Re-Visiting Africa
Recently I started re-reading a book I first read three decades ago. African Silences chronicles writer/naturalist Peter Mathiessen's travels through Africa during the 1970s and 1980s looking for rare birds and wildlife. Covering three broad swaths of Western and Central Africa, the book is both exciting and gloomy. Having visited several African countries in recent years, I can readily connect with the book. I am excited when Mathiessen finds rare animals and birds, and saddened when he recounts the destruction wrought on the wildlife of the continent. The strong human element of the book – a hallmark of Mathiessen's work and one that attracted me in the first place – also resonates with me.
My first reading of this book - during the heady days of my youth when I found my stride in Silicon Valley and believed the world was mine to conquer - had left me unimpressed. Non-fiction attracted me, but since I was, at that time, not keen about observing wildlife, Mathiessen's descriptions of gorillas, elephants, rhinos and numerous birds did not particularly strike me. The only reason I finished it was because Mathiessen had autographed the book for me at a reading.
After several decades my interest in observing nature has greatly increased. So when I opened this book, I found myself drawn to several sections.
Take Mountain Gorillas, for instance. These rare and endangered creatures are seen in a mountainous area where three countries, Uganda, Rwanda and The Congo, meet. In 2014, I tracked them in Uganda's Bwindi Impenetrable National Park. After a brutal day of climbing slippery slopes which included falling countless times, I came face to face with a silverback and his troop - a memorable if anticlimactic moment. They appeared remarkably nonplussed by the sudden appearance of about twenty-five humans who frantically photographed them with wide-eyed amazement for several minutes.
And what was it like for Mathiessen? He tracked the gorillas with a safari group in the Virunga mountains of The Congo, not too far from Bwindi. When the humans finally found the gorillas and they faced each other, "the apes are more relaxed than we are and also more discreet, since they do not stare rudely at our strange appearance; on the contrary they avert their gaze from the disorderly spectacle we represent [and concentrate on eating leaves.]" His group however had a bonus over mine. Its path crossed with that of nasty Siafu ants which bit "the hell out of the women and children," causing chaos and groans, to which the Gorillas gave nary a glance.
Mathiessen is a keen observer of birds. He writes about his quest for the elusive Congo Peacock, one of three peacock species of the world, which was first recorded in the 1930s. Little was known about this bird during the 1980s, but today we know as many as 9,000 exist in the wild.
The author also documents with empathy the daily surprises and hiccups while travelling in Africa. Flat tires, broken down cars, collisions with domesticated animals, even the emergency landing of a small plane and the subsequent harassment by officials – Mathiessen covers them all with good humour. My own experiences with African drivers and cars can attest to this.
The book reminds me once again why Mathiessen was a great writer. Very few have been able fuse observations about flora and fauna with stories of the human condition like him, effortlessly moving from one to the other.
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