VIEWPOINT: Africa’s Tough Love
by Franz Wisner
Anthony Williams is a friend from college who lived in Africa after graduation. I reconnected with him at a wedding last year and we started to swap travel stories.
“You been to all those countries?” he said. “Good. That’s good training. Now you’re ready for Africa.”
And he was right. Africa is a tough, tough travel. Outside the five-star safaris and secluded beach resorts, that is.
It’s a swirl of bribes, bad roads and buses stuffed way beyond capacity. If you can stand bus rides on 90 degree days with no a/c, standing in an aisle because the “seat” you purchased wasn’t really a seat at all, breathing diesel fumes that are overpowered only by the large box of yesterday’s fish on the lap of a passenger, you’re ready.
On a bus ride in Tanzania, Kurt and I sat in the front seat, joking about how miserable road travel is throughout most of Africa. Just then a large Guinea Fowl crashed though the front window, spraying us with glass and landing on the floor near our feet. Nothing to do but laugh and take photos.
Africa is by far the world’s hardest travel. But it’s also some of the most rewarding. And breathtaking, inspiring and spiritual. Frustrating, confusing and random. Beautiful, welcome and warm.
I’m not a good photographer. I leave that to Kurt. Fortunately, he has more patience and a better eye. He’s captured some images during the past two years that will be forever etched in my mind, photographs that instantly summon a special moment, a random circumstance, a big ole grin.
But if I could take just one roll of photographs to record my Africa, here’s what I’d like to capture:
& #149; The effortlessness of the Malawi mother breast-feeding her baby while tending to a field.
& #149; The awe-inspiring resilience of Africans who wake with hope and a smile amid war-zones and shanty towns.
& #149; The rocket acceleration and pinball turns of a cheetah closing in on a baby gnu.
& #149; The helpless feeling you get walking past crumbling buildings and potholed roads, knowing that conditions will get worse.
& #149; The patience of wet-suited surfers waiting for the perfect wave at Jeffrey’s Bay, South Africa, the boarder’s Mecca and home of the world’s best right-hand break.
& #149; The elation on the face of a child from a small Zambian village after seeing his digital picture for the first time.
& #149; The desperation in the eyes of Zimbabweans whose economy and tourism industry have been devastated thanks to the crimes of their leader, Robert Mugabe. I’d also like to have a shot of Mugabe,preferably behind bars.
& #149; Kenyan women in brightly colored cloth wraps chatting and laughing,while walking on the side of a major highway with 50-pound bundles of sticks on their head.
& #149; The confusion of the Afrikaner farmer in the 21st Century, with his wool shorts and high socks, clinging to past eras and wardrobes.
& #149; The jaw-drop beauty of the Serengeti plain at dawn, lazy Seychelles beaches at noon, and manicured Stellenbach (South Africa) vineyards at sunset.
& #149; Toothless grins, holed Masai warrior ears and curious eyes of the veiled women on Zanzibar.
But if I have one favorite image of Africa, one moment, one snapshot I’d blow up and hang on my wall, it would be an afternoon run on a country road near Lake Malawi.
The air smelled of wild sage thanks to earlier rains; the dulled sun cast everything in a sepia-tone. A shoeless man on an old bicycle decided to ride along. Then a happy, shirtless boy with an unwashed, face ran out of the bushes and jogged next to me. A few of his playmates joined moments later. The kids yelled and pumped their hands in the air like prizefighters, forcing me to stop running because I was laughing so hard.
Middle of nowhere, people with nothing, an overflow of curiosity and warmth. And humanity. That’s Africa to me.
Former Irvine Company spokesman Franz Wisner is traveling around the world with his brother Kurt. This is one in a series of dispatches.
