A review by misspalah
Crazy River: Exploration and Folly in East Africa by Richard Grant

adventurous informative reflective medium-paced

3.0

Dale was right. It was a beautiful stretch of river. The Mala-garasi flowed along at a good clip, generating a few white-capped riffles where it ran over submerged rocks. On the west side of the river, where we were camped, there were scattered thorn-bushes, a few stunted trees, and the vast expanse of savannah grassland we had crossed in the vehicles. On the opposite bank there was an impressive gallery forest of sausage trees, fig trees, acacias, palms, and yellow fever trees. Before the link between mosquitoes and malaria was understood, European explorers suspected these trees, with their bilious looking yellow-green bark, of emitting the vapors that caused the disease. At sunset, a pod of hippos started up their low honking grunts. There were herons and storks and ornate geese in the air, and a magnificent fish eagle. A twelve-foot crocodile lay motionless in the river. It resembled a log almost exactly, except a log would have drifted downstream with the current, and the croc held its position with a little riffle of water flowing over its snout. This was the Africa I had fallen in love with: the riverside safari Africa of tents, boats, storytelling, campfires, incomparable birds and wildlife. But I hadn't understood so clearly then that its continued existence depended on armed game scouts willing to kill and be killed to foil the hungry appetites of a desperately poor and rapidly expanding population a million people were living in ninety villages within easy reach of all this grass and bush meat. 

• Chapter of Accidents - Crazy River : Exploration and Folly in East Africa by Richard Grant

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When people put ‘crazy river’ on the title, you would have expected it to be everything about river that does not make any sense, poses a lot of danger and only a handful of experienced people knew how to navigate the area. At least thats what i am thinking of when i first saw the book. Unfortunately, the book started not really from the river, it took you to the beginning of the journey to see the river, a failed original plan and a series of observation and backhanded compliment of how Tanzania, Burundi even Rwanda should be (although this one is not necessarily came from the author but from people he met along the way). Not to mention , the reading gets a little bit uncomfortable that there’s a lot of prostitution mention in the book - which most of the times the chances of this meeting is because the author loves to go to the bars and lounges in these country. The word ‘Muzungu / Mazungu’ meant white people is being used whenever Africans encountered the author in the places that he visited. Some asked him money given the assumption that all white people are rich, some asked him to sponsor them and some outrightly tried to rob him. Once i passed 100 pages of this book which i felt i used to the way it was written, i actually preferred a large chunk of political and historical commentary and bits of fun facts that was put together in it.   The author revealed how much foreign Aid is being swindled by the politicians of these countries, the differences between China Foreign Investment in the East African compared to what US and European Countries has done and NGO’s tone deaf approaches in wanting to help the impoverished community but failed to understand the cultural differences and sense of thee people they wanted to help. The author pointed that tourism started to peak in some of the areas but most of the tourists don’t even have a single clue of the country’s they are visiting. Author did take advantage of his status being white man in these countries whereby the danger he encountered is minimal. He mingled with locals, stayed with them even and some even offered to show him around. This alone helped him to write about some of the community diets on cassava and sort of bbq style hippo meats. Author also highlighted some of the notorious bureaucracy practices from immigration up to the licences to visit some of the rivers - all needed a little bit ‘persuasion’. It can be money or local connection - whichever works at that time. That being said, Author remains impartial which i came to appreciate after finishing the book. Noting on the colonialism, the unequal distribution of foreign aids, the booming population and greeds, even the resourceful countries like Tanzania , Burundi and Rwanda fell behind to achieve the progress and growth at least by what the west determined. Overall, while i do want to learn about how magnificent Lake Tanganyika is, how vast Malagarasi River is and even find out the Source of Nile River that situated in Rwanda - the book didn’t really deliver (at least that’s how i felt). Nevertheless I am still grateful to learn a handful of things from this travelogue.