Footsteps across Africa.

When I was very young my storybook dreams told me I would see the Seven Wonders of the World.Things I have since done are greater and still I have time for the remainder of my road.

That seems a long time ago. Today, new books tell a different history, maps rename countries and leave some still stitched together their ancient boundaries born of blood and feuds. I have been there. I am a traveler of the road and know the false lines that governments and rulers draw with cries for visas, stamps and bribes.

I walked north that day from my home in Durban, South Africa. Not fleeing but leaving a devoted family, loving servants, comfort and security, for a while, to search for those differences that lay between the realities of my world and what I imagined all those dreams to be.

I was on the road when the endless waters of the Kariba Dam were preparing to reach a resting level. But no size of man's achievements was greater than the sorrow of those fifty thousand souls it displaced. I searched to meet some of those broken hearted.

When Patrice Lumumba was on a ferry to Brazzaville we met, made friends. He read his poetry to me and asked me to stay and work with him but I dreamt of the route to Lamberene on the Ongooue River. There I wanted to hear him play his violin, to talk to him of his compassion for the leper and learn more of that belief in his 'Reverence of Life'-dear Dr. Schweitzer.

When pygmies of Putnam's Camp were the indentured servants of surrounding Indian shopkeepers I paid their debts. They wept then went back to their families to be free in the jungle. And I learned of the joyous return that comes from an effort that is filled with compassion.

When children were sold into slavery in Sudan I bought a little brother and sister, protected them until I found them true freedom with a group of missionaries. They gathered around me, prayed, and wished me a safe journey. I felt complete.

My journey nearly ended in the jungles of the Congo. Unknown to me I was to be sacrificed at night by those who practiced cannibalism. I thank the two African mission workers who risked their lives and no one else knew of such bravery. They told me it was done in the name of Christ and would not exploit it for personal gain.

And when there was only the lull of suspicion in Africa.

When friction and hell and the quietness of the African veldt slept together I was able to lie down on any square inch of its earth and never think of being blown up by a land mine-just look up into God's heaven and watch and listen.

Here I felt freedom. That was then and I was there, and since, it has been forever in my heart. That wonderful silken time cast shade not shadow for me. For those about me it seemed to be purposeful, for others a time of silent preparation. But for most there was an African rhythm, like the harvest, and for them it was made for eating and loving and drinking in the kraals and beneath the shaded trees of Africa. Such was their life in those years.

Generous, my food came from people and the land and the rivers. And as I traveled it changed like the weather, the seasons and the color of the grass and then no grass only sand and sometimes no food.

Yams and yams and palm oil seasoned with hot peppers and peanuts fried with grubs, flying ants and then more yams to clean the pot and leave nothing. Smoked fish, monkey and snake and giant squares of hippopotamus and crocodile meat consumed.

Palm wine, cool, brought a certain intoxication. Then a second fermentation as it lay within. This continued through the next day and then perhaps the following day depending on how much was drunk to quench the thirst. The water was never clean and larvae wriggled in it. There was no other way.

Then soft grains and goat's meat with fresh vegetables, dates and yogurt and salads to nourish were eaten ravenously. And so many things enjoyed that I do not name because the satisfaction of hunger and thirst came first.

You eat with the hand, which one or both and what fingers.

They watch to separate the infidel from the brother and know where you recently journeyed. Some spoke seriously of my presence and the infidel but most laughed and I laughed with them and loved Africa.

It was always the children who ran to welcome me. Perhaps to satisfy a curiosity like their watch dogs that wagged tails and never barked. They came to stroke my beard. Some jumped for it. For others I bowed to let them touch and stroke. And the women carrying sucking babes held handfuls gently and reverently for their men had none. They asked for and sought the name of the herb that gave this growth so husbands could enjoy status and add excitement to their sexual satisfaction. Such pleasures they believed accompanied a beard of my growth and size

These were some of the simple things in Africa that consumed me.

There is no precise place or day when my home in Durban grew fainter when distance lengthened and time became meaningless. I walked the road each day in sun and rain. I walked.

And in all those days and nights what I saw and heard could fill the lives and minds of many.

With the pirogue mastered I traveled endless rivers with great waterfalls and crocodile infested rapids. Climbed snow capped mountains, explored the caves filled with bats-perhaps millions-and endless swamps breathing with life and mumbling.

Vast herds of animals grazed and gave birth on the plains and grunted their noises. I stood upon the trails of past camel caravans that had carried salt to the west and gold to Mecca in the east, the battlefields of Kitchener and Khalifa, Rommel and British Tommies and explored the excavations and the dreams of pharaohs.

The skies of Africa filled themselves with sun and more sun and often stuffed themselves with dark foreboding rain clouds, deep and black with ferocious design. Lightning carried the longest streaks I ever saw as thunder rolled across the plains and burst in the mountains. The painted skies of dawn and sunset never more divine in any land I ever crossed. All displayed, I stored them in my memory forever.

In Africa it burns in the hot sun and at night the darkness comforts the sleeper but in the shadows of the minds of men where beliefs and habits lie I moved carefully, aware never to disturb, and found my freedom in nature.

Still some come in different colors with that soft and gentle approach which is the shadow of their art. I watched their eyes as they talked of deals and ways to enrich. By now I had learned well and never offered that no or yes but politely spoke of my passing through and knew it was time to leave. Beware traveler, do not stay and entertain their manipulating ways. Leave, and do not dream of false rewards and instant fame. Leave.

And at the end of my African soil I stood in the water of the Mediterranean Sea in wonderment and held the fear of restlessness. Within I carried insight that stretched deep into the minds of peoples, some with passions and purposes unfulfilled others with power and greed that exploited and enslaved their own. And for those wondrous creatures that inhabit our earth, uncared for by man, I wiped away tears.

In ragged clothes, long hair and beard, I looked up into the African sky where He saw something that I too had found. Myself.

Footsteps across Africa. 2006  Peter Frickel

Footnote:

Peter Frickel, the writer, hiked the length of Africa from his hometown, Durban, South Africa. He walked jungle paths, paddled the Congo and Nile Rivers, rode camel caravans. He traveled eight thousand miles over eighteen months through eleven countries to Alexandria, Egypt on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea.