The Ultimate Safari

Gordimer visited a refugee camp on the border of South Africa and Mozambique, spurring her interest in cross-border relations. She witnessed the effects of her government’s actions on their neighbors as she toured the camp and saw the impact on a personal level. This experience inspired “The Ultimate Safari,” a story that focuses not on large geopolitical movements but their impact on the individual.

“The Ultimate Safari” follows one family’s escape from war to relative safety in South Africa. A refugee is one who flees persecution or armed conflict and is different from a migrant in that migrants are relocating for economic benefit. While the grandmother finds employment in South Africa in the conclusion of the story, it was not her aim when running from the “bandits.”

The grandmother makes the wrenching decision to abandon her home, her village, and her community to travel to safety with her grandchildren. She sacrifices much along the way, both the ephemeral and the permanent, losing her sense of security, her spouse, and her identity. “The Ultimate Safari” is told from the vantage point of a child, and the grandmother’s struggle is delivered in snippets of brutal honesty.

In the story, dignity is a luxury of those with security.