I'm no Gaucho

I can honestly say that I do not make a good gaucho. Why? Well my tenure as a gaucho lasted only lasted minutes and I have still not decided whether or not I was a victim of a joke- a rather funny one I might add- bad luck, or that I just can’t ride a horse. Either way, my string of good luck ended shortly after I mounted a horse the first morning on the Santa Maria Estancia in Benito Juarez, Argentina.

My time in Argentina had been very relaxed for the first couple of weeks. I was getting adjusted to a new continent, language and culture while coping with post-Africa withdrawal, a symptom I am still dealing with. I arrived at Santa Maria estancia (ranch) a day before the planned round-up of their cattle. It only happens twice a year and is very similar to what we do at home. It is the time when the calves are worked and in this case shipped off to market. I was very lucky to show up a day before and I was instructed to be at the barn at 5AM to meet the gauchos.

Gauchos are famous in Argentina just like the cowboys are famous in the American West. Both ways of life are romanticized about through literature and both are slowly disappearing. A gaucho way of life consists of drinking a lot of mate, a drink that is like a combination of green tea and coffee, eating a lot of meat and a little bread in between. They are Argentine cowboys.

So, I met the gauchos at the barn at 5AM as instructed, ate lots of bread, drank lots of mate and then went to saddle up the horses. Everything was going well until I actually got on the horse. This is where everything got interesting because it turned into my own mini-rodeo. The horse got spooked or something and started jumping around trying to buck me off. I am by no means an expert horseman and I was holding of for dear life. I was able to stay on but in the process I felt my groin start hurting. I thought nothing of it at the time because everyone was laughing at the Gringo (me). They either gave me a wild horse as a joke, the horse just got spooked, or I did something wrong. Either way, it got my blood pumping very early in morning.

Once everyone else was saddled up, we took off to round up the cattle. They only knew one speed to ride and that was full speed ahead. I was again just trying to hold on to horse as it was trying to catch up with the rest of the horses that were far in front of. After a solid ten minute sprint across a freshly harvested wheat field, we found the cattle and started to bring then back to the pens. In the process, the sun began to rise over the pampas plains turning the field of knee-high wheat stalks into a field of gold. It was beautiful but I had no time to admire the scenery because I was busy rounding up stray cows and calves, again trying just to stay on my horse that was becoming increasingly annoyed by my slow pace.

Once the cattle were in the sorting pens, I was relieved because I thought I would finally be able to get off of my horse tend to my ailing groin. But no, they also sort the cattle in the pens on horseback. This is where true horsemanship becomes a factor because it can become very technical in close quarters. This is also where my lack of horsemanship became very evident. One man got off of his horse to watch the gate hole with his leather whip as we herded the cattle to him. He let the cows pass but held the calves. This went on for about an hour and by the end of it, I could not longer ride because o the pain in my leg.

Finally, I was able to dismount. I took my first step and fell to the ground. It felt like my groin was torn in half. Unable to help, I sat on a stump and watched as the men branded, tagged and castrated the calves. It was exactly the same process as at home only with inferior equipment which makes the process much harder. Once finished, I slowly made my way back to the barn, unsaddled my horse, slowly gimped back to the house where I would remain for the next three days watching bad re-runs of Walker Texas Ranger. I made it out of the house one time to visit the Argentine national glider championships in the neighbouring town of Chavez. I was able to take a ride in a glider and convinced the pilot to do a couple of flips as well. Riding in a glider is like floating on air because of the silence.

My only regret is that I didn’t take my camera to document the morning. In my sleepy state, I simply forgot to take it with me. There is a famous artist, Molina Campos, which depicts gauchos in his paintings. I have chosen this one to depict my first and only morning playing gaucho.

Argentina

Happy New Year! It is amazing how much things can change in a year. The last couple of months have been hectic, busy and amazing. I spent New Years in Cape Town. Cape Town definitely lived up to the hype for me and I quickly fell in love with it. It is my favorite city to date. I left Africa a week ago and it felt like leaving home. I became very comfortable in Africa and I felt the same anxiety leaving as I felt leaving the US five months ago. Weird, huh? I will be back one day. I have missed Malawi since the day I left two months ago. I stopped in Madrid for three days staying with a friend from home before to Buenos Aires. It is an amazing city and I would like to visit the city when it is not freezing cold and rainy. Don’t ask me why I had to go to Madrid first, but my travel agent said it was cheaper. I have decided to let her go and book the rest if my flights on my own. It was very liberating to mail back the rest of my plane tickets. I now have no timeline for the rest of my trip. It is a wonderful feeling!

I am now in Argentina, a country famous for its beef. The first thing I did upon arrival was go straight to a steakhouse and have the biggest T-bone they had. It was amazing, totally different than any beef I have ever eaten. I have had a couple of bad ones since then but the beef here is still excellent.

Buenos Aires is also a great city. I definitely think I am getting spoiled travelling from Cape Town to Madrid and then to Buenos Aires. All three are amazing cities and are among the best in the world. After walking around the BA for a couple of days I headed to Mar del Plata through a connection I made through W&L (my university- Washington and Lee). It has been great to see some friendly faces and tell college stories again. I am staying on a farm called Santa Isabel with the Estrada family. Mr Estrada, his daughter Carol and Wes McCrae are all W&L grads and even though I have only met everyone in passing before, we were able to connect immediately through our common experiences at W&L. It has been great and it brings back good memories.

They have a major rabbit problem on the farm and I was able to help alleviate that problem last night when we went rabbit hunting. These rabits are not the nice little rabbits like we have at home. They are huge, being almost two feet long when stretched out. They are big suckers.

My plans are up in the air right now. I have some plans to work on a couple different farms in Argentina for the next month but after that I may venture into Chile, Bolivia or Brazil. I don’t know yet.

Agriculture in Africa

IMG_0902, originally uploaded by Benjamin Long.

‘A man is nothing without cattle’ is both a Maasai and Himba saying that shows the underlying importance of cattle in society. Family planning in some tribes revolves around the father’s cattle ambitions: the more girls you have, the more cattle you will receive in the form of a dowry when you marry them off. Five cows for each girl is hell of a deal and if you educate your daughter, she is worth much more, say twenty cows. I am taking the concept to the extreme to prove a point, the importance of cattle in African culture. With the Maasai, donkeys are viewed as the car to carry water, goats as meat and cows as the money. A man with a hundred cows and a falling down mud hut is considered to be wealthier than a man with fifty cows and a sturdy brick home. People do not invest their money in real estate, stocks or bonds. If they have money, they buy more cows. If managed properly, they could be very prosperous but the commercial view of management and the tribal view of management is very different. For instance, a local man has a yearling bull calf that, if taken to market now, could make a lot of money and allow him to buy three or four smaller calves, thus, improving his herd. But, that yearling calf is his status symbol. Status is not seen by how fancy his clothes are or what kind of car he drives, instead, by his cattle. If he sells his calve at the most opportune time, he will be losing his status in town as ‘the man with the best cattle in the village.’ A very big deal! This may sound absurd and it did to me at first, but it is a totally different value system. When this value system was established, there were no cars, cell phones, designer clothes or other material possessions we value today in modern society. Today, that value system is clashing with modern society as it encroaches into their society and their culture is quickly disappearing as a result. I admire them for clinging to their culture but because of this they are begining to suffer. What should they do: abandon their culture and accept modern ways or carry on with their traditional ways while continuing to suffer because of it? Either way, things are going to change for better or worse.

When I came to Africa, my goal was to analyze the current agricultural methods and its potential, specifically with cattle. In my struggle to answer this question, I found myself having to study the people and culture that is the driving force behind it because they areirrefutably linked. This can be said for agriculture around the world but I think the connection is stronger in tribal Africa than elsewhere. Why? In many parts of Africa tribal allegiances are still the driving force behind many decisions. Tribal taboos and witchcraft can the deciding factor in managing a herd in many instances. Tribal headmen are elected the democratic way by popular vote. This does not mean that they are the most qualified or the smartest in the community but the most respected-sounds like small town politics in the States doesn't it.

Picture this-- A small town in the desert of Namibia that is struggling to find its niche, its life-line, a way of life and has to elect a local headman to lead them out of their current economic crisis. There are many likely candidates: the most successful local African farmer that has been able to develop a commercially viable farming system, a white Afrikaner that runs many local businesses in the community, the principle of the secondary school, the janitor of the secondary school, and the local convenient store owner. Who would you choose as your headman, a mayor, a principle, a janitor or three variations of a businessman? The village I visited elected the janitor. Once elected, the headman is shown the utmost reverence and respect by the rest of the community. At a community meeting when the headman stands, everyone intently listens to what he has to say whether they truly believe in him or not. This is a major problem that carries over to agriculture. If an organization wants to help communities develop sustainable agriculture, must first speak to the local headman of the village, in this case the local janitor. I am not saying that being janitor is not an honorable profession. I am saying that there are more qualified people to be making decisions for the community at large.Another major hurdle in developing agriculture in Africa is changing the mentality of the local people. How do you make people change from communal to commercial agriculture? As the old African axiom goes, 'It's a wise man who cultivates just as much land as his wife can conveniently hoe!' The concept of producing three or four times what you need is totally foreign to many African people. That would require the foresight of planning for the future. Seeing what lies ahead is not ingrained in the brains of African culture. I had a hard time understanding this mentality for some time until someone laid it out for me. Traditionally speaking African people view time as a river. They are standing facing a river watching the water flow past. The water flowing past represents time. The water directly in front of them is the present, the water downstream the past and the water upstream the future. The western viewpoint is to see what happened in order to plan for the future, the water upstream. The African viewpoint is to focus on what can be seen, the water in front of you and the water downstream. The concept of planning to harvest five months ahead of time is ridiculous when they cannot feed their families today. This mentality is where the major disconnect occurs.The agricultural potential in Africa is enormous. This potential was identified and utilized during colonial times in Africa. Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe and Zambia, was an agricultural paradise attracting some of the greatest agricultural minds in the world. The Portuguese took full advantage of the agricultural potential in Mozambique and Angola. The Belgiums did the same in the Congo. In many areas of Africa, agriculture has regressed from colonial times. Zimbabwe is in the process of reverting back to subsistence farming as we speak. The lush green fields that were once tilled by John Deere tractors and other state of the art farming equipment ten years ago is now managed using donkeys and oxen. And this is considered progress?

I am generalizing when I say agriculture in Africa. It is easy to list many problems in Africa as one and fail to differentiate the numerous countries that compose the second largest continent in the world. South Africa is different from the rest of Sub-Saharan Africa in many ways and agriculture is no different. South Africa has a booming beef industry that uses modern farming methods to cultivate the land. The farms could easily be mistaken for farms in the American West due to its similar landscape. There are also many developed farms in Botswana, Namibia, Zambia and parts of Mozambique that produce some of the best beef in the world. I chose to focus primarily on tribal agriculture in many instances because it was the most interesting to me and the most backwards. I believe the answer to these problems must come from cooperation between the modern farms, mostly run by people of Afrikaner and English decent, and the local tribal leaders. That is the approach the organization, Kunene for Christ, is trying to take in order to bring the local people out of substance living on the land. It can be done but first it will take reversing a hand-out mentality that has been developing for decades to motivate the local people into actually wanting to make a change. Only then can they hope to achieve viable commercial agriculture in the region and pull themselves out of their current economic despair.

Family Safari

A Himba boy and her mother in a village we visited during our Overlander trip.

IMG_0604, originally uploaded by Benjamin Long.

The end of my travels in Africa was concluded with a two week overlander trip with my family. My family and family friends, the Stence family, made the journey to Africa to join me for Christmas but also as an excuse to visit the Dark Continent. An overlander trip is a tour in a truck/bus that allows the slightly apprehensive traveler a way to experience Africa without dealing with many of the hassles. It was the perfect way for my family to see so much of Africa.

The trip started in Swakopmund, Namibia, a coastal town that is a blend of a German retirement community and an adrenaline junkies playground. But don’t forget, its also the place where Brad and Angie had their baby!!! Our final destination was Victoria Falls. Along the way, we visited many famous game parks and natural wonders.

Highlights of the trip:
Etosha National Park in Namibia was the most luxurious accommodation of the trip. We went on a game drive the first evening and the following day. We were able to see all of the big five (Big Five-Elephant, Lion, Leopard, Rhino, and Buffalo, The big five gets it name for being the animals most valued to hunt either for prestige, ivory or hides.) except for the buffalo in a very short time. The first evening we were able to see two young leopards on a hunt, very rare. The following day we saw ten lions, dozens of giraffes, and hundreds of oryx and springbok. A very good game drive but the big highlight came at night. Because it was the dry season, all of the wildlife we saw was congregated around the water holes. The park built a water hole just beside the lodge and placed flood lights to illuminate the water hole at night. It was incredible. You can drink your tea, watch the animals come and go while sitting comfortably on the surrounding benches. At night we were able to see elephants and rhinos as close as thirty meters away.

Okavango Delta- Most National Geographic films that depict lush green water lands with literally every animal lurking about, it is the Okavango Delta. We took a scenic flight over the delta and then stayed on a house boat for two nights. The scenic flight was exactly like watching National Geographic only with being a little woozy from flying. “There’s a herd of elephants on the right,” we would yell. The pilot would immediately bank hard to the left to circle back around while only being a hundred feet above land. It was great ride but I was happy to set foot back on land.

As a kid, I loved playing the game Hungry Hungry Hippos. I never put much thought into why they picked Hippos emerge and chump down the white balls swirling around the board. Hippos are the most dangerous of all African wildlife but people still seem to forget it. It crossed my mind as I was boarding a mokoro, dugout canoe, getting ready to be lead through the delta propelled by a local guide with a pole, but like any tourist, I thought that if tourists can do it, then it must be safe. It was amazing to zig-zag through the waterways, created by hippos no less, but still not thinking about what lay ahead. As we approached an opening, we spotted three hippos at the other end of the pool. The guide’s tone quickly changed and they began poling very fast as we crossed the deeper water. We reached the other side of the pool and assembled close enough for the head guide to give a little speech about hippos. In the process the hippos submerged three times only to reappear closer each time. By the third time everyone was ready to leave, the charge being lead by my dad and rightfully so. The male hippo then raised his body out of the water marking his territory. We were all in agreement that is was time to leave then. The guides slowing inched backwards giving ground to the dominant male. After we reached the bank behind us and had nowhere else to retreat and the hippos were only about twenty meters from our “dug-out” canoes, the guides finally took us out of there but while everyone kept a close eye on the hippos. I had the mental image of our mokoros being the little white balls swirling around the playing board, in this case the water pool, awaiting for the Hungry Hungry Hippos to attack. Luckily, we made it out in one piece.

The Caprivi region of Namibia and the Chobe National Park in Botswana were also incredible. Chobe has the largest elephant population in the world with 150,000 elephants living in the park. Elephants and hippos littered the river banks along with various other wild game. It was very lush and green.

Christmas in Victoria Falls was incredible. It is one of the seven natural wonders of the world. I went rafting down the Zambezi just below the falls on Christmas Eve and lets just say it isn’t for the faint hearted. Going over the highest commercial drop in the world, 22 feet, and being thrown out of the raft every ten minutes made for a very taxing day and an every sorer Christmas day. It was a great time though.

We then headed for Cape Town to unwind and relax for a couple of days. Cape Town is an anomaly in itself. It is a very international city with breathtaking beaches and of course, the symbol of the city, Table Mountain. It is the greatest city I have ever visited to date. It has everything you could possibly want; great food, beaches, bars, hiking, people, parks, botanical gardens, and much more. I highly recommend a visit if you have a chance. It was a perfect way to end the family trip and for me, to wrap up my time in Africa.

Are White Africans African?

SA 008, originally uploaded by Benjamin Long.

"It is often said that the worst thing to happen to Africa was the arrival of the white man. And the second worst was his departure."


I love staying in hostels. When you are traveling it is hard to establish relationships out of thin air much less have anything even slightly interesting to discuss. Hostels solve this problem by instantly breaking down barriers because they provide a place for fellow travelers to meet because they are all in the same situation; alone, nervous and eager to meet others. As you meet people along the way, you are able gain new perspective from the discussions that take place. There has been a reoccurring theme pop up in many hostel discussions throughout Africa that has been weighing on my mind. The scenario for the discussion is always the same: a white South African (WSA), a Westerner (European or American) and either a racial, political or Zimbabwe debate. This is the setting for the same reoccurring debate that is based on one underlying question, 'Are White Africans African?' This subject is usually directed at South Africans because of the lingering apartheid legacy but I think it should be applied to the whole of Africa and not just one country in the south. However, for the sake of the argument I will focus on South Africa for it is the beacon of prosperity in sub-Saharan Africa and the most memorable debate at a hostel centered around it.

So one night I was in a hostel in Windhoek, when an Australian girl started preaching to me and three WSA guys that every white person in Africa should be forced to leave. She started listing of numerous horrible acts Europeans have done in Africa and called for their immediate withdrawal. She then looked to me for some assistance in her crusade against the evil South Africans. Matching her enthusiasm and tone I replied, “they will leave when every white Australian leaves Australia!” She was shocked and the WSA applauded. She couldn’t’ see the connection. Yes, Europeans have done terrible things in Africa, but also to the rest of the world. Let’s say for instance all of the Aborigines were not systematically killed over time and they were the ruling party in Australia today. What would the political landscape look like now? If all of the American Indians were not killed off by disease and war providing them with the majority today in the USA, how would we, white people, be judged if they were in charge? The fact of the matter is that terrible things have been carried out on a very large scale throughout history and only now do some of their descendants have to deal with the consequences; i.e. South Africa.

Before coming to Africa, I took the same moral high ground as the Australian girl, but I realized I was wrong.The Australian girl then started attacking the WSA guys about apartheid and looked at me as if she redeemed herself. I again told her that I have to moral high ground to stand on. America has the same dark history of racial segregation and anyone that denies it is lying. I consider myself southern being from West Virginia and have traveled extensively throughout the South. I know that there is just as much racial tension in the US as there is South Africa if not more because I have experienced it. The mentality isn’t that much different. The only surprising and shameful aspect about South Africa is that it lasted for so long, ending in 1994.

I then asked her what the white people living in South Africa should do. “Move,” she said. One of the WSA guys yelled “Where! I grew up in South Africa, my family is from South Africa and my passport says I am South African. If I am not South African, what am I?” It is a very good point and I do not have the answer and neither did the Aussie girl. After the situation calmed down a bit, I asked our Aussie girl how many generations her family had been in Australia. “Three,” she said. The WSA gave a little chuckle and informed her that his family has been in Africa for four generations. I couldn’t answer the question because quite frankly, I don’t know! Immigration is a topic of everyday discussion for WSA today. Many have immigrated to Australia, England, New Zealand, Canada and the USA because of the current situation in the country. I have become very well versed in recommending suitable cities in the US for them to possibly immigrate to. For instance, I was waiting in line in the Victoria Falls airport when I met a very nice WSA couple in their early thirties. They began to ask very pointed questions about certain cities in the US trying to hide their real intentions. Knowing they were looking for possible destinations to immigrate, we had a lengthy discussion and I ended up making a couple recommendations for them.

South Africans have been through a lot over the past couple of decades. The turbulent 80s that brought an end to apartheid which lead to anxiety and uncertainty of post apartheid rule provided more than enough reasons for all WSA to pack up and leave the country then. Many did leave but many also stayed. The anxiety was quickly calmed with reconciliation and the country has managed to prosper even in the face of numerous problems. I now ask myself another question: Why are the same people that were willing to stay in the 80s and early 90s now looking to immigrate? What has changed? Have things gotten worse? There has been another development in South Africa that has taken place just one month ago that has prompted this new wave of fear. The ruling party of South Africa is the ANC. Nelson Mandela was and still is to an extent the face of the party that has ruled the country since independence in 1994. The president of the ANC in effect becomes the president of the country. The ANC held their elections last month. The winner was a man named Jacob Zuma. This is frightening because Zuma has numerous felony charges pending against him including corruption, arms dealing and rape. How can a man with countless criminal charges possibly be elected to lead the most prosperous country in all of Africa? Simple, he is a Zulu, the most populous tribe in the country, and this is African politics. African politics, to an extent, is a legalized form of ongoing tribal conflict and warfare. Look at Kenya right now. The elections results are being disputed between the two largest tribes in the country. The vast majority of Africans still align themselves with tribal beliefs and will vote for anyone that represents their tribe, criminal or not. Under such circumstances, is democracy the best form of government? There are many different philosophies on how to solve the problem.

I have no idea which one is right but I do know that it will have to be a compromise and nothing absolute. Absolute like in Zimbabwe, the beacon on hope in southern Africa before South Africa took its place once it stumbled. Zimbabwe has tried and is in the process of trying to expel all of the white farmers from the country. Robert Mugabe, the leader of Zimbabwe, has been successful in his efforts because most of the white farmers have fled for their lives. Others were not so lucky and have lost their lives when war veterans showed up at their homes and killed them. The result, Zimbabwe is the fastest shrinking economy in the world. Inflation is reaching 15,000% where $1 US dollar is worth 1.2 million Zimbabwean dollars. The standard of living is half what is was at independence in 1980. Some Africans, still say this is progress because the white man is gone: white men that were there for generations, built clinics and schools where the government would not, and white men that employed thousands of Africans. Now, the country that was considered ‘the breadbasket of Africa’ that could feed itself and its neighbors with some of the most advanced agricultural technology in the world has reverted back to subsistence farming tilling the land by donkeys in some areas. There is no food in the country. If you are lucky, you live close to the border where you can leave to buy groceries. If you are not so lucky, it is the survival of the fittest finding food wherever you can. This can’t be the solution.

The world is getting smaller every day with larger numbers of people having the ability to move around the globe with unprecedented ease. The racial, linguistic and ideological make up of countries are being tested and gradually changing as populations are confronted with the influx of immigrants. America is a nation of immigrants and yet, each call themselves American or some variation (i.e. Chinese American, African American, Latin American) No matter where their ancestors may come from or where their racial homelands lie, immigrants can still achieve citizenship. This is happening on a daily basis around the world but some parts of the world have not figured out how to deal with past movements, in most cases forced movements. This is a major problem in Africa today: accepting the past and resisting the urge to reverse it. In Africa, the issue of being native or not is easy identified for some because it is black and white, literally.