It was a question of nerve
  and, when it came down to it, the Wan blinked first
After their scribes threw in the towel,
  they succumbed to humanity's curse
In a moment, it seemed, they upended all their previous mitigations
Pivoting to the new normal, they said, they lifted all restrictions

That it was time to return to normalcy was the considered feeling
Truth be told, there was, in this, a large element of wishful thinking
And the evidence was clear, they'd been inadequate with this change of plans
The toll quickly showed they'd chosen a lower tier of soul insurance

For, beyond emotional vaccination, one needed inoculation effectiveness
Herd immunity was indeed a chimera,
  for now the whole land was a mess
It was every man for themselves, whiplash throughout the populace
Who would bear the heavy burden of the good scribes's mistakes

The historians would later ask, did they consider the alternatives?
The way these academics do, making hay at length about what ifs
They could have at least waited until after their lunar new year
What did they gain by so precipitously succumbing to fear?

And the optics weren't good, the whole world would be disbelieving
Any statistics now profferred would be taken as those Wan deceiving
All we know was that they were finally going through their second wave
Although, with the kind of numbers affected,
  fortune would only favor the brave

Hastily abandoned, previous certainties were now summarily dismissed
Yet saving face meant that no one could admit that anything was amiss
A confusion of discarded policies that were no longer compelling
The official silence that reigned in those ghastly few months was telling

Leveling up - or down as the case really proved to be
Now there was no sanctuary on hand for the catastrophe
The whole world placed as it were in the thick of it
Global narrative collapse with its striking deficits

Ananse hankered down with his family,
  best to keep quiet and watch what would unfold
In the aftermath, there would be more opportunity,
  of this he didn't need to be told
The Wan, it seemed, had calculated
 and decided on what amounted to acceptable loss
As the old proverb went: one cannot separate fighting horses with millet stalks

Weary times would follow, the toll of those days was rather harrowing
When all around everyone in the grip of the gods' cauldron was suffering
Ananse beheld so many that were complaining of these significations and wonders
Perplexing given that they'd had the opportunity to prevent the earlier blunders

It was the inconvenience that was the prime bone of contention
The notion that it was no longer worth favoring prevention
The change of policy had scuppered any goodwill, crossing the spider
He never forgot a grudge,
 in good time they would have something to remember

And so zero tolerance would be a thing of the past
It was surely inevitable that they couldn't hold fast
Now that caution was foregone, in its place came laissez faire
We would have no more examples of humanity's strategic savoir faire

The last sanctuary, then, swiftly descended into upheaval
A return to the worst of plague living, echoes of the medieval
The Gods had put all to the test, even those without the wherewithal
And with no place to hide on earth. We would all face this free-for-all

Free For All, a playlist

A soundtrack for this note (spotify version)

• Free For All by Art Blakey & the Jazz Messengers
• Every Man For Himself by Coleman Hawkins
• Upside Down by Diana Ross
• Topsy Turvy by Earl Hines
• No Rules by Trini Baby & Robelto
• Topsy Turvy by Bud Powell
• Back at One by Brian McKnight

See previously: Shakedown

File under: humour, satire, culture, observation, folktale, Ananse, storytelling, whimsy, myth, coronavirus, pandemic, Social Living, Things Fall Apart, Observers are worried, Buyer's Remorse, hatchet job, covidious, poetry, toli

Writing log: May 27, 2023

The AI buildout is the largest capital expenditure in the history of the technology industry. The financial structure holding it together has a name.

The headmaster and the chaplain were suitably bemused
As I strode up the dais to collect my Divinity Prize
I guess it was the sight of the book I had chosen
With its cover of Fidel Castro and Ayatollah Khomeni
A touch incongruous, it would seem, for a fifteen year old
But they were consummate professionals and the mask didn't slip
They maintained typical English reserve, as they say, stiff upper lip

"Interesting cover." Mr Higginbottom harrumphed in his diplomatic way
The essay on Catholicism and African modernity that I had penned
Gave no indication about this curious direction of my reading
Modern Dictators, the bold red of the English edition, stared at me
Not your usual Visitation Day fare, it was creating quite a palaver
The chaplain was very intrigued, I think, by the sight of the Ayatollah
He couldn't but ask if I was trying to make some kind of statement
No sir, I'm simply fascinated by their brand of malevolence

On the right side, my crowd was making noise, disturbing tranquility
It seemed as if all of Ghana were attending, not just my family
Proper bright clothing, wax prints, boubous, that was my posse
Head wraps - gele, and loud whoops while gesticulating wildly
Mum had also invited her BBC African service folks, slightly more sober
But still enthusiastic, I could almost taste the feast we'd be having later

...

Afterwards, we gathered under the Eros statue, the replica of the original
They'd seen the Stanley Spencer painting earlier during their tour of the chapel
Grim viewing, truth be told, the scene set out the crucifixion
If you paused, you could almost hear Blake's sly intonation
Setting out at the sanctuary, the fair hills of our new Jerusalem
If this was our Babylon we could handle the ruler's burden
For visitation day at least, we could forget this blighted exile

...

So she works at the BBC, huh? That must be a blast
Indeed, it was rubbing off, the prestige quotient
Yeah, all this despite our previous precarity,
We were not your average desperate immigrant
Journalists remain firmly in the middle class
In my school blazer - black, double-breasted - I'd managed individuality
We all know our place, the sorting hat of this society.
Still, how very English to be so finely attuned to these hierarchies

...

Stu was also there, the first of his family to go to secondary school
His parents beaming at the thought of university looming
Stolid tradesmen of Hertfordshire still disbelieving
"Entrance exams for Oxford and Cambridge, imagine that
Instead of builder's hands, it'll be wine and port with the dons"
Stu gave a sharp look. "Next you'll be counting chickens"

...

This was a country entirely suffused with historical settings
Like this school, barely aspirational yet dating back to 1597
Boasting those courts where we'd play Eton Fives
Arcane traditions, bewildering to these young eyes

We made a joyful noise, turning the place into a slice of Africa
It struck me that any achievement on my part didn't really matter
It was about finding our way out of ourselves, this exuberant celebration
For a few moments at least, forgetting the journey and praising the destination

...

Some things are long gestating, simmering in the psyche, becoming a part of you
Thirty years later, I came across chapter 11 of that selfsame visitation day book
And realized I'd just published a poem with the same title: The Ruler's Rules

Soundtrack for this note

• Old School by Lucky Mensah

File under: humour, memory, culture, England, observation, perception, immigration, school, class, poetry, toli

Writing log: June 17, 2023

Boris Dralyuk, an old bloggic friend (dating back to 2012), has an essay in Poetry about looking backward:

Pain is at the core of nostalgia, a term that a Swiss medical student coined in 1688 to diagnose a manifest malady, a homesickness intense enough to dysregulate the heartbeats of mercenaries serving abroad. Some of us are especially prone to such acute symptoms, but all of us, at one time or another, have experienced nostalgia as a proper ache. And yet, that isn’t what makes nostalgia a hard feeling to write about. There is often a sweetness to nostalgia, a sugar coating that, left unchecked, thickens until it obscures the 
painful kernel. The longing for a past purified of its faults—or a past we never knew firsthand, encountered only on the page, on the screen, or in tales told to us before sleep or from a podium—becomes an indulgence. What makes nostalgia difficult to treat honestly in poems is how easily some of us fall under its spell.

I am a nostalgist. More susceptible to the pull of the past than many of those around me, I am also aware of my condition, even somewhat ashamed of it. This inner conflict—my attraction to the past, my effort to remind myself that the past is always a dream—has guided much of my work as a poet and translator. I suppose I could blame my personal history. Uprooted as a child from my native town of Odesa, Ukraine, thrust into an alien culture, I sought comfort in memories: of playing in the park with herds of cats and one terribly loyal stray dog as the sun set, while old men swapped inflated war stories over games of checkers and dominoes; of racing back from the water of the Black Sea to bite into incomparably flavorful tomatoes sprinkled with salt; of listening to my mother’s guests crack jokes in our warm, sweet-smelling kitchen. The memories grew ever cleaner, ever more pillowy in response to my needs.

Surely the experience of immigration reinforced my predilections, but some people are simply born looking backward. When the theologian Ronald Knox was four years old, he had trouble sleeping. He never made a fuss about it, just stayed in his room. A guest at the house asked what the boy did all night, and he replied, “I lie awake and think about the past.” That was me from the start, and that is me now. Many of my poems are born as phrases that come to me as I do what little Knox did.

I frequently conjure up, as a sobering slap, the image of Edwin Arlington Robinson’s Miniver Cheevy, the smalltown lush who “missed the mediæval grace/Of iron clothing,” who “thought, and thought, and thought,/And thought about” the storybook worlds of “Thebes and Camelot.” That fourth thought, coming after the line break, sent Robert Frost and Ezra Pound into a fit of laughter when they first read it. What a terrific dig at the paralysis of the nostalgic. Of course, they knew what kept Cheevy planted on that barstool as well as Robinson did. For all his talk of making it new, Pound was forever digging in the past, forever scorning the present, and, at his canniest moments, mocking himself for it. His Hugh Selwyn Mauberley—“out of key with his time,” striving “to resuscitate the dead art”—is as much a half-
tender, half-devastating reflection of himself as Cheevy was of Robinson.

He goes on to discuss nostalgia in Marina Tsvetaeva’s 1934 poem “Homesickness” (which I too love) and Donald Justice’s “Dance Lessons of the Thirties” (which I was unfamiliar with). I love the image of Frost and Pound’s fit of laughter, and especially the four-year-old Ronald Knox lying awake and thinking about the past. And that Swiss medical student was Johannes Hofer, whose little pamphlet Dissertatio Medica de Nostalgia, oder Heimwehe (1688) you can read at Google Books or at MDZ; the word is introduced on p. 5:

It was translated by Carolyn Kiser Anspach in “Medical Dissertation on Nostalgia by Johannes Hofer, 1688” (Bulletin of the Institute of the History of Medicine 2.6 [1934]:376-391), available at JSTOR; she has an interesting paragraph about the title:

The first reprint of this thesis appeared in 1710, as part of the “Fasciculus Dissertationum Medicarum Selectorium” of Th. Zwinger (Basel). The original title is changed to “De Pothopatridalgia vom Heimwehe.” The text is almost identical with that of the first edition, although the term “nostalgia” is replaced throughout by “pothopatridalgia.” Zwinger also has introduced an additional case history between the fourth and fifth chapters, has revised and re-arranged parts of the text, and in his twelfth chapter mentions a sweet melody of Switzerland which tends to produce homesickness in everyone who hears it. He actually gives the notes of this “pathologic air,” which is called “Kühe-Reyen.”

I have a feeling “pothopatridalgia” was never going to catch on.

There's no good way to receive bad news
And it is a feature of grief
That it catches you unawares
Cuts your soul, plunging deep

A phone call
One-handed, you answer
While marinating the meat

Raw chicken
Primal
Scream

A dear one has been stolen from you by this thief


...

This thief returns to the scene of the crime
No different in this, than other criminals
A repeat offender though, the gods gave up on reform
Threw their hands up at this incorrigible burglar
As if to get an idea for the next heist
There's always a target of opportunity
Even when the authorities are hot on the trail
Acting unconcerned, for the work is thrilling
Funeral minded, this thief, and comfortable hiding in plain sight
Secure in the knowledge there's no need for a mask on the face
Even while out on bail, the crime spree continues apace
Stripping bare all certainties, impressing the inevitability of death
This thief loots and pillages, crown jewels, a desecration
Faith and solace in the aftermath, grasping for soul insurance
Yet there's no salving the wounds, there's no consolation
Memories are the only thing the victims have left


For Uncle Ofosu




See previously The Laws of Grief


File under: grief, culture, observation, perception, social, memory, life, mourning, poetry, loss, Observers are worried, Social Living, Things Fall Apart, toli

Writing log: January 21, 2023

I've been thinking of The Traveler's Africa; the view from the Torrid Zone. Some readings beyond Equiano's Travels taken from my bookshelf (oh, and a playlist...)

Classics of the Genre

• The Modern Traveller by Hilaire Belloc
• Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
• Travels in West Africa by Mary Kingsley
• Black Mischief by Evelyn Waugh
• Travels with my Aunt by Graham Greene

From savage satire to the impressionistic to the documentary.

Hilaire Belloc's satirical eye is sublime. Nothing escapes his immaculate rendering of the essence of thousands of travel narratives. From antiquity to, say, the great explorers tomes (Mungo Park's travels in the interior) to near-contemporaries like Stanley and Livingstone. All that and more are highlighted in The Modern Traveller.

He dismantles the kind of writing lionized in the prose of empire by Kipling and others. Where we'd now say God, Gold and Glory, Belloc straightforwardly put it as Blood and Sin in vicious light verse. The cover by Basil Blackwood is apt. All the tropes of travel writing about Africa are outlined, the mystery at its heart, and all that made it evocative. Writing at the height of empire in the wake of the British victory at the battle of Omdurman in 1898, there is much to deflate in Victorian triumphalism and he sets about it avidly. The Modern Traveller is his early masterpiece.

The Journalistic Impulse

The journalistic impulse weighs heavily on travel narratives and Africa gives great material for the genre.

The travel writer ofen emerges jaded from the encounter with Africa despite the initial optimism. The people steal your heart but also destroy you. You might start to merely document but hallucinations often follow, such is the burden of the heart of darkness. Joseph Conrad, of course, had great influence on popular perceptions of Africa, and for good reasons: metaphors and urgent storytelling will always strike a chord.

It would take more than half a century and Chinua Achebe's own urgent storytelling to begin to change the perspective and to show that African voices need not be drowned out in the travel narratives and treated as mere backdrop. Indeed, they can lead the way.

A Burnt Out Case is probably Graham Greene's most focused entry, a lush hatchet job of the Conrad template, but Travels with my Aunt is his purest distillation of travel writing. An entertainment, perhaps, it captures the fecklessness and the roving eye. The kind of observed behavior that Evelyn Waugh savages with vicious fun in Black Mischief.

Contrast with the relatively sober yet similarly roving eye of Mary Kingsley. Hers is rooted in her search for botanical specimens but there is a richness to what she uncovers in the process. She was genuinely interested in the place she traveled to and the culture of the people she encountered. Her observations make for a treasure trove for historians and sociologists alike.

In a more literary bent in the 1920s, consider André Gide's Travels in the Congo and a delightful memoir Then I Saw the Congo by Grace Flandrau. The book covers tend to follow a distinct pattern.

• The Shadow of the Sun by Ryszard Kapuściński
• Report in Africa by Oden Meeker
• Call Africa 999 by John Peer Nugent
• Stringer by Anjan Sundaram

(I hesitate to brand Kapuściński as a journalist, he was so much more. The journalistic impulse is, rather, what I'm getting at when it comes to the tenor of his writings. Denis Johnson in Seek treads much of the same terrain as Kapuściński but with a stronger punch).

How to take to the tropics is a delicious survey of travel writing in Africa by Oden Meeker. His and John Peer Nugent books are recent discoveries, wide ranging as befits these restless souls. Anjan Sundaram's Stringer follows Conrad by way of investigative journalism, archetypal of the mold of journalists that have had to report on conflict (e.g Fergal Keane).

African Perspectives

The Wife has long taught an African Travel Narratives course; we, each, have our favorites and trade new finds as we discover them. Our modern canon:

• An African in Greenland by Tété-Michel Kpomassie
• By the Sea, Desertion and Paradise by Abdulrazak Gurnah
• Everyday is for the thief by Teju Cole
• A Stranger's Pose by Emmanuel Iduma

A semester length course will cover readings in many styles and from many perspectives. The ones we tend to find most engaging highlight the African perspective. And things do change once African voices are in the mix.

An African in Greenland is revelatory, Tété-Michel Kpomassie's story is so engaging, he grabs you with the force of his personality, his curiousity and his drive.

Abdulrazak Gurnah, of course, in his brilliant body of work inverts the perspective and the frame that Conrad may have set and, with this freedom, makes it his own. I've lost count of how many copies of By the Sea I've had to buy as I keep recommending and gifting it to others. I'm thankful that the academy have rightly rewarded him and I no longer need to be on the street team.

A novel like Tayeb Salih's Season of Migration to the North contains a lot travel observations but doesn't read as a traditional travel narrative and indeed there is far more sophistication in it.

Our blog era has produced two perfect little books in the genre. Teju Cole aims for close observation in Everyday is for the Thief while Emmanuel Iduma goes for the poetic in A Stranger's Pose. They are both lyrical writers with dauntingly sharp eyes.

It's fun exercise to contrast, say, The Moor's Account by Laila Lalami with Mimi and Toutou's Big Adventure: The Bizarre Battle of Lake Tanganyika by Giles Foden. The one written from the ground up and periphery, the other taken with main character energy.

And the narratives ripped from archival material carry a heavier burden that the typical travel dispatch, I'm thinking of The Two Hearts of Kwasi Boachi by Arthur Japin or say Ama: A Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade by Manu Herbstein - there's no lightness to be found in the slave trade or the earlier patterns of exchange in the colonial era.

I never quite got into the former Peace Corps memoirs although I keep reading them for what they reveal despite themselves (and George Packer's clear-eyed Village of Waiting - and Central Square which I loved, doesn't excuse his later hubris see: Iraq war).

Still I much prefer Packer over Paul Theroux's Dark Star Safari. And in the same vein, I favor Graham Greene over V.S. Naipaul.

I also can't resist missionary and explorer narratives, even as I read them in the same vein, mostly for what is left unsaid or for the people that linger in the background. Sometimes, however, you find gems in second hand bookstores: Cowboy Boots in Darkest Africa by Dr Bill Rice is an all-time favorite. But that one, like Belloc's Modern Traveller, deserves its own tale.

There's all that and more in The Traveler's Africa. And to close, a cautionary note to the would-be readers of travel narratives; not all is as it seems:

T
for the Genial Tourist, who resides
In Peckham where he writes Italian Guides

Moral
Learn from this information not to cavil
At slight mistakes on books on foreign travel

— A Moral Alphabet by Hilaire Belloc

What are your favorite Africa travel narratives?

African Travel Narratives, a playlist

A soundtrack for this note (spotify version)

• Traveling by Burning Spear
• Africa by D'Angelo
• Traveling Miles by Cassandra Wilson
• Vasco Da Gama by Hugh Masekala
  The chorus goes "He was no friend of mine"
• Congo by Amel Larrieux
• Torrid zone by Nucleus
• River Niger by War
• Explorations by Lonnie Liston Smith
• Africa by Toto
• The natives are restless tonight by Horace Silver
• Afrodisia by Kenny Dorham
• Africa by Abbey Lincoln & Max Roach
• Travelin' light by Shirley Horn
• River Niger by Roy Ayers
• Tropical zone by Angel David Mattos
• Columbus by Burning Spear
  Cheating here perhaps, but one can never have enough Burning Spear
• Torrid zone by The Afro Soul-Tet
• Great explorer by Louis Smith
• Torrid zone by Andre King
• Dr Livingstone, I presume by Moody Blues
• Torrid zone by Timmy Thomas
• Great explorers by David Burns

Bonus beats: Searching by Roy Ayers




See also Types and Faces and The Stereotype

File under: travel, writing, storytelling, literature, review, appreciation, culture, observation, perception, Africa, history, Observers are worried, toli

Writing log: November 2, 2025