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Dark Star Safari- Paul Theroux

Dark Star Safari is a book on Paul Theroux's travels from Cairo to Cape Town mostly overland (something I would like to do). He gives interesting insight of his view on Africa and Africans after almost 40 years of having lived and worked there both as an educator in Malawi (where he was thrown out after being accused of trying to help dissidents overthrow the increasingly dictatorial Kamuzu Banda) to Uganda where he met V.S Naipul and with whom he later fell out with.
The book takes to some very interesting parts of Africa where even most city born Africans have no idea exists. He also takes the reader on a journey through ancient Nubia whose cities are still being uncovered and people there are relearning their history.
He goes through Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya (where he almost got shot), Uganda, Tanzania,Malawi, Canoes (I thought that was really cool) into Mozambuique and heads into South Africa.

Egypt.
Cairo is the first stop. He visits the Pyramids and meets/see and gives an interesting account of the diverse people that make Egypt from a Prince of Turkish descent,to Expatriate Europeans and Americans who always ask what he is going to do in Africa( forgetting, like a lot of people do, that Egypt is in continental Africa),to the local intelligentsia, to the Nubians who mostly populate the Southern part.

Sudan

He goes to Khartoum where he meets and talks to the descendant of 'the Maahdi'. The Maahdi gave the brits a hard time in Sudan when they in the process of fulfilling their 'manifest destiny of empire'. He gives an account of a Sufi ceremony on the outskirts of Khartoum, before he goes up North to what was Ancient Nubia where he comes across anti-bush sentiments and the yearning to come to America juxtaposed almost everywhere he goes in Sudan. He has an interesting conversation with the Sudan literati and a Sudanese man who immigrated to the US and comes to Sudan once in a while for business.

Ethiopia

Here he gives a most interesting account of the walled city of Harrar, where life seems to have stayed as it was during medieval
ages. Almost makes you want to go there and see it yourself. He gives some interesting stories of meeting with missionaries and making friend with an Ethiopian driver and his young son who drive all the way Moyale, Ethiopia.

Kenya
From Moyale Kenya, he gets on the local transport( a truck taking goods south(Marasabit). On the way they get shot at by bandits, have a tire puncture with no spare in sight, meets the 'development set'( aid workers that like me has a dislike for) and gets to Nairobi where he talks to Wahome Mutahi( before he died) about what he went through at Nyayo house. The accounts by Wahome Mutahi, which include a meeting his torturer in a matatu years later, gives a disturbing view of the dark side of the Nyayo Era. Interestingly someone mentioned to him that Kibaki was the cleanest politician in Kenya at the time(this was a year before elections) adding that he(Kibaki) had never hurt anyone to stay on top. I wonder what that person would say now.

Uganda
He goes through western Kenya to Uganda where he meets his old friends most of whom are now in Government. He gives a very interesting account of the way they behave. Some of the stuff was just plain funny. He then takes a Ferry from Uganda to Mwanza where he meets a young apprentice who works in the engine room diligently studying in the din so that he can pass his next exam be promoted.

Tanzania
Travels from Mwanza by Train and then takes a bus to the border with Malawi. Here, he details the train breaking down, to the distraught European aid worker who keeps being propositioned for sex buy men wherever she goes to work.To the white south African couple taking a trip through southern/ Eastern Africa.

Malawi
His knowledge of chichewa helps out alot and even helps him get by without bribing the border guards. He goes to the school he helped start and is dismayed to see that things are even worse than he left it 40 years ago. He vows never to come back or to send a book there.
He meets with the local intelligentsia and here we get introduced to
The term P.H.D(Pull him/her down) attitude you find in many third world countries( including Kenya). He gives an account of empty shops in the rural areas that used to belong to Asian businessmen who were chased away by Kamuzu banda. He gets livid when a VC of the University asks him to send his son to teach there, yet that VC has several kids who have graduated and live in Europe and USA who can do the same but he does not ask the same of himself. He notches it down to Selfishness prevalent with African Elites and declines the 'offer'.

Mozambique,
Gets to Mozambique by canoe from Malawi. The accounts of the boat ride is so vivid you can almost smell the marshes. He also gives a historical account of the places he goes to which is quiet illuminating. He gets into a theological argument with another aid worker out in Africa to save Africans from themselves and to off course show them the right path to God. He then takes of by bus to South Africa.

South Africa
The accounts he gives on his way make the contrast so evident.The most striking contrast is the lights for most of the way when in South Africa. In the other parts of Africa, he had gone for miles without even seeing so much as the flicker of a candle. In contrast the roads in South Africa are lined with lights from homes, industry and billboards. Not to mention the comparative smoothness of the roads. He goes around South Africa and meets up with the South African couple he had met in Tanzania and gives interesting accounts of race relations, the new south African and other personal reflection. He ends his trip in Cape town with a final personal reflection

“It is so much worse for Africans. The most civilized ones I met never used the word "civilisation'. The wickedest believed themselves to be anointed leaders for life, and wouldn't let go of their delusion. The worst of them stole from foreign donors and their own people , like the lowest thieves who rob the church's poor boxes. The kindest
Africans had not changed at all, and even after all theses years the best of them are bare-assed.”

There are so many interesting episodes through out the book that what I have typed does not even scratch the surface.
A very interesting read, if you want to take a cerebral Safari through the countries mentioned and get a quasi-outsider's view of the places.



Author Profile
http://www.paultheroux.com/biography/index.htm

Book Synposis
http://www.paultheroux.com/nonfictio...tar.safari.htm

-----Ukiishi kwa Upanga, Utakufa kwa Upanga---