Destination: Africa
The Concerto Inspired by Tahrir Square
by Jim Benning | 01.25.12 | 6:12 PM ET
Arab American composer Mohammed Fairouz watched the uprising in Tahrir Square on TV a year ago today. As he looked on, with the volume off, he began composing a piece of music. “Tahrir for Clarinet and Orchestra,” now complete, is “the first movement of what will eventually become a concerto in three movements,” according to a fascinating report on PRI’s The World.
You can hear the movement in its entirety below, but the radio segment is well worth a listen, particularly Fairouz discussing the various facets of the uprising he was trying to evoke through the music.
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Yahoo! BuzzInterview with Henry Rollins: Punk Rock World Traveler
by Jim Benning | 11.02.11 | 12:40 PM ET
Jim Benning asks the musician about his new book of photographs and how travel has humbled him
‘I Was Writing a Guidebook to a Country That No Longer Exists’
by Michael Yessis | 10.10.11 | 9:08 AM ET
Kate Grace Thomas updated the Lonely Planet guidebook to Libya just before the Arab Spring. As the country turned violent, the book was quickly put on hold. Yet Thomas found herself itching to return to Libya. She writes about her experiences in Guernica:
War is not my beat. I knew that. But Libya, somehow, was. I went in December to tell its stories—stories of nascent tourism and marvelous ruins, stories of deserted beaches and drinking sugary tea in the winter wind. And now, there were more stories to tell.
(Via @writinginpublic)
Of Laws and Loopholes
by Christopher Vourlias | 09.07.11 | 10:32 AM ET
Photo: Christopher Vourlias Christopher Vourlias just wanted to cross the border, but one man stood between him and the Congo
David Brooks on Travel and the Haimish Line
by Jim Benning | 08.30.11 | 4:32 PM ET
The New York Times columnist recently took his family on safari to Kenya and Tanzania. They stayed in simple camps where they got to know people and more luxurious camps where they did not.
The more elegant camps felt colder. At one, each family had its own dinner table, so we didn’t get to know the other guests. The tents were spread farther apart. We also didn’t get to know the staff, who served us mostly as waiters, the way they would at a nice hotel.
I know only one word to describe what the simpler camps had and the more luxurious camps lacked: haimish. It’s a Yiddish word that suggests warmth, domesticity and unpretentious conviviality.
It occurred to me that when we moved from a simple camp to a more luxurious camp, we crossed an invisible Haimish Line. The simpler camps had it, the more comfortable ones did not.
Brooks goes on to extrapolate larger lessons about how we live. It’s a well-worn theme in travel—see Rick Steves and a thousand other sources. But the message never gets old, undoubtedly because most advertising continues to insist we’ll be happier if we just spend more money.
Tunisia Tackles Tourism Shortfall with Dark Humor
by Eva Holland | 07.14.11 | 5:49 PM ET
Tunisia’s role in the Arab Spring wasn’t as widely reported as, say, Egypt’s or Libya’s. But word about the country’s revolution has still spread far enough to cut tourism in half—and the Tunisian authorities are hoping to regain some of that lost revenue through a series of ads poking fun at the unrest.
According to the Guardian, one ad shows a woman enjoying a massage under the caption, “They say that in Tunisia some people receive heavy-handed treatment.” Another depicts an ancient archaeological site, with the tag line, “They say Tunisia is nothing but ruins.”
Tasteless? I suppose if I was a Tunisian civilian who’d been shot at or abused by police during the uprising, I might not be amused. But I think tackling a country’s reputation head-on is a good thing—and hey, as Australia learned a few years back, a little controversy can go a long way.
Rapping About Travel in Kenya, Mzungu-Style
by Jim Benning | 06.08.11 | 3:03 PM ET
Afar magazine sent filmmaker Jorma Taccone to Kenya, where he co-wrote a travel-related song with a Nairobi rapper named Rabbit and shot a video. Considering its mzungu origins, it’s not half bad.
Protests in Egypt: Five Links for Travelers
by Eva Holland | 02.03.11 | 3:14 PM ET
The protests in Egypt are entering their second week, and the flow of news stories, blog posts, links, tweets and video can be overwhelming. Here are five links, in case you’ve missed any of them:
- The AP has a round-up of the government travel warnings and cruise and tour cancellations that began cropping up late last week.
- Reuters has coverage of the evacuations of foreign nationals that began earlier this week.
- Al-Jazeera English has been live-blogging daily from Cairo, Alexandria and Suez—a must-read.
- Andrew Sullivan’s The Daily Dish is another good resource.
- Finally, The Atlantic has a really well-done video compilation of the early days of the protests.
Odd Jobs: Interview With a Nigerian Garment Fixer
by Lola Akinmade | 11.19.10 | 9:36 AM ET
Photo: Lola Akinmade Lola Akinmade meets a guy in Lagos who'll fix the shirt right off your back
World Travel Watch: Tube Strike in London, Election Worries in Egypt and More
by Larry Habegger | 11.17.10 | 1:26 PM ET
Larry Habegger rounds up global travel news
Mapped: Sexual Harassment in Cairo
by Eva Holland | 11.12.10 | 11:31 AM ET
And speaking of street harassment—a group of women’s rights activists in Cairo has created a new site aimed at raising awareness of the problem in their city. The project, HarassMap, uses crowd-sourced emails and text messages to map harassment on the streets—divided into categories like “catcalls,” “touching,” “stalking or following” and “indecent exposure.” The second step? Approaching community leaders in harassment “hotspots” and enlisting their help in combating the problem.
‘Mozambique is a Good Place to Disappear’
by Eva Holland | 11.02.10 | 3:12 PM ET
Over at The Smart Set, World Hum contributor Christopher Vourlias recalls an encounter with Captain Ian, a boozy expat who’d fought against Robert Mugabe’s guerillas in Rhodesia-turned-Zimbabwe before embarking on a 20-year journey around southern Africa:
During the night he had described himself to me as, alternately, a thief, an assassin, “the grumpiest, most irritable captain on the sea,” and “the last rebel in Africa.” Now he was at the helm of a fishing boat on Ibo, offering day trips to the few tourists who straggled out to the island each year. He gave me a very complicated look as he described his newfound fate. It seemed like an awfully long fall from grace—or, at least, violence—for this unlikely rebel.
It’s a good read.
Will a Road Through the Serengeti Kill Tanzania’s Giant Tourism A.T.M.?
by Michael Yessis | 11.02.10 | 11:45 AM ET
Tanzania president Jakaya Kikwete wants to build a highway through the Serengeti, the location of the Great Migration, which, Jeffrey Gettleman writes, is “widely considered one of the most spectacular assemblies of animal life on the planet.” What will happen if the proposed road gets built?
Scientists and conservation groups paint a grim picture of what could happen next: rare animals like rhinos getting knocked down as roadkill; fences going up; invasive seeds sticking to car tires and being spread throughout the park; the migration getting blocked and the entire ecosystem becoming irreversibly damaged.
Tourism could also be a casualty.
Hundreds of thousands of people here depend on tourism for a living. And the Serengeti is like a giant A.T.M. for Tanzania, attracting more than 100,000 visitors each year, producing millions of dollars in park fees and helping drive Tanzania’s billion-dollar safari business, an economic pillar. “If anything bad happens to the Serengeti,” said Charles Ngereza, a Tanzanian tour operator, “we’re finished.”
Jeffrey Gettleman narrates an accompanying video.
‘I Studied Abroad in Africa!’: Fair or Unfair?
by Michael Yessis | 09.20.10 | 5:06 PM ET
Students who have ventured to Africa are getting called out on the Tumblr I Studied Abroad in Africa! for “wearing your ‘traditional’ African clothes, eating ‘weird’ foods and taking as many photos of black children as possible.” Fair or unfair? (Via urlesque)
Meet the Traveler Who Saved Graham Greene’s Life
by Eva Holland | 09.07.10 | 2:17 PM ET
In the Telegraph, Tim Butcher tells the little-known story of Barbara Greene, a cousin of the well-traveled author—and, apparently, his savior on a 1935 trip through Sierra Leone and Liberia. Here’s Butcher:
At the off, the adventure was the property of Graham Greene. He made all the arrangements and took all the decisions, hiring a team of 24 bearers, three servants and a cook. A child of the late Edwardian era, Barbara Greene was happy to go along with this.
But after crossing into Liberia and beginning the trek, a reversal took place. Graham fell ill, dangerously ill, while Barbara got stronger and stronger. They had various adventures and almost lost each other in the thick forest, but the key moment came about three weeks into the walk when his illness worsened dramatically and he lost consciousness.
“Graham would die,’’ she later wrote. “I never doubted it for a minute. He looked like a dead man already ... I was incapable of feeling anything. I worked out quietly how I would have my cousin buried, how I would go down to the coast, to whom I would send telegrams.’‘
Calmly Barbara Greene took over responsibility for the trip, settling on the route, arranging food and motivating the bearers. Having completed the same trek last year for my book, staying in the same villages and enduring the same climate, I am in awe of her achievement. And I am in no doubt that she saved her cousin’s life.
(Via The Book Bench)
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