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.