Ann Jones - Looking for Lovedu: A Womans Journey Through Africa

Would you tell me please which way I have to go from here?
That depends a good deal on where you want to get to.

Lewis Carroll, Alices Adventures in Wonderland

No expedition is done solo. I owe thanks to everyone who pushed this one along: David Kleinman; Christa Brantsch; Alex Andrews; John Gould of UTC and his colleagues Sheila MacGregor, Ashanti Sheth, and Jonathan Oakes; the late Wayne Muggleton; the family of Celia Muhonjo; Lucinda and Tristan Voorspuy; and especially my friend Diane Ebzery, Executive Director of African Portfolio. And thanks to all those trusting companies that gave us great gear and services: Basic Designs, British Airways, Camptime, Canon, Cascade Designs, Coleman-Peak, Compaq, Cricket USA, Eagle Creek, Eddie Bauer, Ex Officio, GSI Outdoors, Grundig, Kodak, Leatherman Tools, Lonely Planet, Lowe Pro, 3-M, Magellan, Mont Bell, Nikon, Outdoor Research, Petzl, Polaroid, PUR, REI, Teva, Thorlo, Toyota Kenya, Travelsmith, Trimble Navigation, Vasque, and Wisconsin Pharmacal.

Ive been lucky to have a loyal band of supporters: Morris Dye at AOL and Trish Reynales at Microsofts Mungo Park, who edited my original dispatches and photographs from the road; Tom Passavant and Susan Shipman at Diversion, Linda Gardiner and Ellen Cantarow at Womens Review of Books, and Larry Habegger and Lucy McCauley at Travelers Tales, Inc., all of whom published essays about the expedition; my agents Charlotte Sheedy, Octavia Wiseman, and Abner Stein; and the sporty girls, Fran Moore and Nell Schofield, who were with me to the end. Hannah Wallace helped with initial research. Valerie Martin, Phyllis Grosskurth, Bob McMullen, and Richard West added insight and encouragement. Joan Silber, Maxine Kumin, Jean Grossholtz, Alison Baker, Mary ONeil, and African historian Eugenia Herbert generously commented on various drafts of the manuscript; and my editor, Victoria Wilson, brought her critical intelligence to bear. I am deeply indebted to all of these colleagues and friends, and to Patricia Lewis and Mary Clemmey, who kept a light in the window for me during my travels.

Among many books that increased my knowledge of Africa, I found these particularly helpful: Africa: The Biography of a Continent, by John Reader; In My Fathers House, by Kwame Anthony Appiah; The Scramble for Africa, by Thomas Pakenham; King Leopolds Ghost, by Adam Hochschild; Season of Blood, by Fergal Keane; and We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families, by Philip Gourevitch. For deepening my understanding I am indebted to the work of many African thinkers and writers, notably Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka, Nelson Mandela, Jomo Kenyatta, Yoweri Museveni, Buchi Emecheta, Ama Ata Aidoo, Fatima Mernissi, Bessie Head, Nadine Gordimer, Amos Tutuola, Meja Mwangi, Ayi Kwei Armah, Sembene Ousmane, Mariama Ba, Mercy Amba Oduyoye, Ngugi Wa Thiongo, and Ken Saro-Wiwa.

I cannot adequately acknowledge the generosity of the Africans who welcomed us to their continent and helped us on our way. My gratitude to them is beyond calculation. As is my gratitude to my traveling companionsCaro and Celia, and my peerless friend Kevin Muggleton, who doesnt mind being the villain of the piece as long as he can be amusing. My most profound debt is to the woman who started it all. Through every mile Ive been mindful of Liz Knights, my beloved friend and editor at Victor Gollancz in London, who first encouraged me to write about my travels, saw me off to Africa, and slipped away herself to parts unknown before my return. She left to me and to all who loved her the priceless example of how to live bravely, with a full heart.

THE MISSION

T he Queen was an afterthought. Long before we heard of her, we hatched the scheme in Africain Zimbabwe, on the Zambezi, in a canoe. In the long white afternoon, the intensity of the sun propelled us, lightheaded, into a reedy little backwater to rest. We drew the four canoes together, and Dave, our guide, opened a cooler and pitched us bottles of warm Coke. I dipped my bandana in the river, wrapped it around my eyes, smarting from the glint of sun on water, and lay back against the thwart, half dozing, embraced by my friends banter. Images of the African morning played upon the inside of my eyelids: Elephants showering in the shallows at the rivers edge. Crocodiles lying like logs against the banks, innocent and sinister. A flight of carmine bee-eaters darting from their nests in the riverbank, flinging themselves like rubies over the bright water. Now, as heat enveloped us, pressing our bodies as a lover might, everything grew still as all that had gone before and all that was to come converged upon this single suspended moment that was both dream and reality: Africa.