It’s odd how cinema has defined so much of Africa for me, and how many times I find myself thinking “whoa, just like in the movies”. It’s not a mental reaction that I particularly enjoy. I know this happens because film and television are the only opportunity I (and maybe you) have had to visit distant places and experience life outside our daily life. But I’m concerned about how deep the reaction is, and what weird echoes it makes in my experiences here.

Hell’s Gate National Park in Kenya, about two hours from Nairobi was the first place I stopped, several weeks ago. This is one of the only parks that allows visitors to walk, through scrub and brush and past gazelles. My companion for this portion of the trip was a Canadian bloke with a mutual concern about traveling on foot through the known habitat of carnivores. Early in the morning, as the sun began to beat down ferociously, we noticed the trees moving in the distance. No – not trees. Giraffes. High stepping and graceful. My first thought? “It’s just like Jurassic Park”

Which it was, I’m sure. The CGI brontosauruses rippling, lumbering movements were certainly copied from these animals. So now you know what these animals look like too, film creating that bridge for us.

Later in the week, I enjoyed the hospitality of several volunteer researchers in Kakamega National Forest Reserve. Working for Columbia University, they are tracking the behavior of blue monkeys and enjoying long hours entering data (and not nuzzling with primates, I was disappointed to learn. So much for my vision of Gorillas in the Mist).  That was some much-appreciated pasta, thanks guys.
Then, on the Kenya/Uganda border, I spent several days visiting an NGO whose primary aim is to identify which types of development interventions are effective. It was fascinating and encouraging to see some very dedicated, clear-thinking people involved in development. You can read more about the approach that they use (which is important and will be something I think about through school) here. The cinematic link: traveling with a program officer on his round of interviews through the Kenyan countryside, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I had entered a scene from The Gods Must Be Crazy, even though that film took place in the Kalahari far from Kenya.

Crossing into Uganda, I found myself ill and got checked for malaria. The test was negative, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t heavy with a viral infection. I recuperated at the calm Sipi falls in the north, and then in the chaos of the capital Kampala. Taking advantage of my downtime, I visited the local ultra-modern cineplex and watched The Last King of Scotland. A surreal experience, watching a film about the very place you are visiting.

The country, of course, is nothing like the events depicted in the film. I did find myself looking for parallels as I traveled in the next week to Murcheson Falls National Park in the northwest. They are there (the parallels): rolling green hills, bumpy red dirt roads, poor health care. However, there was more. The people I met were unfailingly warm and intelligent, eager for conversation and well informed. The education system must be fairly strong, and based on the relative condition of the towns and roads, I’d say the government is more organized than in Kenya. All of these observations flesh out the impressions first given by the film; in fact, I probably wouldn’t have looked so hard for positive aspects if I had not watched Forrest Whitaker foaming at the mouth.

The highlight of Uganda was hitchhiking with a British family for a game drive, getting the chance to take in elephants and other fauna from the air conditioned environs of a hired car. Camping in the bush is also quite the experience, and dawn over the Nile would take some time to pay tribute to adequately.

I hesitated a few days before plunging down Uganda’s western flank. I have a number of activities and options available, but I decided to put these on hold and make a visit to Rwanda. In contrast to either Kenya or Uganda, I know a bit about the history of this place thanks to Philip Gourevitch’s difficult but well-written book about the genocide. That said, I am interested to see how my experience plays out, with Hotel Rwanda flickering in the back of my head.

I’m not sure if I am glad that I have film to contrast my real life travels with. Certainly it’s better to get some idea of what a place is like than to know nothing of it. But how many of these films perpetuate a simplistic or purely negative perspective about this area? This is certainly one of the chief complaints I hear from younger local people – what non-Africans know about the continent is that it is plagued by disease, famine, and civil war. Where are the positive images? The answer can’t be that there are none.

Will have a bit more to say about Rwanda after I’ve wrapped my head around the place. Any comments or suggestions or questions, let me know! I’m in a writing mood.