Kachikally Gambia

African Culture Group – Performance at KAZ Gala

2009. 7m18s. English. While commercial ISPs are flourishing and the costs of getting online are falling in many parts of Africa, the situation with getting African universities online is a different story. The commercial internet and the university internet are two different things. Research and Education Networks (RENs), while well established in the developed world, are just taking root in Africa. Without RENs and the favorable terms of access to undersea and terrestrial fiber optic cables that make connectivity affordable to universities, how can students, faculty, and ultimately African research, be part of the rest of the world? By consolidating bandwidth, working on policy issues, and training a team of university IT administrators, African universities are going global. This video outlines how and why. The work of the three organizations profiled here – AfNOG, the African Association of Universities, and the UbuntuNet Alliance – has been supported by Connectivity Africa since 2004. For more information: www.afnog.org http www.ubuntunet.net Directed by Rana Ghose and Connectivity Africa.

The recent elections in Ghana have been hailed as a successful African story. The praises, admirations and messages of commendations coming from all corners of the globe is an indication that the world is hoping for a change in Africa. It is also an indication that the world is expecting something different, different from the way things are done all the time on the continent.

Having experienced political instabilities for most of her modern existence Africa has often been described as a failed continent – a continent where everything is depressing. So it came as a surprise when Ghana managed to conduct one of the best successful elections on the continent. The successful elections in Ghana have indeed opened a different chapter for the continent. It has shown the rest of countries on the continent that there is the need for democracy to be given a chance in Africa. The elections have sent a powerful message to the continent that democracy as a form of government should be widely adopted and practiced by all the countries so that there will always be peaceful means of electing leaders and transferring power from one administration to the other.

I strongly believe that Ghana’s elections are sending the following message to the African Union and its members.

That the constitutions of the various African states should stipulate the number of years and number of terms one could occupy the office of president or prime minister. To alleviate the continent from political diarrhoea, poverty and economic melancholy the governments must as a matter of urgency embark on democratic reforms. The years where leaders rule till they die or are chased out of office should be a thing of the past. The leaders should allow free and fair elections to be held every 4 or 5 years depending on what the constitution says. Elected leaders must have fixed term of office and on no account should they try to manipulate the system in order to remain in power.   The elections in Ghana which attracted a lot of international commendations around the world are indicating to the rest of Africa that the people want something different. Our image as a continent can improve considerably if we allow democracy to flourish, if we allow rule of law to work, if we embark on a new path-a path where it is possible for the incumbent to lose elections and hell does not break loose, a path where judges are free to dispense justice without fear or favour, a path where members of the opposition are not seen as enemy combatants but as contributors of our democracy and development, and a  path where policies and ideas dominate political discussions and elections instead of the whipping of tribal and ethnic sentiments.

The leaders on the continent must realize that the existence of a vibrant democracy is in the best interest of the people and the continent as a whole. The politicians must know that vibrant democracy is a necessary condition if Africa is to come out of her current political and economic misery.

More often than not, lack or absence of democracy, corruption and abuse of power has often been cited by coup plotters as reasons for overthrowing governments in power. To prevent such incursions by the army political accountability on the continent must be nurtured strengthened. That means the three organs of government namely the executive, legislature and the judiciary must first be independent of each other and secondly they should powers that checks and balances each other so as to prevent one arm from amassing too much power.  History has shown that a situation where one arm of government amasses power only breeds envy and instabilities. The Judiciary should be given enough powers to investigate allegations of corruption so as to prevent the repetition of corrupt practices that fuelled the wars on the continent.

Additionally, the fourth arm of government that is the media should be enshrined in the constitution and the AU Charter. The mushrooming of public and private media on the continent especially electronic media should be seen as an encouraging development and governments should be encouraged to allow such private stations to be established unconditionally. The freedom of the press must be safeguarded so as to prevent unscrupulous politicians from attacking them and subjecting them to all sorts of negative tactics. The media should be allowed to play its role as the watchdog of the state and every law that will intimidate them and undermine their ability to work should be repealed.

The various institutions of government such as police, military and the ministries should work to promote democracy and development. Rule of Law should be employed by the state. Everyone should be equal before the law. Instances where there are two separate laws for the rulers and the ruled is not only affront to rule of law but affront to democracy and justice. The office of the Ombudsman and other independent bodies should be established to protect the citizens from the state.

That brings us to one of the most important institutions of democracy .i.e. electoral commission. The role of the electoral commission must also be enshrined in the constitution. This office must be independent of the executive branch of government. It must be well resourced so that it can organise elections without any difficulties. The role played by Dr. Afari Gyan in conducting Ghana’s election can only be described as excellent. The electoral commission must be impartial so as to prevent the electoral disputes that characterised the elections in Kenya, Zimbabwe, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea and Nigeria. 

The constitutions of the various countries should guarantee the existence of opposition parties. This will prevent the one party state found in most countries from gaining root. Absence of official opposition not only prevents the people from having a choice but also discredit any advantage democracy or elections may have. Therefore, constitutional and electoral courts should be established in member countries so that matters of political and electoral disputes could be settled amicably.  Corruption should be punished severely and every effort should be made track down every penny stolen from the countries.

The AU

The African Union as a continental body has a lot to learn from Ghana’s elections.

The AU Charter should be reformed, strengthened and implemented to the letter. All regional bodies such as ECOWAS, SADC and the rest should be streamlined to work within the broader framework of the AU. The AU must not be a talking shop anymore. It must not be a gathering of corrupt, despotic and kleptocratic rulers but rather a gathering of true democrats. The AU must be a platform of action and concrete decision making, a platform where issues affecting the people are addressed. This will require strong, determined and visionary leadership. A leadership who share the thoughts and ideas of Nkrumah, Lumumba, Seketuri and Nasser and who are committed to fighting poverty and improving the lots of the people. The AU must have a full time foreign policy chief who will be the mouthpiece of the continent and who will articulate the needs and concerns of the people to the outside world. The AU should establish special bodies of experts who will serve as advisory bodies to the AU. The complete silence exhibited by the AU during the current global financial crisis necessitates for the establishment of such bodies of experts. These bodies may include health, economics, environment, resource, science and technology.

Each country should strengthen her intelligence capabilities so as to ward off the undesirables of the cold war tactics where Africa was destabilised by the west using their intelligence branches and the various African countries should share vital information about what the west is up to. Every effort should be made to prevent arm struggles either within the countries or between the countries.

The days where suspensions are used as a form of punishment for coup plotters should be things of the past. Instead there should be a strong, well funded standing army (Africa High Command) ready to be deployed to any country where the army will try to cease power. Such an army should also be used to crash any arm insurgence that will show it ugly head onto the Africa political scene.

The Pan African Parliament should be strengthened and its decisions binding on all member countries. An African Court of Justice should be established to settle disputes between nations and within nations and its decisions must be binding on all members as well. This court must be the highest court on the continent. It must be modelled in line with European Court of Justice. Individuals could take their case to this court for dispensation of justice. These democratic and constitutional measures will definitely help to reduce conflicts and human rights’ abuse which is rife on the continent. 

Africans must unite and form a common front so as to make their voices heard on the international stage. We must unite against all forms of propaganda from the rest the world. The positive effect that Aljazeera is having on the world is an indication of what positive thinking could bring to the world. Aljazeera has done well in shaping the world opinion about Islam, Arabs and issues affecting Muslims, Arabs and people of the developing world. To counter the growing influence of Aljazeera, BBC for example has had to close down some programmes in order to launch an Arabic version of the BBC. Africans must know that our coming together will be interpreted differently by many who do not share our interests. As a result every effort would be made to thwart these laudable efforts in order to maintain the status quo of having a north –south divide. We must also know that our effort to change our predicament would meet several challenges among them the huge financial requirement, the human and material resources needed and many others. But we must put ourselves together and start doing something now because a journey of a thousand miles begins with a step.

Finally it is time for the old guard of African politics to leave the scene and give way to the younger generation. There are a lot of Barak Obamas on the continent but they have been prevented by the old guard from making any economic, social and political contribution towards Africa’s development. It is very sad that even in this 21st Century these old guards still think they only hold the key to wisdom. Some of these old guards have been in power for more than 3 decades yet they still want to continue to rule. For example Gaddafi of Libya has been in power for 39 years now. Omar Bongo of Gabon 31 years, Teodoro Obiang Nguema of Equatorial Guinea 28 years, Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe 28 years, Hosni Mubarak of Egypt 27 years, Paul Biya of Cameroon 26 years, Yoweri Museveni of Uganda 22 years, Omar Al Bashir of Sudan 19 years, Iddriss Derby of Chad 17 years, Yahya Jammeh of Gambia 14 years, and the list goes on unending. Recently the president of Tunisia has decided to make himself a life president of the country. The presence of such dictators is not only harmful to the image and the development of the continent but a major factor why impoverishment and underdevelopment is prevalent on the continent. Every effort should be made by the AU and the regional bodies to discourage such blatant abuse of power. It is against this background that Ghana should be commended again and again for conducting one of the freest elections on the continent.

Ghana’s elections are a straight message to the African Union and its members that democratic reform needed on the continent is long overdue and that the African Union should take notice of it. Let this 21st Century be a century of hope, a century of development, a century of prosperity and a century of peace for Africans and the world.

Once again the heads of State and governments of the various nations in Africa are meeting in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and to discuss issues affecting the Continent. For five years such meetings have been taking place and after each meeting nothing happens to the problems facing the continent. There is very little to show for all the millions of dollars of tax payers’ money that has gone into such meetings. What has the AU achieved or got right in Africa since it replaced the toothless OAU (Organisation of Africa Unity)? How effective has the AU been in tackling the numerous problems facing the continent? Can the AU tell the people in the continent why it should be allowed to hold such meetings in the name of the people after five years of no results? Can the AU tell the people in Africa one single thing that it has got right since it changed its name from OAU to AU? What at all has the AU achieved in Africa that merit another waste of tax payers’ money? 

Today Somalia is a failed state, the war is still ravaging on after 19 years, hundreds of thousands have died, millions of people have been displaced and become refugees and in all these years the AU has been meeting and talking. For what?

Right now in DR Congo the civil war is still going. The unrest and instabilities in the country has resulted in millions of Congolese lives and property being destroyed. Even as I write the AU is meeting to talk shop while millions of women, children and civilians are facing death in Congo. What has the AU done to stop the war and the looting of Congo’s resources?

Today in Zimbabwe over sixty thousand people are affected by cholera. Over 3000 are already dead and starvation is threatening millions of others. Almost a year after the elections in Zimbabwe the country is yet to have a running government. Zimbabwe is now paralysed. Inflation is over 2,200 000 %, the economy is broke with 94% of the people unemployed in the country and Mugabe is still in control despite the fact that he lost the elections. And the so called leaders have audacity to meet in the name of the people to discuss issues affecting them. What issues? Do they care at all?

In Kenya hundreds of people were killed during and after the elections and hundreds of millions of dollars worth of property were destroyed. One would expect the AU to act with quick responds to find solution in time of such crises. But did we see any such response from the AU? Is it not the same do nothing and wait and see approaches that we saw? If it had not been the effort of Kofi Annan who dedicated himself to solving the problem, Kenya would have been another Zimbabwe and the African leaders would still be meeting as they have ever done. Where and what has the AU got it right in Africa? 

Like her predecessor, the AU has been powerless and helpless while genocide is being committed against the people of Darfur. Millions of Darfurians have become refugees while hundreds of thousands have been murdered, raped and tortured to death while the AU leaders meet year after year to drink wine and have fun at the expense of the tax payer. Look at how poorly equipped the peacekeepers the AU sent to Darfur are. Have they been able to do anything to protect the people? I don’t think so. In the words of one commander, ‘the leaders in Africa have sent us here to keep peace but there is no peace to keep’. That is the situation in Darfur. Thousands are being killed and the peacekeepers do not have what it takes to keep peace.

Today in Ivory Coast the country is still divided into two with the rebels in the north and the government in the south. The once prosperous nation has been reduced to rubbles. Million of farmers have lost their livelihoods and millions of the people live in fear of their live. And what has the AU been able to do so far to stop the war and reduce the insecurity in the country? We are just to know what the AU will do.

Even as I am writing there is serious violence and power struggle going on in Madagascar with the ruling and opposition parties each claiming to be in control of the island state. Already around 100 people have been burnt alive and millions of dollars worth of property destroyed. Once again the AU is silent and we are waiting to see what it will do to stop the ongoing violence.

What can I say about the leaders currently meeting? Well a lot. First of all how many of them can boast of been democratically elected and therefore have the mandate from their people to represent them in Addis Ababa? Secondly, how many of the governments in Africa can claim to have legitimacy from the people and how many of them have any credibility at all? Is it the government headed by Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe or Omar Bongo of Gabon or Obiang Nguema of Equatorial Guinea, or the one headed Paul Biya of Cameroon or Gaddafi of Libya or the one headed by Yahya Jammeh of The Gambia? The meeting is full of dictators, tyrants, kleptocrats and their corrupt associates who ceased power and forced themselves onto the people. These leaders are not accountable to anyone except themselves. The elections of Yar’dua of Nigeria, Mwai Kibaki of Kenya, Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, Rupiah Banda of Zambia have all been called into question. How do you expect incompetent, dictators and corrupt leaders who came to power through the back door to solve the war in Congo or Darfur or alleviate their people from poverty?

What has the AU been able to do about the recent coups that took place in Guinea and Mauritania? Practically nothing except the usual barking and threats of suspension from the AU. Just wait for a year or two and the coup leaders will be presidents of their respective countries and they will take part in AU meetings and there will be no one to prevent them for this is how majority of the so called leaders came into power. This was how Gaddafi, Omar Al Bashir, Yahya Jammeh and a host of others came into power, first as military dictators and later as military leaders in civilian clothing. This is why Gaddafi has been in power for 39 years now, Omar Bongo of Gabon 31 years, Teodoro Obiang Nguema of Equatorial Guinea 28 years, Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe 28 years, Hosni Mubarak of Egypt 27 years, Paul Biya of Cameroon 26 years, Yoweri Museveni of Uganda 22 years, Omar Al Bashir of Sudan 19 years, Iddriss Derby of Chad 17 years, Yahya Jammeh of Gambia 14 years and there is no one to question them why they are still in power.

Which of the major issues bothering Africans has the AU been able to solve or appear to be solving despite years of meetings? Is it the poverty, famine and malnutrition that have made Africans to appear as sub-humans in eyes of many in the West? Is it the endemic official corruption or the Darfur genocide, or the conflicts in Congo, Ivory Coast, Sudan, northern Uganda or the dictatorships in Cameroon, Gabon, Zimbabwe, Equatorial Guinea, Libya, Egypt and Uganda? When are the AU leaders going to put in sound and concrete policies that will lift the millions of people who live on $1 a day from such predicaments?

Once again the AU leaders are meeting, drinking wine, patting each other on the shoulder and having a nice time while millions of people already condemned to poverty by these leaders, face starvation, diseases and famine. Despite the millions of dollars of tax payers money that is going to be spent at this meeting the problems of Darfur, Congo, Ivory Coast, abject poverty, leadership incompetence in the continent will not change. 

The people in Africa are throwing a challenge to the leaders meeting in Ethiopia today to show them (the people) one, just one thing that they (the leaders) have done or got right that justifies their meeting and spending of tax payers money. 

Despite years of meeting we are yet to see what fruit these meetings would produce and whether the wars and instabilities in Congo, Sudan, Chad, Ivory Coast, northern Uganda and Madagascar will be resolved. We are yet to see whether the poverty virus that has infected so many countries, cities, metropolis, towns, villages, households will get worst or will be reduced. We are yet to see whether the $148 billion dollars stolen by these leaders each year will stop. We are yet to see if the tyrants and dictators will leave the scene, allow democracy to get root, and be accountable to the people. 

It is an annual international club football competition, and is the 13th edition under the current CAF Champions League format. It is the premier club football competition on the continent and is equivalent to the UEFA Champions League. This year round, Al Ahly of Egypt are the defending champions for the trophy.
They have proved themselves as the most successful team in the competition, having won the trophy on six different occasions in 1982, 1987, 2001, 2005, 2006 and 2008. Founded in 1907, they have been widely regarded as Africa’s most successful soccer club.

The first leg of matches will be played on the weekend coming on 31 January 2009 to 1 February 2009. A total of 21 matches are scheduled to take place between 42 soccer teams which are listed as follows: Primero Agosto from Angola vs. Renaissance Aiglons from Congo, Canon Yaounde from Cameroon vs. AS Inter Star from Burundi, AS Douanes from Senegal vs. Sierra Leone team TBC, Kano Pillars FC from Nigeria vs. Elect Sport from Chad, Club Africain from Tunisia vs. SC Bafata from GBS, Djoliba from Mali vs. Casamance from Senegal, Ferroviario Maputo from Mozambique vs. Kampala CC from Uganda, SuperSport United from South Africa vs. Curepipe Starlight from Mauritius, Heartland from Nigeria vs. Black Star from Liberia, FAR Rabat from Morocco vs. SC Praia from Cape Verde, Petro Atletico from Angola vs. Royal Leopards from Swaziland, Etoile Filante from Burundi vs. Heart of Lions from Ghana, Al Ahly from Libya vs. Police from Nigeria, Al-Ittihad Khemisset from Morocco vs. Wallidan from Gambia, ASO Chlef from Algeria vs. Fello Star from Guinea, Daring Club Motema Pembe from Ivory Coast vs. Mangasport from Gabon, Zimbabwe team TBC vs. Miembeni from Zanzibar, Young Africans from Tanzania vs. Etoile d’Or Mirontsy from Commores, Academie Ny Antsika from Madagascar vs. Stade Tamponnaise from Reunion, Zambia Team TBC vs. Mathare Utd from Kenya and the last match between Al-Merreikh from Sudan vs. Atraco from Rwanda.

The preliminary round 1st leg will be followed by second leg, also to be held in February 2009. The next round is scheduled from 13 March to 15 March 2009, followed by the deciding tie from 3 April to 5 April 2009.

The other important events to take place under this championship are the African Youth Championship to be held in Rwanda from 18 January to 1 February 2009 which takes place every 2 years, followed by 1st African Nations Championship (Cote d’ Ivoire) from 22 February 2009 to 8 March 2009 and the CAF Under-17 Championship 2009 in Algeria scheduled from 19 March 2009 to 3 April 2009 which also takes place every 2 years. CAF Super Cup in Cairo will take place on 6 February 2009.

After working on the book for more than a decade, Haley was stuck — and desperate

I just love to get out in the ocean. You are really out there, thinking in ways you haven’t thought before. The best writing I ever possibly could do was after The Digest helped me go to Africa and Europe, and I was not known and I could just take my time and nobody was pressing me. God, I don’t know how long it took me. I was working slowly, slowly. When I had done all the research, nine years, working in between doing articles for other magazines, I was ready to write. I didn’t know where to go, didn’t know what to do. I knew I had a monumental task. And I got on a cargo ship. I went from Long Beach, California, completely around South America and back to Long Beach. It was 91 days.

There’s something about a ship. Usually I go out on freight ships, cargo ships. (I wouldn’t get caught on a liner. How can you write with 800 people dancing?) But the freight ships carry a maximum of 12 people, and they tend to be very quiet people.

I work my principal hours from about 10:30 at night until daybreak. The world is yours at that point. Most all the passengers are asleep.

I had written from the birth of Kunta Kinte through his capture. And I had got into the habit of talking to the character. I knew Kunta. I knew everything about Kunta. I knew what he was going to do. What he had done. Everything. And so I would talk to him. And I had become so attached to him that I knew now I had to put him in the slave ship and bring him across the ocean. That was the next part of the book. And I just really couldn’t quite bring myself to write that.

I was in San Francisco. I wrote about 40 pages and chunked it out. When you write well, it isn’t a question so much of what you want to say, it’s a question of feel. Does it feel like you want it to feel? The feel starts coming in somewhere around about the fourth rewrite.

I wrote, twice more, about 40 pages and threw it out. And I realized what my bother was: I couldn’t bring myself to feel I was up to writing about Kunta Kinte in that slave ship and me in a high-rise apartment. I had to get closer to Kunta. I had run out of my money at The Digest, lying so many times about when I’d finish so I couldn’t ask for any more. I don’t know where I got the money from. I went to Africa. Put out the word I wanted to get a ship coming from Africa to Florida. I just wanted to simulate the crossing.

I went down to Liberia, and I got on a freight ship called appropriately enough the African Star. She was carrying a partial cargo of raw rubber in bales. And I got on as a passenger. I couldn’t tell the captain or the mate what I wanted to do because they couldn’t allow me to do it.

But I found one hold that was just about a third full of cargo and there was an entryway into it with a metal ladder down to the bottom of the hold. Down in there they had a long, wide, thick piece of rough sawed timber. They called it dunnage. It’s used between cargo to keep it from shifting in rough seas.

After dinner the first night, I made my way down to this hold. I had a little pocket light. I took off my clothing to my underwear and lay down on my back on this piece of dunnage. I imagined I’m Kunta Kinte. I lay there and I got cold and colder. Nothing seemed to come except how ridiculous it was that I was doing this. By morning I had a terrible cold. I went back up. And the next night I’m there doing the same thing.

Well, the third night when I left the dinner table, I couldn’t make myself go back down in that hold. I just felt so miserable. I don’t think I ever felt quite so bad. And instead of going down in the hold, I went to the stern of the ship. And I’m standing up there with my hands on the rail and looking down where the propellers are beating up this white froth. And in the froth are little luminous green phosphorescences. At sea you see that a lot. And I’m standing there looking at it, and all of a sudden it looked like all my troubles just came on me. I owed everybody I knew. Everybody was on my case. Why don’t you finish this foolish thing? You ought not be doing it in the first place, writing about black genealogy. That’s crazy.

I was just utterly miserable. Didn’t feel like I had a friend in the world. And then a thought came to me that was startling. It wasn’t frightening. It was just startling. I thought to myself, Hey, there’s a cure for all this. You don’t have to go through all this mess. All I had to do was step through the rail and drop in the sea.

Once having thought it, I began to feel quite good about it. I guess I was half a second before dropping in the sea. Fine, that would take care of it. You won’t owe anybody anything. To hell with the publishers and the editors.

And I began to hear voices. They were not strident. They were just conversational. And I somehow knew every one of them. And they were saying things like, No, don’t do that. No, you’re doing the best you can. You just keep going.

And I knew exactly who they were. They were Grandma, Chicken George, Kunta Kinte. They were my cousin, Georgia, who lived in Kansas City and had passed away. They were all these people whom I had been writing about. They were talking to me. It was like in a dream.

I remember fighting myself loose from that rail, turning around, and I went scuttling like a crab up over the hatch. And finally I made my way back to my little stateroom and pitched down, head first, face first, belly first on the bunk, and I cried dry. I cried more I guess than I’ve cried since I was four years old.

And it was about midnight when I kind of got myself together. Then I got up, and the feeling was you have been assessed and have been tried and you’ve been approved by all them who went before. So go ahead. And then I went back down in the hold. I had a terrible head cold, flu-ish like. I had with me a long yellow tablet and some pencils. This time I did not take my clothing off like I’d been doing. I kept them on because I was having such a bad cold. I lay down on the piece of timber.

Now Kunta Kinte was lying in this position on a shelf in the ship, the Lord Ligonier. She had left the Gambia River, July 5, 1767. She sailed two months, three weeks, two days. Destination Annapolis, Maryland. And he was lying there. And others were in there with him whom he knew. And what would he think?

What would be some of the things they would say? And when they would come to me in the dark, I would write. And that was how I did every night, only ten nights. From there to Florida. I remember rushing through the big, big Miami Airport. Flew back to San Francisco. Got with a doctor, and he kind of patched me up.

I sat down with those long yellow tablets and transcribed. And I began to write the chapter in Roots where Kunta Kinte crossed the ocean in a slave ship. That was probably the most emotional experience I had in the whole thing.

Come around about 1:30 in the morning, you’ve been working since 10:30 and decide you’re going to take a little break. So you get up and you walk up on the deck. And you put your hand on the top rail, your foot on the bottom rail, and you look up. The first most striking thing is, man, you look up and there are heavenly objects as you never saw them before. You find yourself looking at planets at sea. And what you start to realize, you never saw clear air before. In some latitudes, down off West Africa, South America, on the night of a full moon, there are times you get into an illusion — if you could just stretch a little further you feel like you could touch it. And you are out there amidst all Gods firmament and then you stand and you feel through the soul of your shoe a fine vibration and you realize that’s man at work. That’s a huge diesel turbine, 35 feet down under the water driving this ship like a small island through the water. Still standing there, now you start hearing a slight hissing sound. You realize that’s of the ship cutting through the resistance of the ocean. With all that going on, feeling these man things and seeing the God things, that’s about as close to holy as you are going to ever get.

Edited from a talk at Reader’s Digest, October 10, 1991, four months before Alex Haley’s death

Excerpted from the book Alex Haley: The Man Who Traced America’s Roots by Alex Haley. Copyright © 2007 The Reader’s Digest Association, Inc. Published by The Reader’s Digest Association, Inc.; April 2007; $17.95US; 978-0-7621-0885-5.

Safari travel books really help you squeeze the most benefit out of your trip because if you know something about the animals and people you will encounter, you will probably enjoy it a lot more.

If your safari operator is up to scratch they will provide you with a lot of information too, but an African safari book will have more comprehensive content that you can access at your leisure.

And safari books can be an invaluable aid in helping you prepare for your trip. It’s almost as good as having a travel agent at your beck and call 24 hours a day.

There are three major categories of safari book that you can choose from and the titles listed in each category are the top ones in that field…

1. Topical Guidebooks

The Safari Companion: A Guide to Watching African Mammals

Written by Richard D Estes this is a definitive book about the habits of African wildlife which will stand you in good stead when you come across animals on your trip.

National Audubon Society Field Guide to African Wildlife

Apart from the wildlife information and fantastic photographs, this guide also contains geographic and climate information about your destination. Written by Peter Alden, Richard D. Estes, Duane Schlitter, Bunny McBride.

2. Country Guidebooks

There are quite a few players bidding to be Nr 1 in this category but the guidebooks that comes out tops from an African point of view are the Bradt Travel Guides.

They have amazingly detailed coverage of most things Africa and the people who write the guides are really passionate and knowledgeable about their subject. Here are a few of their titles they publish but they cover the whole of Africa with their full stable of guides…

Africa Overland

Southern African Wildlife: A Visitor’s Guide

Tanzania with Zanzibar, Pemba and Mafia

Botswana: Okavango Delta, Chobe, Northern Kalahari

Madagascar Wildlife: A Visitor’s Guide

The Gambia

Another guidebook publisher with a very extensive African range and excellent content is Lonely Planet. Some of their popular guides are…

Africa on a shoestring

South Africa, Lesotho and Swaziland

Healthy Travel Africa

Rough Guides has a more limited range of Africa books but what they do have is of a high quality…

Cape Town & the Garden Route

Swahili Phrasebook

3. Other Africa Books – Fiction

There are some Africa fiction books that manage to capture and communicate a measure of the magic, romance, wildness and unique character of the dark continent.

Reading these books will give you a foretaste of what it is about Africa that seems to get into peoples blood and engender a love of the place that draws them back again and again.

Dark Star Safari: Overland from Cairo to Cape Town written by Paul Theroux is a magnificent takes readers the length of Africa by rattletrap bus, dugout canoe, cattle truck, armed convoy, ferry, and train. In the course of his epic and enlightening journey, he endures danger, delay, and dismaying circumstances. Gauging the state of affairs, he talks to Africans, aid workers, missionaries, and tourists. What results is an insightful meditation on the history, politics, and beauty of Africa and its people.

I Dreamed of Africa is Kuki Gallmans classic inspirational and moving book about her experiences in Kenya after she moved there permanently from Italy. This book was also turned into a movie starring Kim Basinger.

I would like to access websites from the following Africa countries with relevant information posted by webmasters living in this countries.

Burundi ,Comoros , Djibouti , Eritrea , Ethiopia , Kenya , Malawi , Mauritius ,Mozambique , Rwanda , Seychelles , Somalia ,Tanzania , Uganda , Angola ,Cameroon , Central African Republic , Chad , Congo , Democratic Republic of the Congo , Equatorial Guinea , Gabon , Sao Tome and Principe , Algeria , Egypt , Libya ,Morocco , Sudan , Tunisia , Western Sahara , Botswana , Lesotho , Namibia
South Africa , Swaziland , Zambia , Zimbabwe , Benin
Burkina Faso , Cape Verde , Cote d’Ivoire , Gambia , Ghana , Guinea , Guinea-Bissau , Liberia , Mali , Mauritania , Niger , Nigeria , Senegal , Sierra Leone , and Togo