Taming African Elephants?

 

a review of A Training School for Elephants – Retracing a Curious Episode in the European Grab for Africa, by Sophy Roberts, Atlantic Monthly Press, New York, 2025.

         This is an intriguing book. It tracks two efforts to domesticate African elephants.  One was marginally successful and the other a failure. Both had Belgian antecedents.  The first try was commanded by King Leopold who in 1879 ordered domesticated Indian elephants be transported to Africa to be used to capture and tame wild African beasts. The idea was to utilize elephants as pack animals for the transport of goods, especially ivory. Most of the book relates that story – the trials of ocean transport from India to Africa, a difficult landing near Dar es Salaam, the months long trek across the interior of then-Tanganika territory along caravan routes ultimately to Lake Tanganika. The trek was replete with hostilities, leadership squabbles, disease, lack of food and fodder, bad water and challenging terrain.  Author Roberts uses excerpts from diaries, letters, reports and other documentation to describe the effort. The nineteenth century observations are counterbalanced by comments by Roberts as she and two colleagues retraced the old caravan route.  Of course, for them much had changed; vehicles, roads and rail provided better access, but the terrain remained the same. Even so, modern day adventurers could sense the difficulties and frustrations earlier travelers experienced, especially those herding four ungainly elephants. Ultimately, as one might suspect, this was the failed venture. I enjoyed the fact that Roberts took time to sit down with contemporary chiefs and leaders to tap their community’s memories of events a hundred and fifty years old.  

The successful effort to tame African elephants was mounted in the Belgian Congo in the 1920s at a place called Gangala-na-Bodio. There, several dozen elephants were tamed enough to permit riding and hauling.  However, the utility of using animal labor for such tasks was already being overtaken by machines.  Ultimately, without economic rational, the training effort just faded away. 

This book is well researched and written. It brings little known bizarre efforts to light. Readers can’t help but admire the grit and determination of those involved even while recognizing the folly of the undertaking.

Mystery and Murder in Kenya

 

A review of The House at Mbabati by Samantha Ford

                Samantha Ford is a British author who sets many of her books in Africa.  The House at Mbabati is no exception.  The plot revolves around killings that took place years ago and the denials and coverups that ensued. All, however, is carefully revealed via an intrepid journalist. Of course, there is a remarkable twist at the end.  Even so, it is a well-paced story which is an entertaining read.

The Kenya setting is quite okay although some of the European social antics were more appropriate in colonial times than in the eighties where the story is set.  Luke, the African retainer is a bit mythical, but he is needed for the story.  He is, however, the only African in the mix.  The house itself is overblown, but also necessary. Exaggeration adds to the enjoyment.

Being the nitpicker that I am, I found several inconsistencies in descriptions. First was the presence of Maasai warrior cattle keepers alongside the road north from Nairobi to Nyeri and Nanyuki.  Although certainly symbolic of Kenya, that is not their turf.  Secondly, arriving by ship in Mombasa, then taking a ferry to the mainland to catch the train is wrong. True Mombasa is an island, but it is connected to the mainland via causeway over which the railroad runs. No need for a ferry.  Thirdly, the business of the plantation associated with Mbabati was sisal. Yet the area – two hours north of Nanyuki – is not one of Kenya’s sisal growing areas. It is ranch land. Finally, the title, dissecting Mbabati in Swahili: M denotes place, so, the title means house at the location of babati.  I can’t find a definition of babati. That’s okay it can be made up, which it apparently is. I like the fact that the title is redundant. It actually reads The House at at babati.  The two closest Swahili words are mbali which means far away or mbati which is metal roofing.

Nitpicks aside I enjoyed the book.

Books Available!

 My books - Finding Kony, The Last Rhino, Freida's Secret and My African Anthology are all available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble and other electronic bookstores. None of them are expensive.  Paper and ebooks are both available. Reviews for the books are found in this blog which focuses on reviews and commentaries about Africa, especially books set in or about Africa. I trust new readers will find something of interest in this blog and/or in my African stories.  

Utter Balderdash!

 

A comment on Rwanda’s 30-year assault on Congo – the crimes, the criminals and the cover-up by Judi Rever

    Conspiracy advocate Judi Rever describes violence that has plagued eastern Congo for the past thirty years. She accuses Rwandan President Paul Kagame of being behind it all. Furthermore, she alleges that the conflict, especially the deaths of hundreds of thousands (her figure) of Rwandan Hutu refugees, were the result of intentional American policy.  Specifically, that the U.S. government aided and abetted Rwandan and Ugandan forces and their local proxies in order to murder the Hutus, depose Mobutu and secure mineral rights to the region.  Her allegations in that regard are simply spurious.

    Woven within her bag of lies are some facts including accurate quotations from me and other American ambassadors. Even though she quotes us, Rever blithely dismisses our statements as fabrications designed to cover-up American involvement.  Rever especially impugns the reputation of Robert Houdek, accusing him of being a CIA mastermind, but who in reality as a State Department retiree, headed up the USAID team in Kisangani and liaised with UNHCR in the successful effort to repatriate thousands of refugees to Rwanda.

    No student or observer of the region, including American diplomats, doubt that violence, some of it horrific, occurs there.  Rever names some of the African cast responsible. Yet, she returns to the allegation that somehow the U.S. is responsible.  This sentiment is both patronizing and racist because it infers that Africans are not competent to wage their own wars or pursue their own interests. They must rely on the U.S. for direction.

    Don’t honor this garbage by buying this book.

The Founders

 

I write occasional reviews of books by Peace Corps authors for PeaceCorpsWorldwide.org. Following is a review of The Founders by Bryan Tenney, Dorrance Publishing, 2025

The premise of the novel, which appears in the first chapter, is that Thomas Jefferon and George Washington are reincarnated from their times to ours.  Their mission as devised by the scientific cabal that brought them back to life is to cleanse modern America from an evil tyrant, aka Trump.

But first the founders must realize when and where they are. They have to come to terms with the times and with the changes that the centuries have wrought.  A sub-plot is that Jefferson remembers a treasure, which he recovers. This provides the where-with-all for the two to pay their way but also alerts law enforcement to mystery bandits.  Much of the novel revolves around their moving around the country to avoid capture.

Value in the story comes from the mirror in which we see ourselves through the founders’ eyes. They marvel at dress, transportation, communications, and race relations in the current era and bewail the loss of simplicity and courtesy in everyday life, and in politics especially, comity.

Corrupt, venial, misogynist President Bribe is a thinly veiled portrait of Trump.  Despite the author’s effort to depict him, the reality of Trump’s egregious behavior is greater than the fiction.  Some things you just cannot make up.  Nonetheless, Bribe provides comic relief as the founders finally engage in their mission.

In the end it all works out although the fate of the protagonists remains unresolved.

This novel is a mirror, a satire and an inditement.  The author’s desire for a cure to current ills comes through strongly.  That is the strength of the tale. Let’s look at ourselves, make honest judgements and corrections.

Robert Gribbin built rural water systems as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Kenya (68-70).  He later served forty years in the U.S. Foreign Service as a diplomat and ambassador. He is the author of two memoirs; In the Aftermath of Genocide – The U.S. Role in Rwanda and My African Anthology. His latest novel is Freida’s Secret, a story starting with Stanley’s rescue of Emin Pasha in 1888 and culminating in a treasure hunt in Idi Amin’s Uganda.

The Emperor Revealed!

 

Bokassa 1er by Pierre Pean, editions Moreau, 1977 and L’Ogre de Berengo by Bernard Loubat, editions Lefeuvre, 1981, are books in French about Jean Bedel Bokassa who, in 1977, crowned himself emperor of Central Africa.  I was there at the coronation as the gift bearer from the U.S. government.  At the time I was the desk officer at the Department of State for the Central African Republic. I volunteered for the task of carting the gift, a clipper ship etched into Stubben glass, to Bangui.  (There is a piece about the coronation in my book My African Anthology).  I had previously served a two-year tour (74-76) as a junior diplomat at the embassy in Bangui and would return in 1992 as ambassador. By then a much more mentally feeble Bokassa was in prison. He was released in the aftermath of the election of 1993 and confined to house arrest until his death a year or so later.  This aside is to state that I met Bokassa on several occasions in the 1970s. I congratulated him on becoming emperor in 1977. Bokassa wrote me letters in my capacity as ambassador while he was incarcerated in the 90s, but I judged it wise not to reply.  Nor did it seem wise for me to visit him once he was released from prison. 

Without doubt, Bokassa was a key figure in the history of Oubangui-Chari/Central African Republic/Central African Empire.  These two books delve at great length into his chaotic reign.  Bokassa1er is a biography. It relates Bokassa’s rise from the village, his 27-year stint in the French army, back to Bangui in the nascent army at independence, his 1965 coup d’etat and subsequent life as president à vie, then emperor.  The author tells many of the stories that are outrageous, funny, or horrifying that characterized Bokassa’s tenure as head of state.  He ruled through intimidation and fear and did not hesitate to murder or imprison his enemies. Additionally, the book reports extensively on the coronation itself, and France’s complicity in the event. Pean also provides the context of a nation being run into the ground economically by the greed and capriciousness of its leader.

In the L’Ogre de Berengo Loubat expands on these themes.  Further, he reports in detail the massacres of January and April 1979 that led to Bokassa’s ouster, as well as the ouster itself by French paratroops in September 1979. However, about half of L’Ogre is a recitation of three weeks author Loubat spent in Bangui in the summer of 1979 in a quest to get the emperor on record through a filmed interview.  It was a Kafkaesque sojourn. Loubat, his cameraman and a sycophantic (to Bokassa) French guide were feted, praised, spied upon, reviled, and feared as they periodically called on the emperor. They listened to his tirades and suffered from the bizarre protocols of the imperial court and the fearful hesitancy of its councilors. In the interim the journalists carefully sounded out “sources” in the capital and gleaned many views about the emperor and the state of the nation.  Candidly reported, the chronicle paints a sad picture of a megalomanic, paranoic, narcissist leader sowing the seeds of his own demise while leading a nation to ruin.

While reading these books in the spring of 2026, I could not help but seeing parallels between the personalities and actions of Jean Bedel Bokassa and Donald J. Trump.

These books gave my French a workout. The texts jumped about, used lots of colloquialisms, metaphors and odd vocabulary. My dictionary was quite useful. 

Turmoil in the Congo - War, Conservation and Gorillas

 

The Guardian of the Gorillas, by Robert E. Whitehead, Xlibris, 2025

     This is a fascinating biography of Adrien Deschryver, an extraordinary Belgian who lived through the trying times of Congolese independence and mercenary incursions in eastern Congo, later to evolve into a conservationist, researcher, habituator and protector of the rare gorillas of Kahuzi-Biega Park.   Although related to and written down by author Robert Whitehead, the story is told in the first person, in Deschryver’s own words.

    The tale begins with his migration as a youth to eastern Congo, near Bukavu, in the 1950s where Deschryver’s parents bought a quinine plantation. In the company of Batwa tackers, the boy began to know the nearby forest, home of gorillas.  In the 1960s eastern Congo burst into flames, first with independence and then off and on for the next six years engulfed in vicious internal rebellions accompanied by bloody mercenary incursions. As a young man Deschryver was caught up in all of this. He defended his family and friends and walked a tightrope balancing his – often violent – actions against the need to maintain credibility with the new authorities.  More than once, he had to flee for his life.  Ultimately, he cobbled together a truce that enabled him to remain in place.

    As planter prospects diminished on account of nationalization, Deschryver turned his attention to conservation. He was named director of Kahuzi-Biega forest and presided over it as it became a national park.  Deschryver was determined to get to know the elusive gorillas of the forest and spent months devising methods to observe them.  He realized early on that if the park was to maintain its integrity and pay its way, gorillas must become a tourist attraction. Patience, trial and error resulted in success.  Kahuzi-Biega became the foremost location for gorilla viewing.  Although Deschryver’s methods were sharply criticized by Dian Fossey who eschewed tourism, the formula worked for Zaire.  Deschryver rightly deserves a place among the pantheon of primatologists.

    This book captures the tension, the squabbles, the violence, the intrigue and the relationships of a volatile man as he confronts the challenges set before him. His tale is well written, well-paced and well worth reading.