The Ultimate Safari

“The African Adventure Lives On…You can do it! The ultimate safari or expedition with leaders who know Africa.”

This authentic travel advertisement opens the short story and is attributed to the Observer, London in 1988, the year in which the story takes place. At this time, southeastern Africa was in civil war, with thousands of casualties. This establishes the biting satire that highlights the ignorance of the tourists.

“I am the middle one, the girl, and my little brother clung against my stomach with his arms round my neck and his legs round my waist like a baby monkey to its mother.”

Throughout the short story, Gordimer describes wild animals as calm, caring, family-oriented creatures while the humans in the story are often violent and cruel. Here, Gordimer compares the child clinging to his sister as animal like, while outside the hut, bandits are murdering their neighbors.

“I don’t know what day it was; there was no school, no church any more in our village, so you didn’t know whether it was a Sunday or a Monday.”

This passage poignantly depicts a child’s understanding of war as an unending disruptive force that destroys routines, stripping away a fundamental aspect of society—the calendar.