Farce or Lark? - Roosevelt's African Safari

 

A review of Hunting for Teddy Roosevelt by James Ross, Regal House Publishing, 2020.

 

     This is an interestingly odd book. It is fiction intertwined with bits of real history. The basic premise comes from Theodore Roosevelt’s African safari which he undertook in 1909 after finishing his second term as president.  Roosevelt took the trip to escape from the pressures of politics and to reflect upon his decision not to seek a third term. All this comes out in the book. The fictional plot revolves around efforts to assassinate the ex-president and his uncanny ability to escape.  The depiction of Roosevelt is believable, but other characters are not as well drawn.

     In reality on this safari Roosevelt did indeed slaughter thousands of animals purportedly at the request of the Smithsonian Institute which wanted specimens for its collection. Roosevelt’s actual recollections of hunting encounters are used to lead into various chapters.  His son Elliot accompanies him (true) and they do have an odd (fictional) encounter with Paul von Lettow (a real German military officer who commanded the German army in East Africa during World War I). Other characters – journalist Maggie Ryan, various safari personnel, the assassin, etc. are all fictional.

     Although the story did move along satisfactorily, I became captivated by the errors, dissidences and leaps of credibility that abound in the book. Some misrepresentations can be attributed to the various characters, but most are the responsibility of the author.  The book is fiction, of course, and the author is entitled to rearrange geography and cultures as desired or necessary for the story, but I found that such shortcomings substantially distracted from the gist of the tale. For example:

Outlining the intended itinerary from the African highlands, to the Serengeti, to Mt. Kilimanjaro and then Lake Victoria, zig zags Kenya’s geography.

Tuaregs are described as slavers in Sudan.  In reality they live in the central Sahara, two thousand miles west.

Roosevelt rode on the “railroad linking Nairobi to Lake Albert.”  The rail line did pass through Nairobi, but it linked Mombasa to Lake Victoria.

The Swahili word “pembe” was employed at least six times to refer to local alcoholic beverages. “Pembe” means horn or antlers. The correct word is “pombe.”

TR is credited with staying on a sisal farm in the Aberdares.  That area is much too cold and wet for sisal.

“Faru” is used instead of “Kifaru” for rhino. Africans would have used the correct term.

There are several references to the Congo Free State owned by King Leopold of Belgium. At the time of Roosevelt’s safari, the Congo had been taken over by the Belgian government as a colony.

A lion hunt is described as “simba kuwinda” i.e. lion to hunt, correct would be “kuwinda simba” to hunt lion (object not subject).

Author Ross puts the Samburu people from northern Kenya in Kamba country (just outside Nairobi). Also, it is proposed to resettle them from there to Muranga so to free arable land for white settlers.  That is all wrong, the arid Athi Plains where the Samburu ostensibly lived were unsuitable for farming whereas Muranga is prime agricultural territory. The fact that Muranga, even then, was well populated by Kikuyu people is ignored. Later the author places the Kamba in Tanganyika. Why not just deal with the people who really lived there – the Kamba and Maasai people of the Athi/Amboseli area and the Chaga in Tanganyika

On several occasions the author refers to “mimosa” trees and “fire” ants. There were no mimosa trees in Africa at the time. Fire ants is an American, not an African term.

Author Ross describes the bandits encountered in Sudan over and over as Fulani. The Fulani people are pastoralists who live in the Sahael region of Africa south of the Sahara, thousands of miles west of the Sudan.  Sudan has many indigenous groups that engaged in banditry and slavery, why import foreigners?

At one point it is proposed to cross Lake Tanganyika from Kigoma (in German East Africa) to Kalemie, Congo.  The town of Albertville, Congo was not renamed Kalemie until 1971. This is a grievous error for a former Peace Corps Volunteer in the Congo.

Equally puzzling was a reference to the battleship Maine being sunk in the Philippines. Surely Teddy Roosevelt knew it was sunk in Cuba.

The fact that atrocities were inflicted on natives of the Belgian Congo, including severing of hands when rubber collection quotas were not met, is a true theme reflected in the novel. However, at one-point starving and mutilated victims of such horrors are described as Tutsi and their persecutors Hutu.  In actuality, Rwanda/Burundi, home of the Tutsi and Hutu, in 1909 were under the suzerainty of Germany, not Belgium. They were not victims of rubber exploitation.  I thought this bit to be a gratuitous reference to genocide which would not occur for another eighty years.   

Finally, our intrepid heroes defied geography throughout the tome covering, by foot or horseback, hundreds or even thousands of miles in days. On their trek through northern Uganda into the Sudan, they pass just north of “Victoria Falls.”   They might have been near Murchinson Falls, but Vic Falls were then and still are 2000 miles to the south.

     As noted above I enjoyed this novel as much as for the discrepancies as for the tale.  However, for those not disturbed by the errors, it is a pleasant extrapolation of Roosevelt’s safari.

 

 

  

From the Foreign Service Journal - In Their own Write

 From the Foreign Service Journal, November 2020

The Last Rhino by Robert Gribbin

      Reformed hunter Philippe returns to Africa to help manage Garamba National park and bolster conservation efforts. Replete with wildlife and big game, the park is a natural paradise, but is not without threats.   Beyond wildlife, Philippe must contend with many of the violent actors that inhabit the park. including aggressive poachers, regional soldiers and the vicious Lord's Resistance Army. Briefings from locals and United Nations peacekeepers make it clear that he has his work cut out for him. 

     Among his priories is protecting the rare white rhinoceros, which has been hunted almost to extinction. After Philippe visits a small community sheltering some of the last white rhinos in Africa, he ponders how he can best protect this endangered species. If word gets out that this small community of Wayamba is protecting white rhinos, all sorts of actors my swoop in, from international conservationists to regional governments, and from sightseers to - perhaps worst of all - poachers.

     When Philippe receives reports that poachers are killing off elephants and penetrating into the grounds of the park, he must arm himself to defend against the worst, and seek out more firepower to ensure the threat is stopped for good. 

Ambassador (ret.) Robert Gribbin spent many years in East an Central Africa, first as a Peace Corps Volunteer and then as a Foreign Service Officer. He is the author of In the Aftermath of Genocide - The U.S. Role in Rwanda.  (2005) 

An Intelligent Book about Africa

 This review is copied from Barnes and Noble's website. Author unknown.

The Last Rhino

This book has a bit of a mystery in it and a lot of adventure. It is well written and an engaging read. What struck me most, however, was that it is about the real Africa. Judging from the “About the Author” page it makes sense that this would be a story about the authentic Africa told with intelligence and knowledge. Robert Gribbin has spent much of his life in Africa and this came shining through.

The book helps you to see, feel and understand Africa. (At times the descriptions make you feel as if you can also hear and smell it as well.) It describes some of the true ravages of the Lord’s Resistance movement and the complexities of environmentalism on this continent. The characters are well drawn, there are strong women and sensitive men and also conniving politicians. It captures the dialogues and motives of real people one would meet in Africa today. There are people wanting to give back to society and others intent on destroying the wildlife in it.
Make no mistake that this is a novel. It is a compelling read for the plot alone, but the reader feels as if they are learning things about Africa and about life as they are enjoying the story. If I were teaching a course on Africa I would assign this as a very enjoyable text for my students. One that is also accurate and enlightening.

This book exceeded my expectations on three levels: it is an intelligent look at conservationism as it works in Africa today; it is a realistic, accurate view of contemporary Africa; and it is an engaging well-written novel with bits of wisdom throughout. An excellent read.

Life and Death in the Sahara

 

A review of Sahara Unveiled – A Journey Across the Desert by William Langewiesche, Pantheon Books, NY, 1996.

 

I found this interesting book in the library, a branch that I don’t normally visit. It appealed to me because I drove across the Sahara in 1970.  Twenty years later during Langewiesche’s trip the physical challenge of the terrain remained immutable. Roads were terrible to non-existent. There was scant vegetation, mostly thousands of miles of a moonscape of rock and sand. The nights were clear and chilly. However, other things, i.e. bureaucracy, corruption, politics, danger, hostility, the size of settlements, the nature of trade, had changed for the worse in the time between our respective journeys.

Langewiesche starts his chronicle in Algiers, noting several times on his southward jaunt, that he had been there before. However, he never explained how or why he had travelled the desert before. In any case, prior knowledge allowed him to connect or reconnect with friends or acquaintances from earlier times. Through them he painted a realistic portrait of life in the oases of the Sahara.  Life was hardscrabble. Heat overwhelming.  Women were cloistered.  Male dominated Islamic society prevalent. The economy in shambles. Yet, the outside world, especially dreams of it, filtered in. In the central Sahara, Tuareg nomads strove to continue their traditional lifestyle, but trucks were replacing camels and modern weapons permitted banditry and rebellion to reach new heights.  Berber Arabs, Tuaregs and black Africans from the south were united by Islam, but tensions of eons old clashing cultures prevailed.

The author described the horrors – and gave numerous examples - of individuals being lost, abandoned, and dying of thirst.  Such afflictions were visited upon the desert dwellers through miscalculations. More than one of the author’s acquaintances lost relatives to the desert.  At least Saharans knew the risks, but outside visitors – trans Saharan tourists - often died because of ignorance. 

Langewiesche digressed to describe the desert’s devolution from green well-watered grasslands tens of thousands of years ago to today’s aridness which is still increasing. He also related the impact of 19^th and 20^th century French colonialism on the region, especially as it generated lingering hatred of France on the part of Algerians.  The author detailed how French romanticism of the “noble savage” Tuareg people precluded them from achieving a more balanced role in contemporary Saharan nations. Langewiesche’s discussion of the causes of Tuareg rebellion in the 1990s was excellent but even more useful in explaining conflict in the region during the years since.    

In sum, Sahara Unveiled is a fascinating and still valid portrait of a little-known corner of the world. Langewiesche told it as it was, warts and all. He certainly became part of the story but remained objective to the end. This book is an entertaining adventure story in and of itself. However, it is also an extremely useful read for anyone concerned with ongoing conflicts in the Sahara in Algeria, Mali, Niger, and Libya.

Journey through the heart of darkness

 

A review of Crossing the Congo by Mike Martin, Chloe Baker and Charlie Hatch-Barnwell, Hurst and Company, London, 2016.

First, a disclaimer; I drove across the northern half of the Congo in 1970. Roads were bad. We got stuck, had breakdowns, had to scrounge for spares, got arrested suspected of being mercenaries, got sick, got badgered by erstwhile officials. However, we found the people curious, friendly, and generally willing to help. Our trip some 43 years before team Mike, Chloe and Charlie’s undertaking was a walk in the park in comparison. Theirs was horrendous.

The saga told in this book began in London, followed by a long meander through West Africa.  Instead of retracing their route homeward, Mike and Chloe decided to circle down through the Congo and back up north to South Sudan, a journey of 2500 miles. They enlisted a friend, Charlie whose wonderful photographs fill the book and provide visual proof of their trials.  The three canvassed Kinshasa for permits, permissions, and advice. They also endeavored to put their old short wheelbase Land Rover into good enough shape for the trip. (We also drove a similar vehicle in 1970, but ours was in much better condition.) The Congo three barely get a passing grade for vehicle astuteness. Yes, they finally got through, but mostly on luck, not vehicle prowess.  However, whenever they broke down, which was almost daily, they jury rigged a part or just duck taped it back together until a better repair could be made.

Roads were the worst physical problem. They headed first to Kananga, southeast of Kinshasa but the road was destroyed and rutted by huge mining trucks and impassable for regular vehicles.  Then, they tackled the south/north route from Kananga straight to Kisangani 800 miles across the heart of the Congo basin rainforest, a route which had not been traversed by a vehicle in a decade. Because of war and neglect, the road essentially had retreated into jungle - bridges had given way, ferries non-existent, trees fallen across the path. Often the land rover had to be dug or dragged out of mud holes.  The team reinforced stream crossings and even built a raft to cross a river.  The physical effort was enormous and took a toll.

Worse, however, than an unreliable vehicle and abominable roads were the suspicions, harassments and negative attitudes from Congolese, especially those in authority.  Everyone assumed that three foreigners were chickens ripe for plucking.  There were interminable checks of papers and intentions.  No official could believe the three just wanted to drive through.  Congolese society was so corrupt for so long that there was sheer disbelief that the three were not on some nefarious mission. At one point a “big man” had trees felled across the road to impede their progress.  Even Congolese Catholic priests tried to price gouge them. Similarly, the crowds of people the three drew would pilfer as soon as a back was turned.  Occasionally, however, an individual or two would be genuinely helpful, but that was the welcome exception rather than the rule.

This book is beautifully written – mostly by Mike – and lavishly illustrated by Charlie’s photos.  It provides the detail of the difficulties alluded to above. It is indeed a sad commentary that the Congo has regressed so much both in terms of physical infrastructure and human kindness and courtesy in the past fifty years. Indeed, the Congo today is a sad, neglected, desperate place.  Big kudos to the three for their journey through the heart of darkness.

Chuckles and Anguish in Libya

 

A review of 101 Arabian Tales - How We All Preserved in Peace Corps Libya by Randolph W. Hobler.

  In 1968 several dozen naïve American Peace Corps Volunteers confronted 12th century Libyan culture.  This collection of anecdotes from the first volunteers to go to Libya in the late 1960s recounts encounters with huge cockroaches, rabid dogs, male dominated society, cloistered women, primitive sanitation, Islamic strictures, bureaucracies (both theirs and ours) even as they taught  English to fifth graders and learned Arabic from peers.  The idealism and the optimism of the young Americans is infectious as they are alternately bewildered or enchanted by their Libyan hosts. They ate camel burgers, dodged the draft, fell in love, travelled extensively and taught their classes, but above all they made a difference. Their lives were irreducibly changed, and so perhaps were their students and friends. But it quickly came to an end with the coup d’etat that brought Gaddafi to power.  This collective memoir based on diaries and recollections aptly captures the era, the challenges, the despair and the accomplishments of Peace Corps Volunteers sent to bring enlightenment to a most backward corner of the world.  

 This is a very unusual Peace Corps memoir in that it is not one person’s story. Although author Randy Hobler does tell his saga, he makes a point to add and cite observations, anecdotes and recollections of dozens of his peers. The sum then is much greater than its parts. The book is indeed a compendium of all that was experienced by the first two groups of Peace Corps Volunteers to go to Libya.  Assigned to isolated village schools - the women to urban schools - their task was to teach fifth graders English. Along the way they needed to build Arabic language proficiency, which they began in training so as to function in their various communities. They had a tough time, especially the women who were compelled to operate in a society that disdained females.  But for all experience overcame ignorance, flexibly conquered stodginess, brashness and innovation won out.  Hey, they were twenty-one so open to the newness - to them - of a structured, inflexible archaic religious dominated culture.  

The book takes a chronological approach to their experience. First was training in either Utah for the single men or Arizona for the women and married couples.  Mostly training was ineffective. Arabic lessons were meager, TEFL training poor, and cross culture education lean.  The prospect of “de-selection”, meaning you got sent home on specious psychological criteria tainted the whole process. However, the trainees bonded and such bonds would be needed in Libya.

In Libya the now sworn in volunteers dispersed to various posts, some in cities of Tripoli, Bengazi or Derna, but most to isolated villages in the interior and a few to oases far south in the Sahara desert. Aside from enthusiasm, the PCVs were poorly prepared for what they encountered.  No one spoke English and their Arabic was rudimentary.  Students were incorrigible.  Housing was abominable, often a small room shared with Libyan colleagues. Water and food were well below standards. Intestinal or insect generated disease was common.  Above all was the challenge of integrating themselves into their communities.  Folks were uniformly hospitable, but circumstances were bizarre.  PCVs had to learn how to cope in order not to offend.

The book digresses in the summer of 1969 to detail lots of regional and European travel , but then picks up again and closes with the problems arising from Gaddafi’s take over and the resulting expulsion of Americans.  It was hard to leave, but all finally made it out safely.

Finally, after naming so many volunteers during the course of the memoir and relating their individual memories, the book closes with an epilogue of what many ultimately did in life after Libya.

I have read dozens of Peace Corps memoirs and always find the impact of service on the individual writer to be profound.  However, this memoir contains not just the memories and observations of one volunteer but of dozens. It is therefore that much more authoritative. It does encapsulate a time and a country experience - one that was not likely replicated anywhere else.  It is truly an opus of cross cultural blunders and inspired rectifications.   The author’s breezy whimsical style is readable and the book is full of relevant photos. This is a good read. Former volunteers from anywhere will appreciate and nod affirmatively at many of the recitations. Other readers will enjoy the saga - we came, we immersed, we persevered.    

 

More Horror From Rwanda

 

A review of Left to Tell:  Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust, by Immaculee Ilibagiza, Hay House Books 2020.

 

This is an intense personal chronicle of a young woman who survived the genocide by hiding, along with six others, in a small bathroom for eight weeks. Around them the genocide raged stoked by ethnic animosities, which inflamed rural Rwanda pitting neighbors and friends against each other.  Essentially in Immaculee’s region the Tutsi were wiped out including her parents and two brothers. A third brother who was studying abroad also lived.

Immaculee tells her story in a stark compelling narrative. As do many others still today, she never fully understands the why, but she did clearly grasp the danger and threat of imminent death should she or others hidden with her be found by the killers.  Amidst the hiding and the menace of death, Immaculee relied upon her faith and built upon it for sustenance and hope.  Ultimately, she accepts the catastrophe of evil visited upon the Tutsi people and refuses to blame the killers but rather to forgive them.

All in all, Left to Tell is a gripping read that reveals a very personal story from a survivor of genocide. My only quibble is that the narration uses dialogue in quotations that obviously was created after the fact. Such a device contributes to the power of the story and gives it an immediacy that it would not otherwise have, so I must accept it.

Readers of Left to Tell will be astounded by the horror of the genocide, the courage of the victims and the bravery of those who saved some.     

Trauma in the Congo

 

A review of Land of Tears – The Exploration and Exploitation of Equatorial Africa by Robert Harms, Basic Books, NY 2019.

 

This is a definitive history of the greater Congo basin during the latter half of the nineteenth century until about 1908 when the Congo Free State was transferred to Belgium. It is a sad recitation because of the unbridled exploitation of the region first by slavers and seekers of ivory, followed by the misery forced on the inhabitants by rubber barons. The whole epoch reeks of unchecked abuses and atrocities sanctioned by theories of white superiority buttressed by rationales of commerce, Christianity, and civilization.  The abusers were anything but civilized.  

Author Harms traces the history of the region in part by focusing on three principle characters – explorer Henry Morton Stanley, slaver Tippu Tip, and explorer Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza.  Each man was a force unto himself. Stanley as a fiercely determined explorer, the first European to traverse the Congo, and secondly as an operative who secured control of the central Congo for King Leopold II.  Although he was of mixed Africa/Arab heritage, Tippu Tip was culturally an Arab from Zanzibar who controlled the slave and ivory trade for years from his ruling post in Kosongo, eastern Congo. De Brazza came later onto the scene and successfully wrested authority over the western side of the Congo river for France. Stanley and Tippu Tip knew each other and interacted cautiously over the years.

These men notwithstanding, the tragedy of the Congo was written mostly on account of exploitation. First it was slaves sent by Arabs east to the markets of Zanzibar. Villages were raided and captives taken. Life for the people was completely disrupted.  Concomitantly, vast ivory stocks that had been accumulating for centuries in jungle villages were pillaged and also sent east.  Stanley and others in thrall to Leopold contested to acquire and send ivory west to the Atlantic.  The quest for this white gold became extremely violent as stocks were limited.  Slowly the external slave trade and Arab suzerainty were eliminated. However, the system of brutal acquisition transferred easily to rubber, where it became much more prevalent under authorities granted to concessional companies, both in the Congo Free State and in French territory. Villagers were compelled to produce quantities of wild rubber upon pain of death. Many were killed, maimed – hands and ears cut off, hostages taken, men flogged, etc. to compel production.  But like ivory, wild rubber too was an un-replenishable resource. 

The victims of exploitation were the African inhabitants of the region.  Probably more than 3 million perished.  Author Harms goes to some length to acknowledge that Congo basin villages had working political systems based on the rule of a “big man.”  However, the nature of the vast rain forest limited inter connectivity and there were no larger political groupings.  This made outside exploitation easier as villagers could not raise coalitions to combat the interlopers.  Yet, they resisted. Rebellion was brutally suppressed. Harms notes that as the Arabs/Europeans sought to extend control beyond the forest, they encountered better organized local opposition.

Against the backdrop of what was going on in Africa, Harms recounts machinations in Europe regarding the Congo. His detailed history tabulates King Leopold’s quest to own the region, the complex diplomacy of Europe, the justification (and hypocrisy) of anti-slavery motivations, and the corruption involved in it all.   It is a telling indictment of greed, manipulation and narcissism run amuck. Calls for the civilizing mission won over the public until it finally became evident that the exploitation of the Congo basin was based on extreme abuses of the indigenous people.  For this there was little final reckoning, instead the   brutal coercive systems were subsumed into government run colonialism that lasted another sixty years.   

Harms certainly did his homework. This is a well-researched, well documented history.  Sources were not just European diaries and records, but also recollections by Africans. The sum is a definitive study of Equatorial Africa in the time referenced.  Besides that, it is an engaging read of interest not just to scholars, but to a wider readership.       

Interview with Robert Gribbin, author of The Last Rhino

Q. Why did you write this book?

A. I lived many years in Africa and have accumulated many stories and anecdotes about life there and interactions amongst people. A number of these items have been published here and there.   I wrote an earlier novel entitled State of Decay. In some ways The Last Rhino is a sequel.  At least in the sense that I used several characters from State of Decay and made vague references to their backstories. So, when I started thinking about a new book, I already had a setting – Africa – and a protagonist – Philippe. I just had to figure out a plot.

I find that fiction reveals as much in general terms of knowledge as does non-fiction. A realistic setting and reference to authentic events and places generates genuine understanding of issues.  The fictional part of it permits the author to create plot, concentrate on problems and to people the story with characters of his own choosing. 

Q. Do you have the plot mapped out ahead of time?

A. No, I do not. I know that some writers think it all through in advance and even outline where it is all going to go. Part of the fun for me is figuring it out as I go along…and as I go back to add something or flesh out a shorter bit. I mull things over while I reread and often get a new idea.  I am indebted to reader/reviewers who have pointed out what was good, what was bad, and what needed to be improved.  

Q. What is the major theme of The Last Rhino?

A. Obviously, conservation is a key theme.  Poaching is a real problem that has devastated big game throughout the continent. The Congo is no exception. I did want to draw attention to this crisis. I hope that the book does that. 

I realized as I was writing that another theme is that of second chances.  Most of the characters experienced difficulties in earlier phases of their lives. For example, Philippe gets to rebound from traumatic loss, both in his sense of self and mission but also in love. Godfrey and Sia sustained terrible shocks at the hands of the Lord’s Resistance Army.  Christopher goes from limited prospects to possibilities and so forth. One of my reviewers was pleased with the depiction of women, especially Marie. On the larger scale Garamba and its creatures have a second chance, as does the Congo itself – if, and it is a big if – if it can manage to bring some order out of chaos.  I left some hope that there might be a second chance for white Rhinos as well.

Q. What is the most fictional part of the story?

A. Most everything in the book is based on reality, but the Wayamba people as a tribe living near the park are fiction. Even so, their philosophy of life: self-contained, disdain for the modern world, living in harmony with nature and aspects of their political system can be found in real tribes in eastern Africa. I adapted what I needed for my plot.

Q. What about the rhinos?

A. Sadly, the white rhinos which used to range widely in Garamba Park are gone.  The remaining ones were probably killed by poachers about ten years ago. Only two northern white rhinos remain alive. They are zoo bred females, now captives in the Ole Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya. It is hoped that one or both might be artificially inseminated by sperm from a southern white rhino, but this remains problematical. A healthy population of southern white rhinos exists in southern Africa and efforts are well advanced to protect black rhinos throughout their range in eastern Africa.   Yet, despite such efforts rhinos remain in danger of extinction as long as habitat is lost, and their horns are valued for medicinal and other purposes in Asia and the Arab world.

Q. Tell us about the cover photo.

A.  The photo is of a white rhino.  I took it in Meru Park, Kenya in 1983. Although well protected, accompanied daily by rangers and housed overnight in a corral, sadly that animal and two others were slaughtered by poachers a year or so later.

If readers have questions for the author, please post them in a comment.   

Music makes waves in Malawi

A review of The Warm Heart of Africa: An Outrageous Adventure of Love, Music, and Mishaps in Malawi by Jack Allison, P.C. Writers, 2020

This memoir of Peace Corps service in Malawi, Africa, has everything such a memoir should have. It is frank in describing the author’s qualms about joining the Peace Corps. It is candid when presenting in his reactions to finding himself dropped off relatively unprepared at his site. It is honest in descriptions of Allison's village of assignment and the warmth of its inhabitants. The author realistically reported on the poverty, problems and the various cultural interactions that both fire and misfire. He learned a lot along the way. To his credit Allison mastered Chichewa, the language of his region, undoubtedly – as all Peace Corps Volunteers would attest – fluency in language dramatically improved his Peace Corps experience. Allison also recounted the travels, the parties, and contacts with fellow volunteers.  He related many telling or amusing anecdotes.  Up to this point this memoir constituted a fairly normal recitation of the transformative experience that most PCVs undergo.

What made Allison’s experience different was that he was a song writer. He composed jingles about health issues – eating protein porridge, boiling water, washing hands, etc. – that he set to music and recorded with local bands. The songs became national hits propelling Allison to an unexpected stardom. The songs had a measurable impact on improving health nationwide.  Allison was feted by senior political figures, but when his profile got to be too grandiose, i.e. more popular than the president, he was expelled.

Many years later, Allison was invited back to reprise his songs and to compose new ones combating HIV/AIDS.

This memoir is one man’s story – and interesting enough for that alone - but it also sheds light upon Malawi in the sixties and the positive impact that the Peace Corps had upon that nation.

Survival in the Desert

The Last Savannah by Mike Bond, Mandevilla Press, 2016 

This is a very concentrated story set in the desert northern reaches of Kenya. The plot is essentially a chase of Somali elephant poachers by a specialized group of rangers. Not only did the poachers kill elephants but they also attacked and murdered a group of anthropologists kidnapping a woman survivor to hold for ransom. Author Bond clearly studied his geography well and knows the desert and impact of it, especially thirst, on people who venture there.  Accompanying the survivalist tale of all against the desert, characters struggle with each other and with their memories and aspirations. It is often a violent tale where lives are cheap and killing is a survival mechanism.  

Author Bond gets in the head of the most important characters as they contemplate their lives, their regrets and their hopes. I thought he did an especially good job of seeing the word through the eyes of the Africans via their tribal customs and religion, essentially their incomprehension of the modern world and inability to reconcile it to their own. 

This adventure tale reeks of accuracy in the setting and in the interactions between characters and the natural world. There is suspense as the plot spins along with interesting twists and turns.  

A Little Embassy in Africa

 A review of Baobab by Larry Hill, First Edition Design Publishing, Sarasota, Florida, 2019

     This entertaining novel is set in a U.S. embassy in a fictious African nation just south of the Sahara Desert.  The tale of political intrigue as pressures mount towards a coup d’etat is intertwined with the complicated lives of American diplomats. Author Hill, himself a diplomatic doctor, gives his fictional counterpart the inside scoop of what is going on with the various folks under his charge. As expected in a novel from a doctor, there is a good bit of medical lore and some blood and guts as the story unfolds. All told the plot works and along the way the reader gets an inside sardonic view of embassy personnel.

     As a long-term diplomat in Africa myself, I enjoyed the book. Much of it - in caricature fashion of both Americans and Africans - is right on target. I found the bit about the inutility of military surplus medical equipment to ring especially true.  Baobab is a good summer read.

Another good Review!

The Last Rhino by Robert Gribbin, copyright © 2020

Reviewed by Sandy Seppala-Gyr, June 12, 2020

Are there any white rhinoceros left in Africa? Who is poaching elephants, which are killed for their ivory to send to China? This book takes you to Central Africa where you’ll see what it takes to overcome strife in the name of conservation to protect wildlife and preserve cultures.

Elephants and rhinos were furthest from retired big-game hunter Philippe’s mind as he relaxed on his rigged sailboat in St. Martinique. He’d run chartered tours for five years when his Aussie friend, Sheila, suggested he was bored and getting boring. Agreeing, he guessed he needed an ‘adrenaline rush’.

Responding to an advert, he put behind his comfortable life and flew to London to interview with the Elephant Conservation Project for a position in the Democratic Republic of Congo. After being hired, he lands in Kinshasa where he agrees to become the Director of Garamba National Park. It has been neglected for years but still has vast numbers of wildlife. Initially he was asked to count elephants, stop poaching, and look for signs of white rhinos. With his expanded responsibility, he’ll also have to gain the trust, support, and help of twelve Rangers, head Ranger Elijah, and other park employees already there to resurrect and protect the Park.

He hires a local driver, Christopher, to join him. He also hires Ndomazi, his tracker from his hunter days. Together they will face local and national politics, bureaucracy, corruption, and international smuggling. They set off for Garamba Park to start this monumental mission.

Multiple aspects are involved in this massive project from constructing Park facilities and roads, garnering the support of local people, building infrastructure, to protect wildlife and preserve the Park, while ending the poaching and corruption. For years, the Lord’s Resistant Army killed wildlife and kidnapped women, but they had moved on. The danger now comes from a Chinese syndicate sending ruthless warriors into the DRC to poach elephants.

Philippe embodies what it takes to develop conservation that protects vanishing species of wildlife and also supports local people and culture worldwide.

Gribbin’s style is unique and very fast-paced. Each short chapter delivers a different character, from an elephant to a poacher to the Chinese Madame Ching, the mastermind of the smugglers. The reader feels Africa through the terrain, the birds and wildlife, the food, and the people, along with the complex interactions of the characters.

He’s good at describing and bringing to life the interactions between cultures. I particularly liked Philippe’s relationship with villagers—giving some local women with two infants a lift in his vehicle and slipping them a few Congolese francs, as well as palavering with Wayamba elders.

While sometimes too fast with facts and chapter changes, it does illuminate the roadblocks that deter the development of conservation, using the adventures of a man who takes on the challenge. Did he stop the poaching and resurrect the park? Did he find white rhinos? Only your reading of “The Last Rhino” will provide the answers.

Reviews of The Last Rhino

Rhino Reviews and Comments

-  This book has a bit of a mystery in it and a lot of adventure. It is well written and an engaging read. What struck me most, however, was that it is about the real Africa. Judging from the “About the Author” page it makes sense that this would be a story about the authentic Africa told with intelligence and knowledge. Robert Gribbin has spent much of his life in Africa and this came shining through.

The book helps you to see, feel and understand Africa. (At times the descriptions make you feel as if you can also hear and smell it as well.) It describes some of the true ravages of the Lord’s Resistance movement and the complexities of environmentalism on this continent. The characters are well drawn, there are strong women and sensitive men and also conniving politicians. It captures the dialogues and motives of real people one would meet in Africa today. There are people wanting to give back to society and others intent on destroying the wildlife in it.

Make no mistake that this is a novel. It is a compelling read for the plot alone, but the reader feels as if they are learning things about Africa and about life as they are enjoying the story. If I were teaching a course on Africa I would assign this as a very enjoyable text for my students. One that is also accurate and enlightening.

This book exceeded my expectations on three levels: it is an intelligent look at conservationism as it works in Africa today; it is a realistic, accurate view of contemporary Africa; and it is an engaging well-written novel with bits of wisdom throughout. An excellent read. I highly recommend The Last Rhino by Robert Gribbin. Debbie Jones

- Wanted you to know thatI have just finished the printed version of The Last Rhino and enjoyed reading it again very much. You have filled in the details nicely. I particularly enjoyed the way you inserted many interesting, and well-explained, points of natural history. Your story of the ornithologist was right on. I was not only sworn to secrecy but had to sign five different documents legally binding me to that oath.

There are two points of ornithology that could be corrected in the next edition. The Lilac-breasted Roller does not actually sing, it just makes an awkward sort of series of dry rasps that develops into a harsh rattle. And the Pied Kingfisher is a black and white bird with a black beak. The kingfisher with an orange beak is the Malachite Kingfisher. But those quibbles aside, what a wonderful book. I hope it gets wide distribution, and I hope it inspires you to keep writing. Alan Johnston

- I really enjoyed it and think it is your best book so far. Best Phil Jones.

- It is very well written and gave me an increased understanding of conservation and the problems with it in Africa. Josephine Strobel

- TheLast Rhino is the 3rd book written by Bob Gribbin all of which involve stories taking place in Africa. Bob has spent the vast majority of his adult life in Africa thus his writings exhibit a quality of realism to his stories. In The Last Rhino, the author lays out in a well written plot the many obstacles in preserving the wildlife and heritage of the central African landscape. Be it rogue armies, poachers, government corruption, lack of funds, Bob Gribbin weaves a story to vividly illustrate the challenges facing today's Africa. For any reader having an interest in the preservation of Africa's wildlife then The Last Rhino is a must read. I understand his impulse to resist sharing and read on. If this were written by an author with a different style, it would be a four hundred page beach read soon to be made into a major motion picture or Netflix series. As it is, it’s a book you keep nearby, waiting for an opportunity to find out what happens next. Tom Flinn


- I had trouble reviewing this book because my husband grabbed it and would not give it up.
The story takes place in Central Africa, a region the author knows well. It’s fiction, but it’s accurate and never strays into fantasy. The story begins as the hero is healing from a trauma that took place in Africa some years back. He finds that his new life in the Caribbean is pleasant but just doesn’t quite satisfy. He takes a job reopening an animal preserve in Central Africa that has been closed for years due to a long, bloody war. The chaos has encouraged poachers and many of the customs and traditions of the local people have been subverted to the need to survive in a very unfamiliar and brutal culture.
The remnants of war continue to haunt the countryside and its people. We learn of this through the characters themselves as they begin to adapt to a “new normal”. We identify with them and their struggles, as we admire the snap decisions the newly minted Park Administrator is called on to make.
If the reader knows Africa, she will be reassured that there are no false notes to distract from the story. If the reader does not know Africa, there is much to be learned from reading this book.
I warmly recommend it. Renny Smith, MSW and retired Foreign Service Officer




- Hey Bob, thoroughly enjoyed THE LAST RHINO . Hard to believe that country still
has areas that don’t seem to change at all - still live as if there has been no
change from one century to another. I can see how your characters get
so involved with the people and the animals. But it must be difficult
to deal with all the policies of the various areas. Don’tknow how you did it -
but you had/ have the personality to deal with them; patient, kind, and
blessings of our good Lord. Nan Taylor McLeod

Poaching!

An excerpt from The Last Rhino (see following post)

She raised her trunk again and sniffed the air. Something was not quite right.  The scents of dust and acacia blossoms were normal, but there was something un-natural. She turned with ears flapping and smelled again.  She harumped a danger signal to her family. They moved smartly off into the brush. The matriarch faced the unknown. In her anxiety she pawed the ground and shook her massive head from side to side. Her big feet pushed up clouds of dust.  In an instant she saw, heard and smelled the source of danger. Trumpeting loudly, she charged, bashing through the acacia grove towards the blurs of blue.  All her instincts required that she do her duty. She must protect her family.  As she had done many times before, she would confront the danger - lions, buffalo or perhaps a stray rhino - and chase it away. Her size, the awesome spectacle of an irritated two-ton beast closing rapidly, usually worked.  But not this time.

Shots rang out. She was met with a burst of automatic weapon fire.  The noise and the smoke were terrifying.  She stumbled and fell but was shot yet again, this time from closer range. Bullets fired directly into her brain.  Her body convulsed and shuttered. She was dead.

Cries of triumph rose around the dead elephant as the shooters emerged from the trees.  Soon two of them manned axes to chop away the matriarch’s tusks.  They were not the great heavy tusks of a mature bull, but each would weigh about forty pounds - a quite respectable haul for the poachers.  They took nothing but the tusks, leaving the carcass to scavengers.  The butchers did their work quickly. They wanted to be safely gone before vultures signaled the murder.    

The fleeing herd of terrified elephants ran for miles before slowing.  They waited impatiently for their boss lady who never came.  The transition to new leadership was befuddling, but someone had to take charge. One of the older cows sensed it was now her job.  She led the group to water. 

The Last Rhino

My latest novel set in Africa is out! It is a good story that I enjoyed writing. The publicity blurb says:


Deep in the vastness of a lost corner of the Congo a reformed big game hunter tackles the management of Garamba National Park. He must wend his way through modern African bureaucracies, civil strife and corruption in order to combat elephant poachers and remnants of the Lord’s Resistance Army, all the while in search of the possibility that northern white rhino may still exist.  The saga unfolds as the hunter and his team of rangers strive to protect and resurrect the park from the ravages of neglect and war. Mysteries of tribal tradition and the very existence of vanishing species unfold along with heartwarming relationships of folks caught up in efforts to save wild creatures. Accurately set amidst the woes of contemporary Congo, the story educates and enlightens about the challenges of conservation in the troubled heart of Africa.  

That about sums it up.

The book is available from iuniverse.com or any other on-line book store. 

Reviews will be posted as they come in. Comments are welcome. 

Cheap reads!

My novel Murder in Mombasa is now on special sale from www. smashwords.com for only $1.20.  What a bargain! All eformats are available.

My next novel The Last Rhino, a terrific African adventure tale about the effort to combat poaching, preserve habitat, and safeguard endangered species in the vast reaches of the Congo is scheduled for publican, probably in June 2020, by iuniverse.  Keep an eye out! More information will be available on this site.  

PCVs contend with Chad

Under Chad’s Spell by Michael Varga, Ebook, 2014.



This novel, obviously set in Chad, is a complex tale of a group of Peace Corps Volunteers who arrived there in seventies just before Chad fell apart in one of its violent upheavals. New arrivals start their training in Ndjamena impacted by the wonder of a new culture. Nonetheless the story progresses as they become more accustomed to Africa and move off to their various posts.  There is lots of dialogue and introspection among the various characters as to why they are there in the first place and what they intend to get out of the experience. The author throws in a good deal of realistic interaction with locals as both the locals and the Americans try to decipher the other’s culture and strange ways. Each of the various Americans seem caught up in extremely narcistic extrapolations of their being, i.e. they are at the center of it all and the experiences are so new and so revelatory.  A quest for relationships and/or sex pervades much of the volunteer’s experiences as related in the novel. I found that the story dragged on and on. Thankfully, ultimately it all comes to an end as the PCVs are evacuated in face of the latest revolution. They go their various ways, undoubtedly changed for the experience.


To give the novel some credit, it does realistically describe volunteer situations and many of the incidences are probably based on some real-life experience. The author does not have much use for Peace Corps or embassy staff, nor really for Chadians. Neither he nor his characters seem to see that the Peace Corps as an idea made much sense in Chad. Teaching English or even other academic subjects to youngsters who did not want to learn – and would never use the information – was totally futile. The value in the effort, if there was one, was the impact on the Americans themselves. They did begin to comprehend a bigger world, although it remained unclear if it did them any good.


Only a die-in-the wool RPCV or a Chadophile will find this book of great interest. 

A Historical Prelude to Genocide

A review of Rwanda Means the Universe – A native’s memoir of blood and bloodlines by Louise Mushikiwabo and Jack Kramer, St Martin’s Press, NY 2006


This is a book on many levels. It is a personal memoir about Louise and her family focused on her brother Lando who along with his family was murdered in the first wave of genocide. The author also delves deeply into her family lineage going back generations describing her ancestors and using them to educate about Rwanda’s history.  Rwanda came into being hundreds of years ago as a complex monarchy isolated in the heart of Africa.  Beginning in the mid-nineteenth century Louise juxtaposes Rwanda’s internal developments – court machinations, wars of conquest aimed at neighbors - against the European exploration of the era. She casts a cynical eye on adventurers like Speke, Burton, Gordon, Stanley and Emin Pasha.  She proudly notes that for them Rwanda was a mystical kingdom where neither Arab traders nor slavers or the Europeans themselves ever set foot. Dissecting internal events of the era provides ample opportunities to reflect on Rwandan culture based on a divine monarch, various clans with various responsibilities, and the roles of the three castes Tutsi, Hutu and Twa. Of Tutsi lineage herself author Mushikiwabo’s perspective is Tutsi, which provides insight into how the aristocracy viewed others and themselves. Depending upon the individual and the circumstances, her ancestors were either venerated, excoriated or ignored by the court. Family fortunes consequently rose or fell accordingly.  A reader gains knowledge about how Rwandans saw themselves and others.


Rwandan power was at its height in the latter years of the 19^th century about the time that outside influence began to filter in as evidenced by outside trade goods, new words in the language and finally outsiders themselves in the form of German colonial officials.  A regicide fractured internal cohesion, a state that was to continue for generations, and ultimately to give some legitimacy to Hutu political aspirations. German rule was not obtrusive in that it relied upon existing political monarchial structures, but it did solidify and strengthen Tutsi rule through force of arms.   An interesting sidebar is devoted to Rwandan participation in World War I as part of the successful German effort to tie up opposing forces in Africa.  


Belgium took over Rwanda after WWI, but it too relied on the monarchy to rule. European theories of racial superiority characterized intellectual debate wherein the Tutsi portion of the population as defined by role and confirmed by physiology was deemed to be superior to Hutu. Such distinctions drove ethnic cleavages through the society as people from both groups absorbed them as truth.


The tale jumps forward to Louise’s formative years, how she and her siblings absorbed their culture and learned their family history.  As Tutsi in a now Hutu controlled world, they learned how to maneuver – and to flee at times - and the necessity of keeping a low profile. Brother Lando, an intellectual, escaped for a while to Canada for an education and a wife, but ultimately returned to cast his lot in Rwanda.  Even though he initially eschewed politics, later he organized a multi-ethnic political party in 1991 and became a cabinet minister in the first multi-party government.  He, his wife, his mother, and two teenage children were slain in the opening hours of the genocide on April 6, 1994.  Many other extended family members were also killed, while others survived.  Louise herself was living and working in Washington during the events.


Louise Mushikiwabo’s history of her land and her family provides the landscape and the cultural political context for the terrible slaughter that ensued. She names and blames the individuals who orchestrated the genocide and rues the world’s neglect of the signs of the impending holocaust, but ultimately accepts that fate acted as it did.  It is a sad conclusion.