Africa

Our web site is, of course, about the crossing we make from Cape Town in South Africa back to our cottage in Sibratsgfäll in Austria and our family home in Veldhoven in the Netherlands. Without any doubt, the preparations and the tour itself will be adventurous enough to make the web site interesting for both future and present overlanders (www.africa-overland.net).

Yet, we do not want to reduce the African continent and its inhabitants to an exotic set for our travels. From the moment we arrived in Mozambique, in 1965, we took a keen interest in African societies, politics, agriculture and health care. Living in remote areas most of the time, we became interested in wildlife conservation too. We are proud to have been members of the East African Wildlife Society for more than three decades (www.eawildlife.org).

As an agricultural engineer, specialised in aerial surveys, Paul regularly published on African geomorphology, soils and agriculture. When we settled in the Netherlands, in the late 1970s, he became, to his own surprise, a non-western sociologist. His PhD thesis - Man, Technology, Society and Development - dealt with long-term development processes. You can access the thesis in PDF-format via www.tue.nl (go to library -> portal digital library -> publications TU/e ->TU/e dissertations ->1992). More recently Paul, together with Bright N’gandu of the University of Zambia, wrote the textbook Engineering and Society I: problems of development. In 2001 Paul and Eddy Szirmai edited the book The Industrial Experience of Tanzania. Trial chapters are accessible in PDF-format via www.palgrave.com (go to UK website and type “Industrial Experience of Tanzania”). Shortly before his retirement in 2003, Paul began working on another Africa book. In Clouds are the Sign of Rain the contemporary social and economic history of Africa South of the Sahara blends with our personal experiences in Africa between 1965 and 2005. If the Gods smile on us, it will take another two years or so before the book is finally finished. Trial chapters you can access in PDF-format through located in the book section.

Through the years Africa’s problems were, of course, not only discussed with colleagues at university but also within the family and with our African friends. Our interaction with them became even more intense when our daughter married in Tanzania in 1997. The brief narrative of that exiting event you find on the Tanzanian Wedding Website. Notwithstanding our long involvement with Africa, we are not “Africa experts” in the sense that we know many of the answers to the bewildering array of problems that beset Africa. On the contrary, with the passing of the years we have become more and more cautious with rendering quick opinions and solutions.

Last but not least, on our website you will find no unsavoury jokes like the one we recently found on one of the Africa overland websites: Do you know the differences between a tourist and a racist? Twenty-four hours! These jokes generally tell a lot about the people who make them. Instead, in this sub-menu “Africa” of our website you will find some interesting books and articles which are useful for a better understanding of development in general and Africa and its problems in particular. And of course ... our African friends speak for themselves!

If you want to contribute to the “Africa discussion” <under construction> on our website, please do so via our Guest Book or send us an e-mail.

© 2005 Paul and Meta Lapperre - Website by MvS