lights in the
third-class coach, skin colour becomes meaningless. Throughout the 26-hour journey,
conversation is lively, though once is etched by Sudan’s internal conflict.
When prodded to ask a beautiful black girl seated across the isle her name, James, the
black Sudanese student sitting next to me respectfully and reluctantly declines. "I
can not. She is Muslim. I am Christian." In another car, a solitary Palestinian says,
"All I want is a place to call home." I realize that things could have
been much worse for me: I could have been born black, Jewish, Palestinian... All
that pisses me off and I wonder why people of all races and backgrounds just can't seem to
get along.
This chapter centers on the
capital of one of Africa’s largest and poorest nations. Khartoum has been rated
second only to Beirut as a dangerous U.S. outpost, a "free zone for terrorism".
The day after the U.S. bombed Lybia, a communication specialist on his way home from the
embassy was shot. This happened just up the road from the fortified, radio-checked home of
the chief executive of an American company. Just before he takes off for Europe, the
executive opens his home to Melawend and me. Here, two Eritrean refugees pamper us.
One night, I inadvertently set off the alarm, which is so loud that I wonder if my father
will call from Canada: "What’s going on?"
But the atmosphere of Khartoum is
peaceful. The harsh regime of Gafar Mineiri was overthrown in a bloodless coup two
years before. The democratic elections promised by the military leaders are carried
out a year later. The former Prime Minister, the great grandson of the Mahdi, has
been returned to power after 17 years.
I am welcomed by the General
Commissioner and the city council of Khartoum. I am shown the school system –
much like North America’s (it was either schools or a tour of a sanitation
project). But like most third world countries, it takes so long to accomplish
anything in the Sudan – the executive details his frustrations before he leaves for
Europe (where he plans to resettle – "It’s going to be the place to
be," he says.)
Left: Khartoum North School
The adventure continues with
lively Dervish dancing in a graveyard. A segment of colonial Sudan is examined as I
explore sites of the Mahdi / Gordon era. Don and Murray show up after an illegal run
across the border in the desert with the German couple and their MAN army truck. And
there’s Rob, a death-defying adventurer who travels intermittently with me in
Khartoum. Rob details his experience with exploding land mines in Sudan’s
war-ravaged south, saying "Steven Spielberg couldn’t have done better." An
embassy official will later say of Rob’s dangerous travels: "He needs his ass
kicked."
Rudyard Kipling wrote: "He
travels the fastest who travels alone." It is a lesson being learned in
Africa. Not that there is any race, but in the quest for free onward passage, the
travelers are stumbling over each other as they converge upon the owners of an air freight
company for a ride out of the Sudan. Enough. Each ends up going a separate
way, with the Sudanese government helping Melawend and me out – in a unusual way at
the airport.
Airborne, I look down at the
arteries of the Nile with regrets of leaving the Sudan. Regret soon turns to an
uneasy blend of anticipation and apprehension as we near the AIDS-ravaged country that may
well epitomize the cradle of humankind – Kenya.
Chapter 26
OF MAN AND BEAST:
A STORY OF KENYA
"In the vast savanahs of
Africa there is a dimension of space and time that is an echo of our own beginnings and
which reminds us that we were not born initially to live
in the concrete jungle."
William Holden
Journey
Through Kenya
Perhaps more eloquent and
currently relevant of Kenya than Ernest Hemingway or Isak Dinesen was that description
written by the late William Holden. Bill (to those who knew him) had come to
regard Kenya as his second home.
I feel relieved that the deserts
of the north are behind me as I see the green dots of acacias on the grasslands below grow
larger as the jet descend into Kenya. After Melawend gets
jammed in the baggage chute at the airport, we scoot into Nairobi, the "green city in
the sun." We use the busy youth hostel as a base to explore a country that is
still struggling in Africa’s post-colonial quagmire. This segment explores some
of Kenya’s turbulent history, from the time of the Mau Mau rebellion until our
arrival.
I begin to view white supremacy
in "black" Africa as the practice of keeping blacks uneducated and powerless -
giving them strong back while keeping their minds weak. I sense the attitude has
been: "What they don't know won't hurt us."
My diplomatic mission in Nairobi
is thwarted as the entire city council has been ousted for corruption. And federal
corruption seems evident when seven Saudi Arabian sheiks and two Saudi princes slaughter
over 200 animals in the Masa Mara Game Reserve in a weeklong hunt. This segment
examines the demise of trophy hunting so proudly and graphically depicted by
Hemingway. In his time, it must have sounded very powerful and masculine to have
been able to "break the neck" of a wild beast (albeit with a bullet).
I also try to make international
diplomatic connections by visiting the Soviet Embassy. I meet very friendly Russians
inside but when I emerge, secret police are waiting to take me downtown.
In Nairobi, I have surprise
encounters with old friends: Rob, from the Sudan, who has been transformed physically and
spiritually by a near-fatal experience and by love; and Andy and Dolores, the Irish couple
so beleaguered in Cairo, who prove you can rise above calamity. There are many new mzungus
including Pete, the nature photographer from Britain who prefers roughing it in East
Africa to the tea-sipping live in England; and Brunie, the little old lady from just about
everywhere.
I visit the Nairobi Animal Orphanage where I am kissed by a lion, nuzzled by a
purring cheetah and "bitten" by a hyena. I talk with the doctor who raised
some of the animals about his days helping in the "Noah Project". Don
Hunt, game-hunter-turned-conservationist and partner of the late great American actor,
William Holden, spearheaded that effort. Melawend and I ride to the slopes of old
Kirinyaga – Mount Kenya, the sacred mountain of the Kikuyu tribe – where I meet
Don and see the fine conservation efforts at the Mount Kenya Game Ranch that he and
William Holden established. Max, the orphaned chimp, helps me in my photographic
efforts – and helps himself to one of my cameras. I am given a tour of the
educational facilities that are under construction on land adjacent to the ranch. I
uncover a love story between man, woman and beasts.
Left: Sheru and Tom at the Nairobi National Park Animal
Orphanage
Stefanie Powers - acclaimed
actress, business woman, proactive conservationist, 
host of "Funding Your Dreams", the late William Holden’s amour -
one remarkable lady! - Stephanie, Don and his wife Iris are busy keeping the
conservation dreams of Holden alive through the William Holden Wildlife Foundation (an
update from Stefanie shows that 17 years after Bill’s tragic death, the dream is
still very much alive – and how a few people are doing so much for so many. - SEE THE
CHARITIES PAGE).
Photos: above left - Stefanie Powers with
cheetahs - photo copied from the William Holden Wildlife Foundation website.
Above right: the William Holden Wildlife Education Center, near Nanyuki; left - Max, the
orphaned chimpanzee at the Mount Kenya Game Ranch who became an enthusiastic
photographer's assistant. Right: photo of William Holden and Don Hunt taken in Kenya in
1967 - photo copied from a WHWF brochure obtained in 1987.
Melawend takes on the
bulldust-filled ruts on the way to Hell’s Gate and the torturous climb up the Ngong
Hills to a spot overlooking the magnificence of the Great Rift Valley. At the foot
of those hills is a farm – here, I visit the Out of Africa
home of Karen Blixen (Isak Dinesen). In repeated visits, it is here that I will find
some of the essence of the "still country" that she left behind, and from which
I will soon depart.
Time has pressed
on – Melawend and I have been on the continent for 3½ months – and I must find
my own way out of Africa. Back at the youth hostel, I learn that it may be possible
to get a work passage on a ship out of Mombassa. Memories of Halifax are
still sharp, but I decide to go for it. Melawend and I head for Kenya’s coral
coast.
Left: Longonot Crater and the Great Rift
Valley
Chapter 27
OUT OF AFRICA - A
PASSAGE TO INDIA
On the road to Mombasa, hostile baboons
threaten my roadside lunch break. We’ve stopped so I can photograph the snowy
mantle of Mt. Kilimanjaro. Here, I reflect on big-game hunting and on Hemingway's
famous story "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber", pondering what
applications I can avoid.
I spend a little time here with Hemingway - the
quintessential man's man. But he was never without a woman in his adult life (he was
married 4 times). Everything in my life suggests that what so often makes a man - or
breaks a man - is a woman.
(Photo: Hemingway with kudu and oryx trophies, Kujungu
Camp, Tanganyika, Feb. 1934. THIS PHOTO MAY NOT BE DOWNLOADED.
It is used here with the permission of the Department
of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Library - Ernest Hemingway.)
The red-lettered sign with the
city’s coat of arms reads: "Welcome to Mombasa", but I discover that it
might have well have read "Welcome to Halifax".
First, Melawend and I arrive in
the late afternoon and find a camp at a remote oceanside conference centre. In the
evening, I am enjoy the gentle songs sung by Linda and am lulled to sleep by sea breezes.
At the yacht club in Mombasa, I learn that an Indian ship has just come into port, bound
for Bombay. But as in Halifax, I am told there is no way to get a work passage on a
cargo ship – confirmed by a shipping company manager and a ship’s captain.
It seems hopeless again. My spirit sinks.
That evening, as I stand on the
balcony of a cheap hotel room, the gloom is interrupted when a beautiful voluptuous Kenyan
woman on the sidewalk below looks up and smiles as she fingers the neckline of her low-cut
dress. I hear that many of Mombasa’s prostitutes have tested positive for AIDS –
this segment explores the disease so rampant in Africa. But I am saved from a year's
loneliness in the arms of Lisa, a gentle girl who has done well in hiding her own
loneliness.
I continue trying for a passage
by ship and am able to aboard that Indian ship. The crew is supportive and even
accompanies me to the shipping office in town. But it’s the same shipping
office: "As I told him before…" the manager tells my comrades. The
captain of the ship shows up and confirms what everyone else has said. Mombasa
becomes Halifax revisited.
What to do? Go back to
Nairobi and try for sponsorship? Get a job? Give a slide show?
Anything! I ride the 300 miles back to Nairobi.
The Kenyan capital is thundering
with the Marlborough Safari Rally. I seek quietude. At the youth hostel, I
watch as old friends leave and new ones arrive – like Kathy, the valiant but tired
Peace Corps worker and Tal, the easy-going Israeli. While planning my next move, I
eavesdrop on travelers’ conversations – including the California "valley
girl" who is remembering old movies.
"I mean like I grew up with
Godzilla," she says. "He was like so bummed out, you know?"
I pray silently: Oh
God, like I mean get me out of here!
But not out of Africa. I feel the seduction of Africa -
the beautiful landscapes and seascapes, the fine people, the spectacular wildlife.
Melawend and I go once again to the farm of Karen Blixen. Now virtually alone, I
wander through the house and around the grounds. I sit at the millstone table and
stand on the verandah and gaze at the Ngong Hills. My experiences of Kenya take on deeper
personal meaning and perspective. But I know that I too must leave Africa. (Photo:
view from verandah of Karen Blixen's African home)
I persist with a passage to India
and ultimately learn a valuable lesson: to get where you want to go, first go as high in
authority as you can. Previously refused, I am welcomed by Kenya Airways.
I find myself happily, sadly, warily airborne for India.
