It was Africa Day, celebrated across the continent, as we left Guma Lagoon Camp, which seemed an appropriate time to reflect upon my impressions of Africa so far. While we were yet to reach the poor M countries, we had now seen a fair bit of the place.
Africa was an event. It was complex, surprising, unpredictable. It threw up issues and problems to be dealt with or overcome, and then either threw up solutions and alternatives, or just a shrug and a smile. ‘No problems, boss!’ I felt Benison and I had selected the location and route of the trip well. The unpredictability was perfect for our intended purpose. We’d started in the relatively familiar cosmopolitanism of Cape Town and now things were becoming progressively more challenging. I felt that if we’d been facing the current circumstances when we first set out, neither Sam nor I would have coped. Both of us had developed new skills and coping abilities. Sam was now pining to return not so much to Sydney but to Cape Town, Durban or even Windhoek. I reflected back on how dependent I’d been on Max and The Fixer’s help in the first week.
Mind you, experienced traveller as I might now consider myself, I’d still managed to leave my torch behind at Guma Lagoon Camp. I knew exactly where I’d left it, under the pillow. Oh well, another item to add to the list of lost things.
Our physical ailments remained. Sam’s facial rash had flared, worsened by the Kalahari’s parched atmosphere and the stress of hard travelling. My tennis elbow still troubled me. I would forget occasionally and heave a backpack with my left arm, only to quickly pay the penalty.
Another long day on the road, another border crossing. These guards showed more lassitude than attitude. We headed up to and along the Caprivi Strip, an elongated thin extension of Namibia that the German colonists annexed to give Germany access to the Zambezi and a route to their eastern colony Tanganyika, now Tanzania. We stopped overnight at a campsite; another river full of hippos and crocs, another indemnity form to be signed. Fortunately, I was again able to upgrade our accommodation, and Tuhafeni told me this would be possible for the remaining stops on the tour. It would be expensive, but it was a relief. I announced that we were hitherto to be known as the rich wankers of the group.
Sam polished off his poached chicken and potato dinner while I had another cup of rooibos tea, for which I’d developed quite a liking in the absence of good coffee. Sam was still trying new foods, but unfortunately called Alfeus bald to his face, and lost some points as a consequence. As I walked from the dinner fire back to our hut—in darkness, because I no longer had a torch—I whacked my right shin on a low post lining the path. I gingerly inspected the injury: a nasty laceration and a bruise to add to my list of injuries. A Simpson’s style ‘Ha ha!’ was Sam’s not-so-sympathetic response.
The next morning we visited a traditional village: a gaggle of thatched rondavels inside a two-metre-high fence made of thin sticks. There were displays of traditional animal traps. Women sieved, and pounded with mortar and pestle. An old man pumped bellows to fire a small smith used to shape iron spear tips. The women then danced to a drum beat before a witchdoctor emerged from a hut chanting—according to our interpreter—about how we would all have a safe journey home. I wondered how authentic it really was. It was clear there was a commercial drive behind it—I doubt most traditional African villages have their own gift shops.
However, once the young fellow who’d showed us around finished the short tour, he relaxed. Yes, it was contrived, put on for the tourists, he admitted, but he pointed to a village a hundred metres away where they all actually lived, and it looked very similar, although messier and with more dogs. They still used these tools and wore these clothes, though the traditional dress was now mixed with recycled clothing, handed down from rich Westerners. They did regularly sing these songs and dance these dances. They took pride in their culture.
Sam was taking next to no notice, and seemed more interested in his fingers, declaring the performance boring and saying he didn’t like the music because it wasn’t rock. He was certainly correct there. The witchdoctor freaked him out too—and me a bit, truth be told. The American aid worker in our group wryly observed that he was secretly hoping the witchdoctor would ‘cure’ Sam’s autism, which would have been a major scientific breakthrough but would have made the rest of the trip less interesting in the process.
We reached Katima Mulilo, the regional capital of Caprivi, and stocked up on supplies. On a large billboard near the shopping centre car park the mayor of the city declared that he used a condom, so every man should. The devastation of the HIV epidemic was revealed in the frankness of the message.
In the supermarket Sam wanted a Sprite. I didn’t want him to have one in the morning; our rule was that we had no fizzy drinks at least until lunchtime. I suggested a flavoured milk.
Sam persisted. ‘No, I want a Sprite.’
‘I said no. If you insist on having it, it will mean an automatic six.’
He lifted his chin high and pointed to the floor. ‘No. I want an eight and a Sprite.’
I tried to be firm but fair. ‘No, them’s the rules, Sam. It’s your decision.’
I left it up to him and refused to discuss it further. He ended up buying the Sprite, but was in two minds about whether it was worth getting an automatic six, and hesitated to actually drink it.
It was Sam’s own marshmallow experiment. In the landmark series of experiments conducted at Stanford University in the 1960s and 1970s, a child was offered the choice between an immediate reward, usually one marshmallow, or two rewards if they waited a short period, like fifteen minutes. The tester would leave the room and often video the child’s behaviour as they grappled with the dilemma of delayed gratification.
Mastering delayed gratification demonstrates self-control, and can predict better outcomes in education, professions and life generally. It was a skill I was interested in developing with Sam, but I was also conscious of not wanting to push him too hard. Sam sat at the back of the bus looking longingly at the unopened can of Sprite in his hand. I loosened the criteria a bit. ‘You only have to wait until midday, and then you can drink it and not get the automatic six.’
‘What time is it?’
‘11.30 a.m.’
He squirmed through the half hour, but he made it. Proud of himself, he drank the Sprite and the rest of the truck, myself included, smiled with relief.
As Tuhafeni steered the truck out of town, I noticed a large government development being built, once again, by a Chinese construction company. Throughout our two months of travel, we had frequently seen Chinese-funded developments. Even in Lesotho, the roads were being upgraded by Chinese companies. Apparently this is a continent-wide phenomenon, and it’s not only China, but also Brazil, Russia and India investing in African development. These countries are referred to by the acronym BRIC: they’re all rapidly developing economies increasingly looking beyond their own shores for financial opportunities. Some economists see them threatening the global dominance of G7 economies in the next few decades.
Witnessing it on the ground, I wondered whether this was potentially just a new wave of economic colonialisation for Africa. I suppose foreign investment is a healthy thing, but considering what happened with colonialisation the first time around, I couldn’t help but think it would be preferable to see Africans driving change in a developing Africa.
At lunch, Sam got talking to a fellow traveller, Peter, who had an extensive academic background that included arts, biology, cognitive psychology and IT. I started the ball rolling by asking him what the mathematical term was for a one followed by a hundred zeros.
Peter and Sam replied in unison: ‘A googol.’
Peter knew it just because he knew it. Sam knew it because it was the origin of the name of Google.
Sam turned to Peter. ‘What year did Google start?’
Peter thought about it. ‘Mid nineties?’
‘1996.’
Peter nodded and raised his eyebrows, impressed. ‘Yes, that would be correct.’
Sam and Peter then discussed, in a friendly but competitive fashion, the release dates of various Windows programs, the origins of the computer, the history of Nintendo and a whole bunch of stuff that no one else on the bus had any idea about. Sam was enjoying the challenge of talking to someone who knew a lot about what he liked. When Sam gets on a roll, he gets on a roll.
The truck churned up the kilometres, interrupted only by police checks; foot-and-mouth disease stops where we walked our muddy shoes through gooey black water, presumably to stop the virus hitching a ride; cows meandering onto the bitumen; and our third border crossing in four days.
The border crossing into Botswana was the most spectacular I’d ever seen: beyond the cyclone-wire fences elephants gathered beneath huge baobab trees, a fish eagle perched on a nearby tree and buffalo grazed on the vast river valley stretching into the distance.
We asked Tuhafeni if we could walk up to the fence to get a closer look at one of the elephants. ‘That would not be a good idea,’ he replied.
‘He’s behind a fence,’ I said.
‘That fence is nothing to him. He is a wild elephant. He would sweep it away in a second and kill you.’ It was a convincing argument. We stayed put.
It turned out to be so picturesque because Chobe National Park was immediately across the border. There was wildlife everywhere. Chobe National Park contains one of Africa’s largest concentrations of game, but unfortunately it also seemed to have one of the largest concentrations of tourists, usually rich ones. The village in the park was complete with a supermarket, ATM and currency exchange, and a large resort. It had decent wi-fi, so Sam was happy. I winced to think how much it was going to cost us to upgrade to a room here for two nights. I consoled myself that we’d soon be able to live on diddly squat in Malawi.
That night, Sam saw the resort’s impressive buffet and took off for it, like a moth to a flame, with me in hot pursuit.
‘No, Sam, we’re not allowed to eat here!’
Sam stopped and turned. ‘Why?’
‘That’s for rich people.’
After surveying the diners, most of whom were now watching us as Sam’s loud voice and bouncing walk gathered attention, he corrected me, again way too loudly: ‘It is for rich OLD people.’ How to Insult Fifty People at Once, by Samuel Thomas Best. I tried to bundle him out of the dining area as he continued. ‘It is for old people. They are old. They have grey and white hair. Even more grey than you, Dad.’
Make that fifty-one people. Sam pointed at some poor guy. ‘Look, white hair!’
We awoke before dawn to be loaded into one of many open four-wheel drive trucks. The drivers constantly chatted with each other on the two-way radios, to direct everyone to wherever the interesting animals were. It was very cold in the open truck. There were animals everywhere—giraffes, warthogs, hippos, hyenas, monkeys, birds—but the driver was trying to track a lion. Occasionally he’d slow the truck, open his door and lean out as the truck rolled along to examine the sandy track. I thought he was bunging it on at first, but it was authentic; he was a real bushman.
We drove past a thousand-head herd of buffalo and a congress of baboons. The two species have a synergistic relationship: the baboons are sentinels high in the trees and shake fruit down for the impalas, which, with better hearing and vision, can alert the baboons to approaching predators. This cooperation collapses during famine and drought, when baboons steal and eat newborn impalas. The natural world is brutal.
There were radio reports of a sighting of a leopard at the far end of the park. We were the fourth of eight trucks to arrive, which all collected at the bottom of the tree, from where glimpses of the leopard’s coat and face could be seen with binoculars through the dense foliage. Apparently, after she’d killed an impala, a pride of lions had chased her up the tree and taken the kill for themselves. Jackals and vultures hovered, hoping for a share.
I felt like a vulture, too. The leopard was engaged in a life-and-death struggle, all the while being gawked at by a herd of strange primates in noisy machines. Eventually the trucks departed, one by one, leaving her alone to her fate.
Sam was struggling with the cold and his facial rash was bothering him. He huddled in the vehicle wrapped in a blanket, legs drawn up onto the seat and staring into space. He only occasionally looked out to the animals at my prompting. Sam can’t use binoculars well so he never saw the leopard. He did, however, like the baby baboons clinging onto their mother’s abdomens, and the monkey trying to steal biscuits from our group when we stopped for a cuppa.
After the tour we had a break to recharge, both our electrical appliances and ourselves. I let Sam play his DS; he’d had a very early start to the day and seemed tired. In the afternoon, we were meant to go on a river cruise. I wasn’t sure whether he was up to it or not. But when I asked around about what the trip was like it was strongly recommended, so I pushed through and took him.
Sam became angry and argumentative as we waited on the dock. I was worried he was going to get physical, but he managed to reel it in, just. The boat, carrying more than fifty people, had the same touristy feeling as the morning drive. For much of the three-hour tour Sam was struggling; he lay on the floor of the boat, stimming by flicking his fingers in front of his face or staring into space. He shouted to me about banknotes or other obscure obsessions while the guide was making announcements about the wildlife, or when we were meant to be quiet so as not to spook the animals. I was beginning to regret my decision to come.
I gave him my notebook and pen and he proceeded to draw his favourite obsessions: Harry Potter, Super Mario, gaming consoles, the alphabet, numbers and notes and coins from different countries. It took him over an hour; it was like a form of meditation. Psychologists would call it self-regulation.
But when the boat approached a large pod of hippos Sam looked up. While honking a warning, the alpha male breached and bared his massive gaping mouth and teeth. It’s hard to appreciate how big a hippopotamus can get until you see a large male up close and personal. He was bold as brass and probably stupid enough to attack the big boat, but we were certainly safe.
Sam loved it, as well as the long line of elephants perambulating up the banks of the river as our launch glided alongside. Soon a buffalo, stranded on one of the islands on the river, decided to try to swim to another island. The islands were safe havens from predators, but when the grass ran out, the buffaloes had to get past the crocs to move on. As the buffalo took off, a croc a couple of hundred metres away saw an opportunity and set off in pursuit. It was touch and go whether the buffalo would make it, and Sam was fascinated by the life-and-death race, cheering for the buffalo. He made it!
As the sun set over the river and the flat expanses of the valley beyond, the sky lit up in myriad colours, reflected in the waters below. The river cruise ended up not being too bad, despite the poor start. I made a mental note that this was not the first time this had happened with a tired Sam on the trip; a floundering start but finishing with a wet sail.