Into Africa

When I first went to Africa in 1977, I headed straight to the home of Karen Blixen, author of Out of Africa and one of the world’s better storytellers. Daisy Rothschild (seen here at the Giraffe Manor) became a neighbor, as was Beryl Markham, author of West With the Night.

My greatest fortune was to see this terrain in the company of local experts, or those I imported.  With Harvard professor Stephen Jay Gould in tow, I searched for fossils alongside Richard and Meave Leakey  On location with filmmakers Alan and Joan Root I learned the patience required for watching and recording wildlife behavior. Christmas was spent with Cynthia Moss at her research camp beneath the shadow of Mt. Kilimanjaro. Elephants came into focus again with Iain and Oria Douglas-Hamilton.  When Kuki Gallmann wrote I Dreamed of Africa she asked me what to wear on her book tour in the U.S. (I suggested she drape a Kenya sarong over her shoulder, which became a signature with Kuki’s appearances.) Now when I encounter Nobel Peace Prize winner Professor Wangari Maathai at the annual Clinton Global Initiative, I know enough Swahili to welcome this brave leader of the Green Belt Movement to New York.

Now Africa has become the flavor of the decade. Vanity Fair devoted a special issue to Africa in 2007, but author and fellow member of the Explorers Club, Paul Theroux, put it best in a September 30 New York Times book review of a new biography of Henry Morton Stanley. 

“Poor Africa, the happy hunting ground of…the rock star buffing up his or her image, the missionary with a faith to sell, the child buyer, the retailer of dirty drugs …the aid worker, the tycoon wishing to rid himself of his millions….”  

None of the above, I spent Christmas at Fatuma’s Towers in Lamu, and New Year’s Eve on the Tusitiri Dhow and now plot my 32nd safari, in June.