On the subject of drugged out road trips, James Michener’s The Drifters takes us on a trip through Spain and northern Africa in a Volkswagen Microbus with some young hippies who have lost their way. The trip starts with a draft dodger who escapes the US through Canada. He meets some new friends in Torremolinos, Spain, […]

You know, when Disney does Shakespeare (or anything, for that matter), there’s always a happy ending, regardless of whether it’s based on a comedy or a tragedy.  Hamlet is no exception.  I watched Be Kind Rewind this week, and they made subtle reference to The Lion King’s roots, calling it, “Shakespearean.” I just smiled because […]

It took me just under three months to watch The Last King of Scotland. Netflix shipped it to me on July 3, and I mailed it back to them on October 1. As I look back on my journeys here, I found that I started my tour of Africa on July 7. Yes, it really […]

With so much magic and wonder on the set of The Lion King, it was the image of the great Baobab tree where Rafiki the Mandrill lived that has stuck with me most. This is a sacred tree of the African savannahs, one that brings shelter and comfort to humans and creatures alike.
I found this […]

I was all ready to leave Africa, but after going to see The Lion King last night, I had to dip my toes back in. Amazing, I tell you.
One of the friends who went was saying that if she ever got married again, she’d want her friends to dress up like plants and hang from […]

Graham Greene actually worked for the British secret service in Sierra Leone during World War II, so he had some real life experience to back up his stories of Africa and espionage.
In The Human Factor, Agent Castle spent some time in South Africa, but now he’s back home in London, working in an intelligence office […]

When we’re talking about Africa, we can’t forget the European imperialists, spreading their white fingers across the dark continent. Graham Greene is one of my favorite writers, his works adventuring across many continents, including Africa.
Having been raised Catholic and turning away from the Church in my adulthood, I am intrigued by Greene as a man, […]

Roger D. Abrahams retells a vibrant collection of stories in African Folktales. Some of the stories remind me of the Norse tales, the perennial “trickster” character weaving chaos like the mischievous Loki. The richness of the oral tradition also brings to mind The Arabian Nights, gaining a new audience in the written word, even if […]

One of my assignments in general reference class in librarian school was to pick a subject I wanted to learn something about and use a wide range of reference materials to find information about it. I had a number of topics I was interested in researching, including the Incan Empire, the Roman Empire, the Lewis […]

I’m really not good at making up band names. Liberian Minks was among my best, if that tells you anything.
I had been pondering collective memory and how generations of enslavement could make such a difference in one’s psyche. Compare two minks, for instance, one whose ancestors have always lived free in the wild, and another […]