“Africa is an illness that affects your heart”
Excerpt from Professor Fadiman’s new book “Sixty-one years on safari—How a White American carries on his decades-long love affair with Africa”
Africa is an illness; it affects the heart. You wonder if you have it when you go there, finish whatever project brought you, and then don’t want to go home. You think you have it when you are back home, bored sick with everything, and yearn to go back. You know you have it when African friends tell you that you have white skin but a black heart—their way of saying you can see things their way, so there is hope for you yet.
Sixty years ago, I was 24, intensely single, severely underemployed and had never given Africa a thought. Then, two friends, George and Andee, asked a question that changed my life: “Want to go to Timbuktu with us?” Always sharp, I replied “Ummm, where is it?” In the middle of Africa, one replied brightly. We looked it up. It’s easy to get to.”
When you are 24 everything looks easy. So, I went.
It wasn’t easy. We travelled in the dark bottom of a pitching freighter, through dusty bush jammed atop a truck with 90 Africans, and up the Niger River in a peanut-filled canoe. Then, when we arrived, we were walking through a city of sand.
Much more to discover in this fascinating book by a White man about the black continent.
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About the author
Jeffrey A. Fadiman, 85, is a professor of Global Marketing at San Jose State University in California, and a Language and Area Specialist for Eastern and Southern Africa. A graduate of Stanford University with two years at the Universities of Vienna and Free Berlin, this Fulbright scholar taught both U.S. and global marketing tactics at South Africa’s University of Zululand. He first experienced Africa in 1960 by canoeing up the Niger River to Timbuktu. Thereafter, he lived in Meru, Kenya, where he rediscovered the traditional history of the Meru tribe, which had been crushed by British Colonialism. Fifty years later, the Meru accepted him as the first White Elder of their nation. Professor Fadiman has supported both Tanzanian AIDS orphans and the schools to which he sent books, pens, paper, and hope.
Soumanou Salifou (administrator)
Soumanou is the Founder, Publisher, and CEO of The African Maganize, which is available both in print and online. Pick up a copy today!