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Lessons learned
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Lessons learned: consolidated list. First, My choice of the best overall place visited is based on the variety of things I discovered that captured my senses: animals roaming the streets or climbing the buildings, a jungle rain forest pathway to walk soaked by mist from the wind blown waterfall spray, the fog shrouded falls themselves rarely seen but roaring their majesty, the excited young people bungi-jumping into the deep gorge from the damp bridge near the falls, the massive concentration of native crafts gathered from countless tribes far and wide, the native musicians and dancers strategically located along the ways where rich foreign tourists strolled, the creature comforts offered by lodges, the real Africa and its people unselfconsciously living with simple traditions mere kilometers from the plastic tourist enclaves, the hyper-inflation and wads of currency passing hands on the streets, and the monumental reminders that this is where western knowledge of the "dark continent" began. Like the Academy Awards, the runner-ups are numerous and wonderful, but must I pick one? If so, then it is Victoria Falls Zimbabwe. Second, Something I vaguely knew before the trip is now vividly apparent: the land below the Sahara Desert is a different world from that above. Arab Africa sits in the northern half and black Africa sits in the southern. There is some overlap in religion and ethnicities, especially around the margins, but by and large what most of us think of as "Africa," black Africa starts below the sands. North Africa is definitely a part of "Arabia." I feel silly admitting this after all the geography I've studied first hand. Third, I have been vividly reminded time and again on this trip that what already resides in my brain is more important than almost any new experience I can imagine. Deprived of direct face to face interactions with people I love, my mind aided by communications through the Internet takes over and recreates the feelings of having you here walking the dusty streets of small villages or bouncing around in a crowded matatu threading its way to some remote place in Uganda. On occasion I can feel the pressures of your handshake, your hugs. What a remarkable piece of electrified meat, that brain of ours! Worth repeating. Fourth, There are very few animals wandering around habitable places in Africa! People becoming lion lunch are rare exceptions; about as likely as being hit by lightening at the Fourth of July picnic. Wildlife parks are another matter. I'll always remember the thrill of driving into a large herd of Giraffe slowly crossing the dirt road in the Serengeti National Park of Tanzania, driving for hours never out of sight of hundreds... even thousands of animals and dozens of different species. Unmolested by humans, they pretty much ignored us in our Range Rover allowing eyeball-to-eyeball encounters. Fifth, I started this chapter in my personal book of world travels expecting to find more examples of "Green Lines," places where physical geographical lines divide people with diametrically opposed religious, political or ethnic perspectives. As a matter of fact, I found none. Sub-Saharan Africa is more like those areas adjacent to all green lines where mixed populations can be found more or less living in harmony with one another, despite the hardened attitudes of the radical elements within each of their groups at the lines themselves. That doesn't mean there is no racial antagonism; I did see evidence of that, plenty of it... white against black in the south, tribe against tribe all over eastern Africa, the people against the corrupt in power in west Africa, the landless against farmers, the poor powerless against the privileged rich. I am sure there are quiet battle lines that I missed, but the unrest I personally saw was geographically diffused. Sixth, Reliable scheduled transportation by and large is a luxury reserved for developed countries in the northern hemisphere. One can always get from one place to another anywhere in Africa with enough patience and perseverance, discovering the secrets of it is often daunting. Much travel negotiation is not for the faint of heart outside the major capital cities. Seventh, A full sized bar of bath soap is a sensible investment for hotel stays of more than a single night. Such a cheap investment increases the joy of a shower even in most first class hotels and makes washing clothes each evening practical. The laundry services of many hotels are outrageously expensive and waiting for clothes to be returned can complicate departure planning. Eighth, Traveling in the developing world with contact lenses presents occasional problems, but all are easily solvable. Sealed bottled water makes absolute cleanliness possible and cleaning/storage solutions can be obtained with delays of a few days at most anywhere in the bush. Ninth, Away from the major cities in east, west, and central Africa white skin actually does denote wealth. The poorest white person is almost always far richer than the wealthiest black person in a village. The range of reaction to this reality runs the spectrum from awe to envy. Perhaps more important, poverty does not equate with lives devoid of abundant joy; preoccupation with those in more affluent circumstances does. Tenth, Long before this epic journey became even a dream I had been struggling with the reality that most members of the human species are inclined to incorporate blind faith into their world views. Irrational, unscientific, passionate, blinding individuals to conflicting knowledge; it long seemed a destructive force interjected into the human drama with no purpose other than to confound our highest sensibilities. Long periods of forced solitude have given me ample time to think about this conundrum. If it is such a bad thing, than why is it so pervasive through human time and space? Then a profound truth struck me: Evolution has selected EVERY aspect of the human organism to maximize survivability. Faith, blind faith has helped individuals stay alive long enough to leave descendants! All of my forebears lived long enough to produce offspring, while some of their contemporaries did not, and faith played a significant role in deciding who did and who did not. Given the extraordinary variability we find in the objects of faith, it would seem to be the faith itself and not the objects that make the difference. Faith in a feathered serpent, a mystical unifying force, a scientific theory, an invisible super human presence, a particularly charismatic or powerful fellow human, or the foot of a dead rabbit; all provide the believer advantages over skeptics in his tribe and time. On this trip I have seen many examples of this idea: still primitive people trusting their health to "witch doctors," their safety and fortunes to wood or stone totems. Life in some of the places I visited is precarious, but individuals with the superior faith retain an advantage. On occasion I discussed these ideas with well educated Africans who confessed to retaining some of the old beliefs in order to successfully interact with family and friends whenever they visited their tribal villages, setting aside the primitive ways upon returning to the modern cities. For them, it is a practical matter: it could be and often is dangerous to ignore the "primitive" superstitious witchcraft beliefs of their native communities. Being "hexed" by someone is no laughing matter; people die or are killed by "Juju" every year, especially in rural Africa. Not believing in the practice is no protection! In fact, it would be rather foolhardy to make light of the subject in this part of the world. Eleventh, Danger to travelers is greatly exaggerated by well meaning people, creating unnecessary fear and likely resulting in increased vulnerability for the more timid traveler. Being in Africa in the presence of the great predators has sensitized me to the deeper lessons to be learned from the many "true life adventure" films I've seen over the years. Twelfth, Africans viewed as a group are pretty much the same as Americans or Chinese: some smart, some dumb; some compassionate, some uncaring; some skeptical, some gullible; etc. Most people are pretty much average, not unlike their counterparts elsewhere in the world. Contemporary research findings that black people generally score lower on various measures of intelligence seems at variance with my own observations of general mental capabilities with one exception: people I encountered in Africa often did indeed seem to take more time to reason and respond to my perturbations. When I mused aloud about this observation, well educated Africans on more than one occasion observed that "you Americans are so impatient..." To live in Africa is to live patiently. Thirteenth, Access to the Internet has oozed into the smallest, most backward, poorest towns on the African continent. Even in most of the dusty rural villages lacking running water and full power line distribution I found public Internet cafes, sometimes housed in unbelievably primitive shelters. In one such establishment I watched as the staff helped an elderly lady successfully place an Internet telephone call! Equipment varied from old 100 MHz Pentium I machines running Windows 95 to the latest 2000 MHz computer offerings with Windows 2000 or NT. Cyber-cafe operators invariably spoke (Internet) English. Access costs averaged under $2/hr. Of course, I've forgotten many important lessons learned in my explorations. Hopefully some will demand to be remembered at an appropriate future time when a keyboard can suck them from my fingertips. Fred Bellomy
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