Jana, niliandika makala fupi kuhusu juhudi zangu za kumwelewa Hemingway na kufundisha maandishi na habari zake. Jana hiyo hiyo, niliona kuwa makala yangu kuhusu kozi niliyofundisha Tanzania mwaka huu juu ya Hemingway inachapishwa na
African Global Roots. Nategemea kuwa yeyote anayejiuliza kwa nini nahangaika sana na mwandishi huyu atanielewa, angalau kidogo.
Studying Hemingway in East Africa–Upcoming Africana Magazine Article
09
Sunday
Jun 2013
by Joseph L. Mbele
For the whole month of January, 2013, I was in Tanzania, with 29
students from St. Olaf College. We were studying the African writings of
Ernest Hemingway while visiting some of the places he visited and wrote
about.
Hemingway
is a famous writer, world traveler, big game hunter, and fan of bull
fighting and boxing. About ten years ago, I discovered that he also
greatly loved Africa. I embarked on exploring this aspect in earnest.
Born in Oak Park, Illinois, in 1899, Hemingway learned about Africa
from his earliest years as his father took him to the Field Museum of
Natural History in Chicago, where, among the exhibits, there were
stuffed animals from Africa, including the celebrated lions of Tsavo.
In 1909, retired president Teddy Roosevelt was on safari in Kenya for
many months, writing accounts of his safari in the U.S. media. The
American public, including the young Hemingway, followed the adventure
with great interest.
As time went, Hemingway’s interest in Africa grew. In 1922, while
living in Paris, he reviewed a famous novel, Batouala, written by Rene
Maran of Martinique, who worked as an official in the French colony that
is today the Central African Republic. The novel was set there, and
Hemingway liked the way it depicted the life of the villagers. This
novel helped shape Hemingway’s own writing style.
Finally, Hemingway visited East Africa in 1933-34. From that
experience, he wrote the book Green Hills of Africa, and two famous
short stories: “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber,” and “The
Snows of Kilimanjaro.” He also wrote journalistic pieces and letters. He
visited East Africa again in 1953-54. From this experience he wrote a
major manuscript, which his son Patrick edited and published as True at
First Light. This was shorter than the original manuscript. The entire
manuscript was published in 2005 as Under Kilimanjaro.
Hemingway’s
love of Africa shines through these writings and the more I read them,
the more I wondered why people were not paying much attention to this
side of Hemingway. I decided to create a course, which would give
students an opportunity to follow Hemingway’s footsteps in East Africa,
while reading his writings about those places.
I created the course, ”Hemingway in East Africa,” in 2006, for
Colorado College and took students to Tanzania in 2007 and 2008. This
year, I traveled with St. Olaf College students.
Such trips work well if the students are given some orientation
beforehand, especially on cultural issues. Fortunately, based on years
of advising Americans going to Africa, I had written a book, Africans
and Americans: Embracing Cultural Differences. As part of the
orientation, the students read this book.
We traveled in various places in northern Tanzania: Arusha, Mto wa
Mbu, Karatu, Babati, Moshi and Namanga. We did game drives in the game
reserves where Hemingway had hunted: Serengeti, Ngorongoro, Lake
Manyara, and Tarangire. Hemingway wrote about his experiences in those
areas, describing, in particular, the wildlife and the landscape. Being
in those areas, observing the animals, and reading Hemingway’s
descriptions you are mesmerized by how his words capture the reality.
In all the places we visited, from markets to hotels and bars, the
students interacted with Tanzanians of all walks of life: children,
youths, adults, men, women, people of different faiths. They talked and
shared stories with the Tanzanians, danced together, and even played
soccer.
They learned about Tanzanian culture, encountering the kinds of
situations I describe in my book, Africans and Americans: Embracing
Cultural Differences. For example, a group of the students asked someone
in one town where the ATM was. Instead of just giving them directions,
that person led them through the streets to the ATM.
The students ate Tanzanian food, especially ugali. On one occasion,
to introduce them to local transportation, I had them travel in a dala
dala, a minibus tightly packed with passengers.
They learned Swahili words and phrases, especially greetings. This
was not just to facilitate interactions with local people, but also to
foster appreciation of Hemingway’s habit of using words and phrases from
languages other than English. I see this in the broader context of
Hemingway’s desire to embrace other cultures.
We explored not only Hemingway’s fictional works, but also his
theories about literature, writing, and hunting. Hemingway saw writing
and hunting as related, to be pursued with the same seriousness and
perseverance. He described true hunting as an artistic pursuit,
distinguishing it from what he calls shootism, the tradition of shooting
the animal from the safety of a vehicle, by people who might not even
be good shots. He advocated facing the animal on foot, and firing only
one shot, which should kill the animal.
The more I read Hemingway, the more I realize the extent of his
preoccupation with Africa. In addition to the fictional works I have
mentioned, which dwell on his African experiences, he wrote essays and
letters, such as “The Christmas Gift,” and ”Three Tanganyika Letters”
which also deal with those experiences. Furthermore, in novels such as
The Garden of Eden and Islands in the Stream, he refers to Africa.
Hemingway loved Africa, and he expressed those feelings again and
again. He wrote: “I never knew of a morning in Africa when I woke up
that I was not happy.” He also wrote this intriguing statement: “All I
wanted to do was get back to Africa. We had not left it, yet, but when I
would wake in the night I would lie, listening, homesick for it
already.”
A
world traveler, Hemingway encouraged others to travel. He encouraged
members of his family to go to Africa, and some did go. His son,
Patrick, spent many years in Tanzania, where he ran a tour company and
taught at the Mweka Wildlife College.
In view of all this, as I have said, I found it strange, if not
disturbing, that scholars and critics have generally ignored this
pervasive African influence on Hemingway. I have realized that some of
these people are not comfortable with the way Hemingway glorifies
Africa, contrary to the prevailing tradition of depicting Africa as the
dark continent, a dangerous place, not worth paying attention to.
Hemingway died in 1961. There are some things about him that we will
never know, because he liked to fabricate stories, even about himself,
passing them off as true. He describes, for example, his relationship
with Debba, a Kamba girl in Kenya, calling her his fiancée. It is
impossible to know whether, or to what extent, the tales he tells about
their good times together are true or false.
One thing, however, is certain, and my students learned it well:
Africa was very important in Hemingway’s life and career. He not only
truly loved Africa, but he wanted to live there. He wrote: “I would come
back to Africa but not to make a living from it. I could do that with
two pencils and a few hundred sheets of the cheapest paper. But I would
come back to where it pleased me to live; to really live. Not just let
my life pass.”
Joseph L. Mbele, a Tanzanian, is a professor in the English
Department at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota. He is a
cultural consultant, helping Americans and Africans navigate their
cultural differences. He is the author the popular book, Africans and
Americans: Embracing Cultural Differences.
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