Looking for Lovedu: Days and Nights in Africa - Hardcover
The acclaimed adventure writer Ann Jones tells the story of her overland journey, with the British photographer Kevin Muggleton, from one end of Africa to the other. Their purpose: to reach the southernmost tip of the continent and find the Lovedu people, a legendary tribe guided by the "feminine" principles of compromise, tolerance, generosity, and peace. A tribe that was known for its use of skillful diplomacy instead of warfare, and was ruled by a wise and powerful magician, a great rainmaking queen--the inspiration for H. Rider Haggard's novel She.
Together Jones and Muggleton set out from England in a 1980 powder-blue army surplus Series III Land Rover. They hurry through France and Spain to Gibraltar and board an intercontinental ferry to North Africa. In Morocco they work a scam to circumvent government red tape, and travel on toward the first great challenge of the journey: the Sahara, where, despite dire warnings, they set out alone, through roadless shifting dunes, across the great apricot-colored expanse of desert.
Jones tells how they ferry across the river into Senegal and come upon the Île de Saint-Louis, the first French settlement in West Africa. She describes how they beat their way through trackless bush to Bamako, the capital of Mali, on the Niger River, as their vehicle begins to disintegrate, and how they speed southward through once-prosperous Côte d'Ivoire and pause to visit the full-scale replica of Rome's Saint Peter's Basilica, built by the then-president of Côte d'Ivoire at a cost of 360 million of his own dollars. In Ghana they explore a fort from which slaves were shipped to the New World. They hurry through Togo and Benin to Nigeria, where they are harassed by omnipresent soldiers in the uneasy aftermath of the execution of the author Ken Saro-Wiwa and other political dissidents. In Cameroon they meet the fon of Chobe and his chief female minister, Ya Wende, and visit the twenty-four wives of the fon of Nkwem.
As they continue the journey they battle malaria, try to reform two would-be robbers, sing Christmas carols with American missionaries, confront extornionist and dangerous Mobutu men, and come near collapse on Zaire's impassable muddy "roads." Finally, they pause to recuperate in a posh hotel, whose luxuries spell the end of their expedition together--the author rejecting modern comforts, her companion yearning for more.
Ann Jones writes of how she travels on in search of the Lovedu people: through Tanzania and Malawi and the Tete Corridor of Mozambique to the ruins of the once-magnificent city of Great Zimbabwe. She writes of crossing the Limpopo River into South Africa, where her long journey culminates in an audience with Modjadji V, Queen of the Lovedu.
Her book is an irrestistible roller-coaster ride through Africa--crowded with obstacles, beauty, maddening corruption, and marvelous people.
Together Jones and Muggleton set out from England in a 1980 powder-blue army surplus Series III Land Rover. They hurry through France and Spain to Gibraltar and board an intercontinental ferry to North Africa. In Morocco they work a scam to circumvent government red tape, and travel on toward the first great challenge of the journey: the Sahara, where, despite dire warnings, they set out alone, through roadless shifting dunes, across the great apricot-colored expanse of desert.
Jones tells how they ferry across the river into Senegal and come upon the Île de Saint-Louis, the first French settlement in West Africa. She describes how they beat their way through trackless bush to Bamako, the capital of Mali, on the Niger River, as their vehicle begins to disintegrate, and how they speed southward through once-prosperous Côte d'Ivoire and pause to visit the full-scale replica of Rome's Saint Peter's Basilica, built by the then-president of Côte d'Ivoire at a cost of 360 million of his own dollars. In Ghana they explore a fort from which slaves were shipped to the New World. They hurry through Togo and Benin to Nigeria, where they are harassed by omnipresent soldiers in the uneasy aftermath of the execution of the author Ken Saro-Wiwa and other political dissidents. In Cameroon they meet the fon of Chobe and his chief female minister, Ya Wende, and visit the twenty-four wives of the fon of Nkwem.
As they continue the journey they battle malaria, try to reform two would-be robbers, sing Christmas carols with American missionaries, confront extornionist and dangerous Mobutu men, and come near collapse on Zaire's impassable muddy "roads." Finally, they pause to recuperate in a posh hotel, whose luxuries spell the end of their expedition together--the author rejecting modern comforts, her companion yearning for more.
Ann Jones writes of how she travels on in search of the Lovedu people: through Tanzania and Malawi and the Tete Corridor of Mozambique to the ruins of the once-magnificent city of Great Zimbabwe. She writes of crossing the Limpopo River into South Africa, where her long journey culminates in an audience with Modjadji V, Queen of the Lovedu.
Her book is an irrestistible roller-coaster ride through Africa--crowded with obstacles, beauty, maddening corruption, and marvelous people.
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
Review:
When Ann Jones decided to travel overland from Tangier to the southern tip of Africa with an Englishman she barely knew, she lived firsthand the worst and best of travel. Muggleton, at 28 half Jones's age and twice her size, turns out to be a road warrior with a foul temper who insists on charging headlong across a continent with practically no roads. Seen this way, Africa becomes little more than a drive-by history lesson (Jones injects encapsulated summaries for each country they pass but fail to truly visit). With his mantra, "We can do it on our own," Muggleton insists on crossing the Sahara alone with no map, bearings, or road, and takes the more treacherous road across Zaire simply to be rid of a convoy of jeeps (and, of course, to prove himself). The chasms of mud and water that cover the "roads" of Zaire cause the duo innumerable hardships and frustrations. Muggleton comes down with malaria, Jones's feet turn gray and her toenails fall off, the jeep falls to pieces--all to cover in five days what passing Africans walk in two. It's those same potholes, however, that ultimately save the journey and the book, for the creeping pace forces them to interact with their surroundings, and ultimately to split up. After that, Jones hooks up with two women, a Brit and a Kenyan, and the remainder of the journey takes a decidedly opposite approach. With the slower and more receptive pace, Jones begins to experience Africa, and to learn from the African inside her own car.
About the Author:
The irony of the Jones-Muggleton expedition is that its ultimate goal was to meet Modjadji V, the rainmaking queen of the Lovedu people of South Africa. As an "aging female," Jones is intrigued to meet the reigning member of a dynasty of single mothers and to experience a culture that values traditionally "feminine" ideals such as compromise, cooperation, tolerance, and peace, a far cry from her working relationship with the testosterone-charged Muggleton. The opinionated Jones, however, is not as close to those ideals as she would like to think. In fact, her coverage of West Africa is disturbing--she condemns the Tuareg social system as offensive without meeting a single member of nomadic tribe, and declares Ghana and Togo identical simply because she doesn't have time look for differences. These are the types of sweeping observations colonialists used to defend their rules. Jones's lesson then is to learn how to incorporate the Lovedu's values with the challenges of taking charge of her own journey. Ultimately, the book proves just how difficult it is to experience the vastness and variety of Africa from your car. --Lesley Reed
Ann Jones graduated from the University of Wisconsin. She received an M.A. from the University of Michigan and a Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin. Ms. Jones also studied at the University of Vienna. Her travel essays and photographs have appeared in many newspapers and magazines, among them the New York Times, Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, Condé Nast Traveler, Town & Country, Women's Sports & Fitness, Outside, and Spur. She is the author of five books. Ann Jones lives in New York's Hudson River Valley.
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- PublisherKnopf
- Publication date2001
- ISBN 10 0375405542
- ISBN 13 9780375405549
- BindingHardcover
- Edition number1
- Number of pages288
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