Safari Stories

Building from the early 1900s - Barclays Bank on Jinja main street Copyright Rupi Mangat

Jinja on the Nile

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where the river starts

Published 30 September 2017 Saturday magazine Nation newspaper

Above: Building from the early 1900s – Barclays Bank on Jinja main street
Copyright Rupi Mangat

Source of the Nile at Jinja - copyright Rupi Mangat
Source of the Nile at Jinja – copyright Rupi Mangat

“Speke passed on the Buganda side and standing on a rock by the river asked ‘what is the name of this river?’,” relates Captain Masanja of Jinja Sailing Club sailing us down the Nile from the mighty Victoria at Jinja, the quaint little town on the Ugandan shores – 90 kilometes from Kampala and 236 kilometers west of Kisumu on the Kenyan shores. Continue reading “Jinja on the Nile” →

United Against Wildlife Poisoning

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The dire need for government to recognize the problem of poison

Published in The East African-Nation Media 16-22 September 2017

It was in 2005 while researching for her doctorate on Mackinder’s Eagle Owls around Nyeri in Kenya’s central highlands that Darcy Ogada realized there was a problem at hand – that of poisoning.

“I was watching as owls were being poisoned,” she recalls. Farmers were painting sliced-open tomatoes, with carbofuran to kill mice and mousebirds. But they were also killing the Mackinder’s Eagle Owls because the owls were eating the poisoned mousebirds. Found mostly in the highlands, the owls do not have a wide distribution.

United Against Wildlife Poisoning Campaign

Vultures poisoned near the Masai Mara 7 July 2014. Photo E. Ole Reson
Vultures poisoned near the Masai Mara 7 July 2014. Photo E. Ole Reson

Continue reading “United Against Wildlife Poisoning” →

A Nigerian Fest in Nairobi

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Alan Donovan Celebrating half a century in Africa with the arts

Published in The East African Nation media – 23 – 29 September 2017

Above: Oshogbo King wearing beaded crown.  Photo by Alan Donovan

It was in 1967 and the director of USAID in Nigeria was being installed as an honorary chief, riding on a white horse through the city of Oshogbo amidst pomp and glory – and in the crowd was Alan Donovan, young and recently posted to the country by the US government just before the devastating Biafra war broke out.

Alan Donovan buying his first work of African contemporary art from Nigerian artist Muraina Oyelami in Oshogbo Nigeria, in 1967. The Oshogbo group of artists celebrate their 50th anniversary this year with Alan Donovan who arrived in Africa in 1967, during a mammoth city wide Nigerian Festrival in Nairobi during the months of October and November.
Alan Donovan buying his first work of African contemporary art from Nigerian artist Muraina Oyelami in Oshogbo Nigeria, in 1967. The Oshogbo group of artists celebrate their 50th anniversary this year with Alan Donovan who arrived in Africa in 1967, during a mammoth city wide Nigerian Festrival in Nairobi during the months of October and November.

Continue reading “A Nigerian Fest in Nairobi” →

Jinja Nile Resort - in the foyer, pictures of the men whose lives revolved around the mystery of the Nile - from left to right - Baker, Speke, Burton and Livingstone - copyright Rupi Mangat

Jinja Nile Resort

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The enigma of the Nile unfolds

Published Saturday Nation magazine

Above: Jinja Nile Resort – in the foyer, pictures of the men whose lives revolved around the mystery of the Nile – from left to right – Baker, Speke, Burton and Livingstone – copyright Rupi Mangat

The Nile flows smooth. Returning 16 years later to the same spot, in my mind’s eye l recall my first spotting of the rapids – the Bujagali – at this spot on the outskirts of Jinja. The cascading waters turned white by the very force of the river, had us captivated. I was with a group of Egyptians – and it is one of the few times l have watched grown-up men overcome with emotion have tears in their eyes. Without the Nile, Egypt would perish. Continue reading “Jinja Nile Resort” →

Playful young chimpanzee in Gombe National Park on the shores of Lake Tanganyika. Copyright Rupi Mangat

To Tanganyika

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For the chimpanzees (sokwe mtu in Kiswahili)

Published The East African Nation media 16-22 September 2017

Above: Playful young chimpanzee in Gombe National Park on the shores of Lake Tanganyika.  Copyright Rupi Mangat

When l heard Dr Jane Goodall talk in Nairobi about her ground-breaking pioneering chimpanzee research in Gombe it became my mission to get there in search of our closest relative whose DNA is 98 per cent like ours. It was Goodall who first documented chimpanzees using tools for a purpose – inserting sticks in a termite mound to fish out the insects for a snack – that made Louis Leakey the Kenyan paleoanthropologist quote famously, “Now we must redefine tool, redefine Man, or accept chimpanzees as humans” Continue reading “To Tanganyika” →