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In her diary Amateurs on Safari, Norma Proudfoot remembers and reflects during an epic car camping journey that she, husband Robert, and their seven children (aged 5 to 16) took for three weeks over 6,500 kilometres across Zambia, Tanzania, and Kenya in 1970. The Proudfoot family (based in Lusaka from 1969 to 1973 during Robert’s CIDA work to help Zambia develop technical education programs) glimpses into African cultures (particularly venerable Masai), activities and developments of dynamic new nations, but also encounters remnants of colonialism, and learns about traditional trade between Africans, Arabs, and Indians; centuries-old battles between Arab and Portuguese forces for control of coastal East Africa; and prehistoric art painted on remote cliffs that depict ancient interactions between humans and animals.
Norma offers poignant, often humorous observations about wild animals and birds, as well as her family members who met them - curious and adventurous explorers all. She refers to other intriguing books written about Africa, and honours German zoologists Bernhard and Michael Grzimek, who studied various animal species living in Ngorongoro Crater and on Serengeti Plains, for conserving such vital wildlife far into the future - a vision Norma appreciated, inspired by natural beauty and resilience of many national parks. We passed Mt. Kilimanjaro, but the magnificent, snowy photos shown from the summit of Africa’s highest mountain were taken one year later when sons Gordon and Robert Jr. climbed there. More recent mountaineers report that Kibo’s glaciers have disappeared, due to global climate change. May today’s readers relish testimonies from people who travelled through splendid Africa, 50 years ago!
