PROLOGUE

Thumbing One’s Way Through Africa

‘I bet I can hitchhike from Cape Town to Cairo.’ Mehmed Demirer was never short of ways to shake up a typical, dull winter afternoon in Cambridge. In January 1960, talking travel with friends over tea, Mehmed threw down his challenge. No one seemed impressed. So Mehmed added: ‘£100. Any takers?’ College mate Alistair Pirie across the table held up his hand: ‘£100 that you can’t.’

They set out the conditions: where there were roads and civilian traffic Mehmed would hitchhike; where there were no roads he would use public transportation of his choice. He would make a detailed list of lifts taken and show evidence of public transport where hitchhiking was physically impossible.

The bet was on.

In May 1960, a military junta overthrew the government of Adnan Menderes in Turkey, and arrested all members of parliament, including Mehmed’s cabinet minister father. Rather than hang around, and advised to steer clear of Turkey for the moment, Mehmed flew to Johannesburg where he worked for six weeks to earn enough money for his hitchhiking journey home.

In late August, he started out from the Cape. Easy stretches followed via Johannesburg to Salisbury (now Harare). The old green African bus took Mehmed from Salisbury across the great Zambezi River through a bit of Mozambique, where he drank his worst beer ever, to Blantyre where he stayed in the best hotel for £2 and ate his biggest breakfast ever; they served steak with breakfast in ‘British’ East-Central Africa in those days. In Blantyre he interviewed Dr Hastings Banda in prison and started asking political questions. Banda shouted: ‘Get out!’ Mehmed did; Banda remained in jail. Six years later Bob, then a working journalist in central Africa, did a survey of Malawi. The now President Banda received him with due dignity in State House. After initial niceties, Bob dug into politics. ‘Get out!’ shouted Dr Banda. It was the shortest interview Bob ever conducted in his journalistic career. Bob ignored or had forgotten Mehmed’s precedent. Banda knew nothing of Bob and Mehmed’s shared past.

On from Blantyre, a British lady schoolteacher gave Mehmed a through lift to Dar-es-Salaam, all of seven days on the road. From Dar Herr Leo Rebholz from the Nairobi Volkswagen garage took him to Nairobi. From Nairobi a certain Shafiq Arain took him to Kampala. From Uganda Mehmed took the Nile boat to Juba. And so on to Khartoum, to Wadi Halfa by train, and onwards to journey’s end in Cairo.

Mehmed had earned his £100. He did not get his cheque – he settled with Alistair Pirie for a slap-up lunch instead. Alistair at least paid the bill.

But an idea was born in the old green African bus between Salisbury and Blantyre. Mehmed thought: ‘Next year and after graduation, a longer journey in my own vehicle to Asia.’ In Nyasaland, as Malawi was called then, and in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) he had heard from schools and the university about their education systems. Comparative education study could be the key to open many doors.

On return to Cambridge in October 1960, he broached the idea first with his college mate, Tony Thompson: ‘Would you like to go to Asia after finals and study comparative education?’ Tony jumped at the idea. That is how it all started.