Why Africa?

As a full time writer from Australia who now spends more than half of the year in southern Africa, and with my 20th African thriller novel on the way, this is the question I am most often asked. It remains as hard as ever to answer: Why Africa?

I was not born on the continent of Africa, nor do I have any family ties to her, but she is now part of my life, for better or worse.

There are plenty of reasons for me not to live in South Africa - crime, corruption, the politics, poverty, disease, unreliable electricity, border crossings, crazy drivers, and cheese grillers, but there is something that keeps me coming back.

I was stuck in safe, sound, orderly, prosperous Australia for nearly two years thanks to Covid and it got me thinking why I missed Africa so much; I think I found an answer.

Southern Africa is how the rest of the world would like to be.

I'm taking the liberty of clumping a few countries together here, namely South Africa, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Namibia, Mozambique, Eswatini and Lesotho.  I'll throw in a bit of Malawi and Zambia, as well, for good measure.  

Despite what some of these countries' external tourism marketing bodies will tell you, none of them gets it completely right, when it comes to wildlife conservation, safety, the safari experience or good governance. Together, however, in spite of their various pluses and minuses, they make up a region that can teach the rest of the world a thing or two about how to live.

So what do I mean by, 'Southern Africa is how the world would like to be'?

In Australia, politicians now tell people they need to learn to 'live with Covid'. In Africa, people have been doing that since the pandemic began. They had no other choice. People here (I am in South Africa as I write this, having escaped Australia in 2021) are painfully aware of the risks of the virus, but there are no significant handouts of any kind to set them up with a home office or pay them to stay away from work. I am not criticising more developed countries who had the capacity to help their people (indeed, the South African government could have done more to support devastated businesses), but this part of the world seems to be emerging faster from the effects of the Omicron variant than anywhere else I can think of.

People are back at work, shopping in the malls, and having fun because they can and they must. Tragically, many have died, but I have yet to encounter a single person since my return to Africa who thinks their provincial or national borders should have stayed closed for a second longer than they did. 

People are tough here - they have to be. In countries such as America and Australia we have a somewhat nostalgic affinity with the wild, whether it be big-sky cowboy country or Crocodile Dundee's Top End, or the outback.  Some, of course, do live this life, and have the resilience and strength to survive drought, fire and flood, but for most residents of the so-called First World, these are things we experience via TV, and address with a few bucks donated to charity.

Here, many people live in or within reach of wild places. 

In much of the world there is, at last, a realisation that wildlife and wilderness are disappearing and, hopefully, an understanding that habitat destruction is probably more of a threat than poaching (for example, Koalas are no longer hunted for their fur, but they are losing their homes and their numbers). Around about the same time Australia lost its last Tasmanian Tiger, in the 1930s, South Africa was in the process of bringing the white rhino back from the verge of extinction by protecting it.

In much of the world, good people do good work to research the plight of wildlife and the environment, and raise money to protect endangered species; governments can and do help out.  In addition to all that, in Africa men and women put on a camouflage uniform, pick up a rifle and go on patrol at night in lion and elephant country, during stinking-hot days and freezing-cold nights. They literally put their lives on the line to protect rhinos and other critters from armed poachers. 

In some parts of the world people decry the risks of sharks, wolves, dingoes, crocodiles and mountain lions coming into contact with humans, and come up with solutions such as hunting or culling to 'control' the 'dangerous' predator.  In Africa, I don't walk around at night because there is a resident leopard; sometimes lions cross from the Kruger Park into the reserve where I live.  My wife and I modify our behaviour to accommodate the wildlife, and moderate the attendant risk.  I've seen children in school uniforms and men and women hurrying to work in places such as Mfuwe, Kariba and Victoria Falls, dodging elephants and buffalos on their daily commute.

People have fun here. Seriously. The produce and booze are first rate and very affordable by world standards, and you can light a fire and cook your meat pretty well anywhere. I can even get out of my Land Rover and have a beer in lion country at designated unfenced spots in national parks if I want to. The proviso on all of this is that you're responsible for your own actions and their consequences - a concept that seems to have been lost on law makers in other parts of the world. 

It's not perfect over here - read my books and you'll see that - but I hope you'll also see the other side of Africa, like I do.  Am I romantic? Of course I am - I write fiction for a living!  However, I've also put my money where my mouth is and chosen to invest in a home in South Africa and a safari lodge in Zimbabwe.

When I hear the neighbourhood leopard calling after dark for his mate; when I smell chops sizzling over wood coals; when I watch the anti-poaching rangers letting their hair down at the Skukuza Golf Club in Kruger; or see the kids laughing and splashing in the shallows of the Zambezi River after school, even though there'll be hippos and crocodiles nearby, I think to myself: this is why.

Africa.