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Commission on Accountability's petition.

Bipedal

So our uber-security driveway gate is broken and one of the guys working on the gate is named Africa. "That's a big name," I said. And then he, like everyone else in the world outside the U.S., tried to figure out how the hell to pronounce my name. At one point, he called me "Thailand."

Then Africa said that he liked my boots and asked me when I'm going to give him my boots. This is a more common request than you'd think - people are really obsessed with footwear here because most lack a decent pair and we take for granted how much a good pair of shoes improves daily existence. They couldn't care less about correct sizes.

Not today, I said. So I just refused to give Africa a pair of shoes. Not sure if there's a conclusion to be drawn here.

I gave him a pair of running shoes that don't fit me. He was shocked and happy and stood up from his work. "This is my hand" he said and we shook.

Rhino, with Mop Bucket

Fascinating Photo Book

Just got a notice about this book in a photography newsletter. It documents time within African-American, Hispanic and white cultures in Texas:

"Looking at the U.S. 1957-1986 is an unusual look at cultural and political life in the United States over nearly three decades of change and stability. It combines the individual projects of photographers Frederick Baldwin and Wendy Watriss as well as their combined 13-year documentary collaboration on three different cultural frontiers in Texas."

See photos from the book here.

New Article

An article of mine is in the May issue of Men's Journal in their collection of adventure trips. Mine is about a DIY Safari: how to come to southern Africa, rent a 4x4 and drive into the Botswana bush.

The Primate Mirror

We spent the weekend in a small, steep valley bisected by the Spekboom River high in the northern Drakensberg Range. The river holds trout and the valley is home to a sizeable population of Chacma Baboons, a subset of the general categorization of Savannah Baboons found throughout the continent. There were about 50 individuals that meandered across the hillside facing our cabin's porch each day. Once a young kudu buck sauntered through the troop. The river dipped between our porch and their tree perches and we were all mutually fascinated by the view. Every morning (they are diurnal), a small group clambered down the hillside to the river while others climbed trees and ate leaves and berries and barked to each other and at us. I would do the same - get my coffee, climb to the porch's top railing, stare and bark back. The three pictured above were particularly interested and stayed to watch me watch them. It was like people-spying at the airport. For anyone who has viewed primates in the wild, they have poses and movements that are eerily human. Why this surprises us (or disconcerts some) is odd - probably because of our learned impression that nature is distinctly separate from us - but it's undeniably fascinating to watch them cross arms, dangle a hand over their knee, scratch their chest - all while staring at you mimicking them (leaves and berries were their cup of coffee). They are omnivorous animals but a particularly interesting piece of this troop's diet is their intake of crawdads. Scattered along the riverbanks are the cracked shells of hundreds of crayfish that the baboons catch in the river and eat. Their cousins in the Cape Town area - 2,000 kilometers away - forage for crustaceans when the Atlantic Ocean recedes at low tide. And then there's us: prowling the riverbanks or seashore with a stick and a fly and an old instinct now called sport, all of us staring at each other with some form of amazed recognition. What's carried on the gaze in both directions is evolution.

Waxing Eloquent vs Brass Tacks

From "The Book of the Tarpon" by A.W. Dimock

I'm addicted enough to fly fishing to enjoy reading about it, poring over catalogs to learn new flies, etc. and it's always rewarding when good writing intersects with it (not often enough). There's a sentiment throughout fly fishing literature that the fly fisher possesses a more nuanced appreciation of his/her natural surroundings and derives more from the experience than the heavy-browed bait fisherman machine-gunning for an obscene catch rate while clubbing the fish gasping at his feet. The former comes from a legitimate source: the real experience of the fly fisher noticing the river's conditions and hatches and responding to it throughout the day with the selection of fly, approach, water, cast, and drift. It is undoubtedly a more involved style of fishing and, while doing it, you notice many other things. I have witnessed incredible scenes while standing in a river: a coyote trotting on the bank without concern for me; deer gingerly picking their way across the stone streambed; an enormous beaver repeatedly swimming by; a bird deciding that M was its parent and trying to land on her head in the middle of the river; a cutthroat trout launching from an alpine lake to intercept a blue dragonfly. I've met plenty of pigs in lipstick holding fly rods who missed the point, the fish and everything but the price tag. I've also met bait/lure fishermen who have their own appreciative methods. So the debate about who appreciates what is moot when judged by angling style (the most important distinction is fish mortality rates). But I do know that most, if not all, of the appreciation comes after catching a fish. One fish, and the landscape or seascape opens up. Everything smells better. That first fish, that tug on the line and direct connection into unknown worlds, is the key to washing away all of the dissatisfaction, anger, unease or whatever you wanted to leave locked back in the truck. But you have to catch that one, and sometimes one is enough, for the world to unfurl its better ribbons. I've heard there's a specialized ward in psychiatric hospitals for people who just stand in rivers and mutter. The notion that a fly fisherman can fish all day, not catch anything and leave the water with a smug satisfaction is delusional. I have proof. Here is an early example as unqualified evidence and debunker.

A.W. Dimock, who had a very checkered career on Wall Street, spent months fishing Boca Grande in Florida and wrote "The Book of the Tarpon" in 1912. It is a classic with some of the best fishing photography I've ever seen by his son Julian (there is a scanned version online here). Dimock, who fished all styles from fly rod to harpoon, waxes eloquent in one chapter with this: "The pleasure of fishing is not in proportion to the score." I feel the enlightenment raining down from above and drift into reveries about the wavering, reticulated light patterns on riverbeds or the smell of the sea or watching, from high above on a cliff, a formation of brown trout magically holding still in the strong current of the Green River in Utah.

A few pages later, Dimock lists 334 tarpon caught in 52 days of fishing. The bastard even uses a chart - the universal format for keeping score. He probably admired the pulsating shades of the turtle grass (same color as my envy) between the time that tarpon 72 was released and 73 was spotted.

Go fish, go learn.

Genghis

Just finished this absolutely fascinating book and highly recommend it:

Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World by Jack Weatherford

It goes a long way toward explaining how much of the world was shaped well before Europe took too much Enlightenment credit. Compared to several other dominant cultures, Europe really needed enlightenment. The Mongols actually turned back after defeating Europe's armies because they realized there was relatively little loot compared to Muslim and Asian achievements. Genghis Khan was an astonishingly wise leader who incorporated all the best learning and technologies into his mobile empire from whatever culture he defeated by preserving the scholars, craftsman, etc. He rose from an outcast's status and achieved this. When he was a boy, his father died and his mother, kidnapped from a different tribe, was abandoned by the group. Among other things, he bent her sewing needles into fish hooks to keep the family alive. Then he took over the world.

Quote

"Nature is defined by human memory, which is infinitely shorter than ecological memory." -- A Hawaiian agricultural inspector to Alan Burdick in "Out of Eden"

Quote

"The idea that some places are the same as others is a lie. The world is a kind of tremor." -- Roberto Bolaño, 2666

Mirrors and rainbows

This week brings news that South Africa, the Rainbow Nation, denied the Dalai Lama a visa to attend a peace conference. To the press, the government response is that he that he would be a distraction from promoting the World Cup. The conference is to extoll the virtues of sport in overcoming racism and social ills while promoting the 2010 World Cup. Two South African Nobel laureates, Tutu and F.W. De Klerk, said they'll withdraw from the conference in protest. The government spokesman denied that China had any influence yet a Chinese embassy official freely stated to the press that they most certainly did ask that the Lama be denied and said his visit could harm bilateral relations (SA accounts for about 20% of China's trade African countries). In 1994, the new South Africa was eager to assert itself as the leader and assistant of all African countries and proclaimed its solidarity with underdogs throughout the world. The wealth of the country has largely stayed put at the top and the powerful are once again very comfortable. China is calling in its chits. It seems that, now in South Africa, everything is just business.

Chobe Xmas 2008

Long time, no post. For the New Year, this blog will be more active. We spent Xmas in Chobe Park in northern Botswana. You can see some pictures here.

Hooks & Luck

Not only is that a great name for a band, it's what I'll need. Here is a shot of the type of fly (huge), lure and hooks that I'll be using on a fishing trip on the Congo River for goliath tiger fish. See some pictures of the beastie here. (special photo bonus: dog feet in lower right corner)

New Article

A short article of mine, "An Elephant Bouquet," is in the Affairs section of the September issue of Monocle magazine.

The Glamorous Overseas Life

I've just returned from another, the fourth, trip to the Roadworthy Testing Center here in sunny South Africa and I want to share the exoticism. We have been trying for months now to register the 1974 Volkswagen Beetle in our name and one requirement is a Certificate of Roadworthiness from a testing center staffed by women who remind me of clerks in county courthouses - i.e., you are obviously the stupidest person they've talked to all day...until the next guy, etc., etc. The poor dears are besieged by us morons. The car failed the first inspection due to an oil leak and a "dirty undercarriage." Fair enough. Oil leak repaired, undercarriage cleaned. The car passed the second inspection entirely except for a new issue strangely not mentioned during the first inspection. The friend who sold us the car installed a new engine during his ownership and never changed the engine number on the car's registration papers. They care about engine numbers here and this was grounds for failure since I could not prove that the engine was not stolen. No, that's not accurate. I could not disprove that the engine was stolen. I said that the mechanic who did the work died shortly thereafter and his garage closed. The testing center harpy intimated that I might have to produce a death certificate from the mechanic's family. For one second, I imagined knocking on a door and making such a request. I waited for her to start laughing at her excellent joke but both our faces remained long and solemn although there was a malicious light in her blue eyes. So, after several weeks, I drummed up a certificate from a police inspector who could tell, just by looking, that the engine was legitimate and in good standing with the republic and worthy of its roads.

Before the third inspection could even begin, I was refused because of an "administration mark" on the car which had to be lifted "by the Licensing Center" before anything could be done. Four days later, the fourth visit was this morning and the cursed Beetle passed. In gratitude, I stole a fishing magazine from their waiting room. They're going to miss it too because it's an excellent issue about catching South African yellowfish by fly and profiles of the king fish species one might catch in the surf of the Indian Ocean.

I think I'll take myself out to lunch to celebrate although I'm so fatalistic now that I expect the wheels to fall off at the moment I put on the new legal tags. M recently highlighted a quote from Jose Arcadio Buendia in One Hundred Years of Solitude:

"If you don't fear God, fear him through the metals."

Reintegration

New story:

South Africa: No home away from home

While the South African government focuses its efforts on the controversial relocation of thousands of migrants displaced by xenophobic violence to temporary shelters, it is becoming increasingly clear that the next step in the plan – reintegration into South African communities – will be hard to sell to immigrants and communities alike.

Piri-piri

My article about Mozambique's spicy piri-piri sauce is in the latest issue of Saveur.

The article is only available in the magazine but the recipe is online here. It's good stuff and easy to make. You should've seen me nearly kill myself with chiles while experimenting with the recipe.

New Story

A few more pictures are on our photo site. Story:

South Africa: Government to set up shelters for the displaced

New Stories

South Africa: The downside of banning mercenaries

Southern Africa: Who will pay for peacekeeping?

Go Buy This Book

Well. It just won the gold medal of book reviews: cover of NYT Sunday Review.

First review is very good from Chicago Tribune.

I would call this a shameless plug for a good friend except that the book is so damn good that I would urge you to read it no matter who wrote it. So I'm not shilling; I'm promoting literature. This is pal Jonny's first novel, just released, and it is getting a lot of attention already, and not just from people stranded in airports. If you took the state of airline travel as a metaphor for the state of our republic, then this book is a uniquely positioned, very personal letter to the big us - a toast to the great We in our human conditions, our desperate struggles with ourselves and each other and the brilliance of the moments when sunlight pierces the confusion. During my own airport nightmares, I have bleakly thought: All these years of evolution, Western civilization and miraculous creativity and this is what we end up with - fluorescent lights and cancelled flights. A few months ago, I started the book at 11 p.m. and finished it at 3 a.m. During those hours, I was angry, teary, uncomfortable and laughing out loud - a rare gift from a novel. The story is vivid, rugged and toughly compassionate. I found myself caring for a character who I wasn't sure deserved it which made me face, again, one of life's constant queries: How wounded and how big is your heart and what are you doing with it?

Read the book. Just up, this is the book's official Web site.

You can read a description of the story and buy it here.