BANGKOK—I’m currently based in Thailand and raised in Australia but Africa is where my heart is.
This is odd, given that I’ve been to Africa on just two occasions, with one being a three week trip in 1989, and the other being a longer visit of three months in 1992—which included a five-week overland truck tour from Kenya to Zimbabwe.
I keep my hair pretty trim these days, largely to compensate for a rapidly receding hairline, and also the increasing prominence of a scar above my left ear that I earned in a road accident during my African truck tour.
While the accident occurred all those years ago, it still remains as fresh in my memory as yesterday.
On week four of the truck journey, I woke to the noise of a very large “boom” when one of the vehicle’s front tires blew as we traveled down a Zambian highway at high speed.
The 12-ton vehicle immediately began fishtailing. The driver did his best to correct its course but he was fighting a losing battle as the truck flipped onto its side and slid off the road.
A heavy knock to my head, and the next thing I can recall is being placed in a pickup with six or so other injured travelers and taken to an isolated medical center staffed by two Irish medical students.
The students could only do so much, and the most serious cases were piled into a crude bush ambulance and taken to the nearest hospital run by an order of Catholic nuns a few hours away.
The worst of the injured was a New Zealand woman who was honeymooning with her husband on the overland tour. Her vertebrae were damaged; shards of bone had cut into her spinal cord and she never walked again.
A jet flew her out from Zambia to a well-equipped hospital in South Africa while the balance of the remaining 14 or so travelers, mostly from the U.K. and Commonwealth countries, assisted by the British Embassy, journeyed to the Zambian capital of Lusaka where we recouped in a hotel. Those with broken bones were soon flown out while about half of those who began the tour continued on the planned route via hired vans to Harare.
As our two tour leaders assessed the damaged truck, one of our fellow travelers, a shy woman in her late 20s who grew up in Zimbabwe when it was known as Rhodesia, stepped forward to gently assist the recouping injured in whatever way she could.
After a month of living, camping, and traveling together we thought we knew each other well enough. Prior to the accident the shy woman was looked down upon by some—she was a not much of a party person and didn’t mind talking about spirituality.
However, through the shy woman’s care for the injured, her acts of sincere gentleness and compassion, she became the most respected and admired personality of us all.
Selfless acts of kindness and compassion; perhaps that’s why my heart remains in Africa.
This is odd, given that I’ve been to Africa on just two occasions, with one being a three week trip in 1989, and the other being a longer visit of three months in 1992—which included a five-week overland truck tour from Kenya to Zimbabwe.
I keep my hair pretty trim these days, largely to compensate for a rapidly receding hairline, and also the increasing prominence of a scar above my left ear that I earned in a road accident during my African truck tour.
While the accident occurred all those years ago, it still remains as fresh in my memory as yesterday.
On week four of the truck journey, I woke to the noise of a very large “boom” when one of the vehicle’s front tires blew as we traveled down a Zambian highway at high speed.
The 12-ton vehicle immediately began fishtailing. The driver did his best to correct its course but he was fighting a losing battle as the truck flipped onto its side and slid off the road.
A heavy knock to my head, and the next thing I can recall is being placed in a pickup with six or so other injured travelers and taken to an isolated medical center staffed by two Irish medical students.
The students could only do so much, and the most serious cases were piled into a crude bush ambulance and taken to the nearest hospital run by an order of Catholic nuns a few hours away.
The worst of the injured was a New Zealand woman who was honeymooning with her husband on the overland tour. Her vertebrae were damaged; shards of bone had cut into her spinal cord and she never walked again.
A jet flew her out from Zambia to a well-equipped hospital in South Africa while the balance of the remaining 14 or so travelers, mostly from the U.K. and Commonwealth countries, assisted by the British Embassy, journeyed to the Zambian capital of Lusaka where we recouped in a hotel. Those with broken bones were soon flown out while about half of those who began the tour continued on the planned route via hired vans to Harare.
As our two tour leaders assessed the damaged truck, one of our fellow travelers, a shy woman in her late 20s who grew up in Zimbabwe when it was known as Rhodesia, stepped forward to gently assist the recouping injured in whatever way she could.
After a month of living, camping, and traveling together we thought we knew each other well enough. Prior to the accident the shy woman was looked down upon by some—she was a not much of a party person and didn’t mind talking about spirituality.
However, through the shy woman’s care for the injured, her acts of sincere gentleness and compassion, she became the most respected and admired personality of us all.
Selfless acts of kindness and compassion; perhaps that’s why my heart remains in Africa.
