Africa Behind the Wheel

This is my LAST post for this year’s journey through the inland of southern and eastern Africa.

As I sit in the airport on my way back to the good ole USA, I have had time to reflect on my travels and thought I would share some overall observations of Africa from behind the wheel. In many ways, this is a synthesis of my previous country-by-country behind the wheel observations, but here I put those observations and a few more in the broader perspective of all of southern and eastern Africa (which, hereafter, I will simply refer to as Africa). Keep in mind that I did not visit the entirety of each of the 6 countries I travelled through, but rather snaked my way through a portion of each country en route to my selected set of National Parks and Reserves; thus, my observations are both limited and biased. But they are my thoughts, in no particular order, based on my experience this year for what its worth – take it or leave it!

#1. Living in a Bubble. One of the most evident things I observed about the people, at least those that I met or interacted with, was the nearly universal limited world view they have. Nearly all the people, at least outside of the larger cosmopolitan cities, live in a rather small bubble. Most don’t leave their home village and most never leave the vicinity of that village, or perhaps at most visit the nearest large town center. Consequently, most people really don’t have a clue about the world outside their little bubble. You can imagine what their world view must be like, knowing only how the world works inside that small bubble. This is not a criticism of course because who can blame them, since most of them simply don’t have the opportunity or the means to experience the outside world. Nearly all of what they know of the outside world comes from the internet and what is portrayed in movies, TV shows and perhaps the news media – and we all know how accurate these media are at portraying reality.

#2. Who’s on First, What’s on Second. Another nearly universal truth is that most of the people know almost nothing that isn’t within their own day-to-day sphere of responsibilities. What I mean is that most people can’t tell you with any accuracy what’s on the other side of town or the Park. For example, even National Park staff mostly can’t tell you anything about the Park or the facilities or provide directions, etc., that isn’t within their specific realm of duties. Moreover, they often don’t want to admit their ignorance and give you faulty information. This happened time after time where I was given completely inaccurate and even misleading information by Park staff. Eventually I learned, reluctantly, to stop asking for information because getting bad information can be worse than getting none at all. It amazes me, for example, that the Parks don’t educate their staff about the entire Park so that they can be a good and accurate source of information for the visitors. But no, they are given a very specific job and told to perform those duties and nothing else. Even in the private sector, service providers have no clue about other businesses even within their own service sector. A lodge worker, for example, can’t tell you anything about the other lodges, even those that may only be a few kilometers way.

#3. Beautiful People. As a general rule, Africans, and this is a huge generalization, are a beautiful people. Of course, Africans are not one people, but rather many different cultures, ethnicities, etc. mixed up in a melting pot. Nevertheless, if you will allow me to generalize, most Africans have a nice physique because they don’t overeat and do manual labor to survive. But the most noticeable thing, and the thing that I am most jealous of, is their sparkling white teeth. I suppose this comes from not eating sugary foods all their lives, but perhaps it is simple genetics. Whatever the reason, they have the most beautiful smiles.

#4. Born Happy. I can’t say this with certainty, but it sure seems to me that the kids are mostly happy and fun-loving. They always seem to be playing and having fun and are almost always quick to smile, wave and yell hello as you pass them by – when they are not begging for handouts. What is remarkable is that they appear to be happy despite having almost nothing. Most play with nature’s offerings (e.g. sticks, rocks, etc.) and not consumer products – no consumerism here!

#5. Women Rule. In general, the division of labor between men and women is very apparent. With exceptions, the women always seem busy doing a wide variety of duties, from carrying water jugs from the community bore hole, to tending the vegetable garden, to washing the clothes (often in a nearby stream), to selling the excess household produce, to caring for the children, and many more tasks. I almost never see idle women – they are always busy doing something. In contrast, while there are certainly some ambitious, hard-working young men (and I met a few), the majority of the younger men – say in their late teens and twenties, are idle most of the time. Often, the young men are just lazily sitting around in small groups talking about who-knows-what and waiting for a golden opportunity to drop in their lap – which doesn’t happen. The worst part of it is that they are often being idle while the women are working hard right in front of them. The laziness and lack of work ethic among the men is appalling to me, although I must acknowledge that it stems in part from the lack of job opportunities. But if the men can’t find work they should at least help their women with their chores. The gender roles seem to be firmly set in stone in their culture. Personally, I don’t know how the women put up with it. Remember, this is a generalization and it doesn’t apply to all men.

#6. The Community Dumping Ground. One of the things that disgusted me the most driving through any settled area, ranging from small rural villages to large urban centers, was the obvious lack of pride in the environment. Trash is everywhere, and not just a piece here and there, but enough to be a total eye-sore., and probably a health hazard too in places. The people seem blind to it. It’s as if they grew up with a trashy environment all around them and came to accept it as normal and unworthy of attention. What really bothered me was the trashed out sites in National Parks and Reserves and the fact that the management did nothing about it. Again, I get the feeling that they just don’t see it as a problem.

#7. Gimmy, Gimmy, Gimmy. One of things you have to get use when traveling in Africa, especially if you are an independent overlander without an African guide, is the incessant begging for handouts. This is not completely ubiquitous throughout Africa, as it is prevalent in some regions, a minor occurrence in others, and completely absent in others. I don’t know why it is prevalent in some areas and not others, but I suspect it is a cultural difference. Some cultures abhore begging for charity while others accept it as perfectly acceptable behavior. I can’t tell you how many times I was approached for a handout – sometimes requesting food but other times money. Often times the request was made verbally in a language I didn’t understand, but the meaning was still clear, and at other times it was accompanied by body language (e.g., bringing the hand to the mouth). The sad thing about it is that you quickly realize that it is impossible and impractical to give out charity to every beggar, because your supplies wouldn’t last long, so you have no choice, or at least I felt like I didn’t have one, but to become immune to the begging. What was most disheartening was the young children begging; but again, you can’t give them all something because there are simply too many. My solution for some peace of mind was to pick out the most needy looking children, and the ones that were not begging but instead were either doing nothing or waving hello with a smile, and give them pencils, crayons, etc.. I never gave out food or money even though that is what they typically begged for.

A tactic used by many of the staff working in the Parks and Reserves is to tell you their life story and complain about how little salary they receive for their work and how difficult it is to survive and care for their family on their minimal income. It is clearly a plea for a charitable contribution without explicitly begging for a handout. I admit that I usually caved in and gave them some money for “all their good work”. Again, I don’t think this would happen if you were with a guide because they mostly insulate you from this, but for an independent overlander that seeks to interact with the staff, you can expect a lot of this behavior. I figured it was worth the few bucks each time to learn of an interesting life story.

#8. Where Have All the Trees Gone? The landscape in Africa is beautiful in so many ways, especially with the highly varied terrain ranging from tall mountains to deep valleys and extensive plains, but the forest cover has suffered badly at the hands of the human population. Outside of the National Parks and Reserves, deforestation is a serious problem, I might even say it’s a crisis. The trees are cut for a variety of purposes, including building materials, but even more so for the production of charcoal as a heating and cooking fuel. Most of the forested areas outside of the Parks and Reserves that I saw were intensively cutover. Trees reach a height of 10 feet or so and then get cut, resprout, grow to usable height, and get cut again, and again. So the forest is mostly what we call coppice, resprouted stems from stumps. I fear for the old forest-dependent wildife, especially as the pressures on the forest increase over time with the increasing population, which leads me to my next depressing observation.

#9. Island Parks. Due to development and deforestation driven by the growing human population, the Parks and Reserves have become terrestrial habitat “islands” for the wildlife. With some notable exceptions in which they are trying (but not succeeding as far as can tell) to connect multiple Parks and Reserves into a large interconnected network, such as in northern Zimbabwe and Southern Zambia, the Parks have become insular. There is simply no connectivity among Parks any more due to all the development and loss of forest. In fact, I never once saw any large wild mammals outside of a Park or Reserve, except in the game farms of South Africa in which target large mammal species are maintained for big game hunting. Consequently, most of the large mammals, including most of the large predators, have steadily declined in numbers over the past several decades. Current ranges of most of these species is a tiny percentage of their former historical ranges. The fate of many of these species over the long term is rather bleak I think. Many of these species will likely gradually fade away from the smaller Parks and Reserves, unless there is some major management intervention. Many of these species will likely survive in the really large Parks and Reserves, such as the greater Serengeti and central Kalahari, but this will be like having to go to a zoo, albeit a really big one, to see these species. I hope I am wrong!

#10. Security Paranoia. There’s no debating that Africans are paranoid about security. So many homes, schools and businesses are completely surrounded with a security fence, and almost every business has one or more tiers of security guards. For example, to go to a shopping mall in Nairobi, one has to enter through a guarded security gate in which your vehicle is searched, inside and out, then pass by roaming security guards in the parking lot, then go through a security scanning machine (like at the airport) to get into the mall, and, finally, pass through security guards at the entrance to each store. I swear that every 2nd or 3rd working person is in the security business – yes, I’m sure that this is an exageration, but I’m trying to make a point. On the one hand, the level of security seems ridiculously excessive, because 1/10th the number of security guards would be more than sufficient as a deterrent, but on the other hand, it serves as a huge employment basis for the people. In any event, safety for self and property when shopping is not much of an issue here. Note, in the rural areas, the security is minimal and you can visit a roadside stand or small shop without any security, but in these rural areas criminal activity is probably not a concern.

#11. The Human Tidal Wave. The median age in Africa is 19. Yes, 19! Almost every breeding age woman has a baby on her back, one in her arms and another at her side. More is apparently better in Africa, as all the young men I talked to all had multiple children. It is predicted that global human population growth is going to be dominated by growth in Africa. This comes as no surprise when you consider the demographics of this population – it is young and reproducing at an alarming rate, and thanks to improved health care – chief among them clean drinking water – child mortality rate has declined dramatically. I am concerned about the fate of all these people. Poverty is already widespread throughout most of rural Africa and some of the largest slums in the world are here as well. How is this country going to support the projected population growth from roughly 1.4 billion today to an estimated 2.5 billion by 2050? Africa has something like 60% of the world’s uncultivated arable land, which means that agriculture could be the solution, but it will require the use of agricultural technology (e.g., cultivation, fertilization, pest control), infrastructure (e.g., irrigation systems) and effective governmental involvement – which so far has not been one of Africa’s strong suites. I fear that the poverty is going to get worse before it gets better – if it ever does.

#12. Why aren’t you in School? I have said this before on this blog, but it’s worth saying again because it is so glaring. The vast majority of kids attend public schools (outside of the more affluent urban centers) and the issue here centers around the word “attend”. I rarely saw school children in the classroom – and for most rural schools this is easy to see since the buildings are usually open air – but rather playing outside in the school yard or coming late to school or leaving super early, or at home on one of the many school holidays. I don’t know the average number of actual classroom hours for students in primary and secondary school, but I can imagine it is in the 10-15 hours/week range. With this level of education, it is not surprising that Africa as a whole is stuck in the “3rd world”. Most of the kids are just not getting the education needed for them to move into the modern professional world. It’s very sad, because education is ultimately the single most important factor in determining long-term affluence and yet it doesn’t appear that the governments are doing much to change this culture.

#13. One Cow Equals 20 Goats. Throughout most of the area I travelled cows, goats and sheep were the primary basis for determining “wealth”. Almost every rural household had livestock, usually a mixture of the 3 species listed above, but sometimes with donkeys thrown into the mix. It is quite apparent from talking to some of the natives that livestock are worth to them far more than paper currency and, consequently, they take great care of their animals. The downside of this is that the countryside is completely grazed over. Much of the area is owned by tribes and is treated as community lands open for all to graze, resulting in a “trajedy of the commons”, in which there is great incentive for each individual to maximize their herd size and graze the communal lands as much as possible, lest others do so at your loss.

#14. Drive at Your Own Peril. I have repeatedly harped on the atrocious roads in Africa, with some notable exceptions, and thus it is worth repeating here for anyone considering driving in Africa. In some countries, deep potholes are the rule and they create a driving obstacle course, with every vehicle weaving their way through the pothole obstacles even if it means going into the oncoming traffic lane and risking head-on collision. Unmarked speed bumps, and broken perched asphalt surfaces add to the suite of road hazards. Even South Africa and Kenya, the two most developed coutries in the region, have some terrible roads in places – albeit the major national highways are in pretty good shape. Howver, if you are going to drive off the main highway system anywhere in Africa, you better do so with a really good suspension system and very durable tires. Adding to the hazardous road surfaces are the lunatic drivers. There aren’t many or even any enforced driving standards or laws that I observed, so the local drivers pretty much do what they want. Passing several cars on an outside curve with a precipitous road edge is standard business. And don’t even get me started on the 3-lane-wide roundabouts in the biggest cities like Nairobi, in which vehicles enter the roundabout and then weave and force their way across the lanes in a choatic scramble – it is totally maddening. Courtesy is not in the lexicon of drivers behind the wheel in Africa.

#15. Imagined Realities. I will keep this one brief so as to not offend anyone of a different opinon, but to state that Afrians are a highly religious people is an understatement. The missionaries and evangelicals have completely exploited the vulnerable people of this region by giving them a belief system or imagined reality built on fear (e.g., the devil) and false hope (e.g., heaven), and this religious fervor is maintained by aggressively indoctrinating the youth from day 1. If you think we have a lot of churches in the state, you haven’t seen anything until you have travelled in rural Kenya, which takes the cake on this front, because almost every third building is a church and every second bilboard is religious in content. The religious fervor here is overwhelming at times; e.g., flatbed trucks driving through town blasting prayers and preaching over load speakers. It would be really hard for any young person growing up to question this imagined reality.

#16. Mzungu. In Swahili the word “mzungu” means a foreigner, usually a white person. I suppose it gets used in a derogatory manner at times by some, but I heard it many times from people that said it with a smile and without any apparent ill intent. Indeed, when it comes out the mouth of an adorable little girl in a colorful dress, who is smiling and waving to me as I drive by her hut on a dirt road, I am happy to smile and wave back. One of the most important life lessons of this Africa trip was experiencing the feeling of what it is like to be a minority in the extreme. Most of the time during my journey I was the only white person to be seen. Everyone should experience what it is like to be a minority so that we can all learn to treat everyone as equal regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, ect. Of course, being a mzungo in Africa is quite different than being a black person in northern Idaho. Here, mzungus are generally looked up to for their priviledged lives, rather than down on as is so often the case when the skin color is reversed.

#17. Karibu. In Swahili the word “karibu” has multiple meanings, but it is most often used to say “welcome”. Karibu is an apt word for what I felt most of the time during my travels. The only place I didn’t feel 100% welcome was in a couple of Reserves in Kenya, where the safari guides/drivers gave the impression of resentment, presumably because they don’t like independent self-drivers like me depriving them of business. But overall, Africans are extremely welcoming and grateful to the tourists for creating jobs and giving them a livelihood. Unfortunately, most tourists, I dare say 99% based on what I saw, are guided on their travels by one or more native Africans and are kept somewhat insulated from the genuine karibu attitude of the locals. Travelling as an independent gave me the chance to experience the sincere karibu attitude of most Africans.

#18. I Feel Safe. Despite what you might hear, which itself is mostly just unsubstantiated heresay or exagerated and sensationalized by the media or the state departments, Africa is an extremely safe place to travel. If you travel with a guide, you will have zero safety concerns. I travelled by myself and off the beaten path much of the time, but I also spent time in the larger urban centers and cities, and I never, not even once, ever felt concern for my personal safety or that of my vehicle. Sure, I probably wouldn’t park my vehicle and walk alone through a slum in South Africa or Nairobi, but outside these focal points, Africa is a safe and welcoming place with exceptionally friendly and helpful people.

Well, I could probably keep going on with more observations but my layover in Frankfurt is nearing an end and you are probably tired of reading my ramblings, so I am going to end it here. I hope you enjoyed reading about my observations and gained some additional perspective on this wonderfully diverse and engaging continent. Cheers!