I wanted the pleasure of being in Africa again. Feeling that the place was so large it contained many untold tales and some hope and comedy and sweetness too, I aimed to reinsert myself in the bundy, as we used to call the bush, and to wander around. There I had lived and worked, happily, almost forty years ago, in the heart of the greenest continent.
In those old undramatic days of my school teaching in the bundu, folks lived their lives on bush paths at the end of unpaved roads of red clay, in villages of grass-roofed huts. They had a new national flag, they had just gotten the vote, some had bikes, many talked about buying their first pair of shoes. They were hopeful, and so was I, a schoolteacher living near a settlement of mud-huts among trees and fields - children shouting at play; and women bent double - most with infants on their backs – hoeing (锄地) the corn beans; and the men sitting in the shade.
The Swahili word safari means 'journey', it has nothing to do with animals, someone 'on safari' is just away and unobtainable and out of touch. Out of touch in Africa was where I wanted to be. The wish to disappear sends many travellers away. If you are thoroughly sick of being kept waiting at home or at work, travel is perfect: let other people wait for a change. Travel is a sort of revenge for having been put on hold, or having to leave messages on answering machines, not knowing your party's extension, being kept waiting all your working life. But also being kept waiting is the human condition.
Travel in the African bush can also be a sort of revenge on mobile phones and email, on telephones and the daily paper, on the aspects of globalisation that allow anyone who chooses to get their hands on you. I desired to be unobtainable. I was going to Africa for the best of reasons - in a spirit of discover - simply to disappear, to light out, with a suggestion of I dare you to try to find me.
Home had become a routine, and routine make time pass quickly. I was a sitting duck in this predictable routine: people knew when to call me, they knew when I would be at my desk. I was in such regular touch it was like having a job, a mode of life I hated. I was sick of being called up and asked for favors, hit up for money. You stick around too long and people begin to impose their own deadlines on you.