# 78: Africa
By: Silke Schmidt
Tags: Biography, Africa, Dignity, Covid Diaries, Travel

Gallmann, Kuki (1992). Ich träumte von Afrika, 97. (English version from Google Books)

Story behind the Passage

A few days ago I caught myself saying: “Covid is bothering me now.” That was the first time I really thought so. I believe, as soon as human beings see the light at the end of the tunnel (vaccines are coming), we want to get there as soon as possible. Or maybe I am generalizing. Maybe it is just me who thinks this way.

What I really start missing is travel. This year was the first one in my life when I only traveled abroad once. That was right before the outbreak of the pandemic. It was my first time to Scotland. That was it. Most of my friends and acquaintances did travel a lot this year despite or even because of the circumstances. For me, there was no reason. I did not even travel inside Germany that much. At the same time, however, I did not really miss it as much as one would think — given the fact that I am a frequent traveler in “normal” times.

This reflection about travel and my increasing longing to go abroad again made me look for a book about Africa in my shelf today. I had a period during my teenage years when I read almost every book, especially biographies, about people who grew up or emigrated to Africa. Well, that is not correct, actually. This was not just some period. I have remained a fan of books and movies about Africa until the present day. But for sure, my own life experiences would have been different had I not read and learned much about Africa when I was younger.

I cannot remember many details from I Dreamed of Africa. What I do remember is the intensity of the story. It is one of the most moving life stories I have ever read about a European woman moving to Africa. Gallmann lost her husband and her son in Kenia. Still, she stayed. It is her country. The ranch is her home. Even though, as I just read now, her life remains difficult (McConnell), there is no way that she could leave. I understand that. Maybe others understand it too. I had no idea that the story was turned into a movie. I will talk about the book — as always.

My Learnings

“Few things give me such a sense of fulfilment as building from nothing, with whatever natural materials are available, a space to live in, in harmony with the untouched landscape of Africa.” Whenever I pick a sentence that fully describes how I see the world, it is very difficult to add some sort of explanation or interpretation. The word “fulfilment” here really is what I feel when I build stuff from scratch. Actually, every book you write follows the same logic, even though logic sounds quite out of place in this context. Nevertheless, this experience that you can create something with hardly anything is so unique, so outstanding, that it automatically eases any wrong aspiration for perfection. If you start with nothing and you come up with something — that is incredibly much.

This especially holds true if you build something in the middle of “nowhere,” as some people might think about rural Africa. I am using quotation marks here because to me, the “untouched landscape of Africa” is not nowhere to me. It is really the center of the world if you love being in places where you feel that you are so close to nature that you are closer than ever before to yourself. This is how I read this sentence. It does not necessarily make me think of Africa, it makes me think of the desert.

I remember when I went to the north of Ghana for a few days, it was like a trip to a different country. The north of Ghana is very different from the center and the south. Well, that might sound funny because many countries show such diversity (just think of Israel). Still, to me, it was quite surprising to actually experience it, even though I had read about it before. This is unusual for me, by the way. Usually, I do not read much about the countries I visit. I go there first to experience everything and then I can read up on stuff.

In the case of Ghana, however, I had to use my last weeks in the country very wisely and I longed for going somewhere else — away from the Christian-dominated Kumasi area. And I did not regret it. Indeed, the north was very different. It is the Muslim-dominated region, more quiet and more rural. There is not much real desert there as we know it from North Africa. It is mostly savanna and the architecture with typical mud huts but also an impressive white Moorish mosque impressed me very much. I had never seen any buildings like these anywhere in the world.

Now I am starting to sound like a tourist guide author. That is funny. What I wanted to get at is simply that this scenery just came to my mind now when reading Gallmann’s sentence. Especially the mud huts always give me this feeling that you can build something purely with the material the earth gives you as a gift. It is all there and even after you as a human being interfere with nature because you are constructing something that would not exist otherwise, the result still blends in with the landscape because all of it is made with the same material — soil.

“It must be a work of love and understanding, and of humbleness for intruding with our presence in the silence and dignity of nature.” There are two words in this rather short sentence that have come to mean so much to me: “humbleness” and “dignity of nature.” Feeling humbled for me usually is related to experiencing nature. You do not have to travel to Africa for this. You can go to the local forest or just step outside and watch the sky. Wherever you are: there is some nature surrounding you. And the reason why I say humbleness is related to nature for me is simply that, the older I get, the more I understand that nature holds all wisdom. If we study the laws of nature, we understand how the world works.

With respect to “dignity,” I do relate the word to nature but especially to human nature. For me, dignity is something that we all need to fight for every day. I do not necessarily mean fighting for one’s own dignity. I mean: stepping up for protecting the dignity of others. No, I am not some wannabe Mother Theresa or Jeanne d’Arc. Still, it drives me nuts to see how the dignity of some people is being trampled upon. I am not even talking about people who are “officially” labeled outcasts of society. I also mean all the daily encounters with injustice and stupidity in which people are afraid to speak up and to protect themselves.

Well, all this might have to do very little with Africa. I am not so sure. I think, this insane love for Africa which I felt back then and which still comes back to me sometimes, taught me a lot about dignity and many other truly meaningful words in life. Even though I did not end up spending as much time in Africa as I did in other regions of the world, I have always been able to identify with people like Gallmann. Yes, there is always criticism involved when Europeans go to Africa to live some sort of Hollywood romance. Fine, so be it. It is correct that this is always a double-edged sword. Still, it makes me happy to read that Gallmann continued pursuing her dream of building her vision “from nothing.”

I just hope that more people in our society will learn this again — to build things with hardly anything. The first raw material that is needed for this is not even any natural resource. Neither does it take any investments or strategic partners. Building things from scratch requires just one thing at the start: imagination and the willingness to go through whatever hardship life has to offer.

Reflection Questions

1) Do you understand all this “idealization” of Africa which you find in books and movies?

2) Where exactly do you feel the “dignity or nature”?

3) Which countries/world regions did you preferably read about when you were younger? Why?