Customer Reviews

An Affair with Africa: Expeditions And Adventures Across A Continent

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I have always been greatly intriqued by Africa, this book made me love it even more, as it was one I picked out to give me wings to travel in my mind without having the means. Spectacular Book!

Many themes run through this book about a remarkable and admirable family of scientists, including scientific ferver, compassion and love, concern and terror for Africa on the cusp of change, fascination for Africa's variety of life, adventure, and protection of the family's well-being. The Kistners' adaptability is amazing. They went through continuous and diverse challenges with aplomb. A matter of hours could find them moving from dirt-groveling scientific search for tiny insects in disease infested and personally threatening environments, to high society, twelve-course dinner parties . They spent unbelievably long hours and days of sustained scientific hard work in rain forests, deserts, and plains. A glimpse into the multitude of challenges required to mount a scientific expedition leaves the reader awe-struck. Mrs. Kistner's adaptablility and resourcefulness is truly inspiring. (It's an exciting tale and now that I've finished reading the book, I can finally get some sleep!) Kudos to the editor, publisher, and printer for a very attractive book, beautiful, readable format and print, CLEAR maps, (which is quite unusual) and pictures, and a comfortable size for carrying about. The presentation is a lovely invitation to read about this "Affair With Africa."

Hurry, get this on talking books so that my blind parents can read (hear) it! .

This book turned out to be a gold mine for me. I of course downloaded it because it was about an experience in Africa during the 1960s and 1970s and was intruging for me. The author turned out to be much more interesting and I learned about researchers in the field. The author worked with her husband who was a naturalist specializing in insects and traveled on several expedidtions to Africa looking for beatle species who mimic the scent of African ants and termites so that they can live them relatively unscathed. On expeditions to Anglola, the Belgian Congo, South Africa, Guinea and Rhodesia, the author, her husband, and her children traveled with other researchers on trips across the continent. As they research and study insects, the background exposes a changing world where colonial rulers and independence movements make for an uncertain present and past. The author is able to portray the world pretty clearly and apparently accurately. I was captivated by the book and really enjoyed it. I listened to the audiobook and it was excellent. The only thing I lacked were diagrams, photographs and explainations of the scentific research that would have helped me understand them better. Wonderful.

ALZADA CARLISLE KISTNER...my hat is off to you! You lived a life I could never live and yet through your wonderful book I have experienced the adventure, high drama, stark terror and beauty of Africa.Thank you. You are an inspiration! Talk about a positive attitude! When the going gets tough for me I will think of you and your family. I can't think of anyone who wouldn't enjoy this book. Your humor and practicality made it a book I just couldn't put down.

While I finished this book (and enjoyed the last half) and learned a lot of about Africa and scientific research, the insensitivity of the author to her surroundings ruined the experience for me! How can Kistner rave continually about the wonderful social whirl of the diamond-owners and fail to even mention the plight of the workers in those diamond mines. Same for the "glamorous" safaris. Not to mention the life-threatening danger to her children! Here she is -- for more than a decade -- exposed to perhaps the greatest of social and political upheavals, and nary a word except to lament that this wonderful way of life was changing! Read this book if you're curious about Africa in the 60s and scientific expeditions to remote sites w/ a family. But don't expect more than a limited, narrow report -- written as if the author wore blinders.

This is a very good book about the authors travels and expeditions to Africa collecting myrmecophiles and termitophiles which are beetles living with ants.

Dave the husband of Alzada is a researcher who collected beetles and the author went with him on his trips. They first went to Congo while it was ruled by Belgium and went to EINAC the research station. Congo was on the CUSP of freedom and they could hear the drums at night as the the drums were used to communicate ( like walkies talkies). After Independence the Belgium white officers did not obey the president of the country and that led to the military was being taken over by Africans and led to different regions coming under the influence of different officers. the deal with Belgium was that it would stay for another 3 years after independence. The women and children were evacuated and the after much difficulty the US Air force came in to evacuate Alzada and her husband. Their were many missionaries who refused to be evacuated and were later killed.
The myrmecophiles emulate the behavior of the ants and live in ant colonies and Alzada was spending a lot of time collecting them from the rain forest in Congo.The ants lived in colonies of upto 25 million and they moved once every few days and carried their larvae and queen with them to the new nest. Some Species of the myrmecophiles live in the ant nest and can only be seen when the ants move the nest and some other species go out with the hunting column of ants. since the beetles wals slower than the ants they are usually found at the end of the ant column. The beetles go with the ants even though they do not hunt as they do not know when the nest is getting moved.

Another trip to Africa was taken south Africa, Namibia, Rhodesia and Portuguese colonies of Africa ( Angola and Mozambique ). it is more difficult to collect the beetles in the desert as there are fewer ants. Dave and Alzada also started collecting beetles that live with termites called termitophiles.

Alzada tells a story about a mamba snake coming towards her as she was watching an massive 5 pillared ant colum and as the snake crossed the ants the started biting it and it was dead before it reached her.

Alzada talks about the difficult driving in the sand to reach their destinations being charged by black Rhinos which are more dangerous than the bigger white Rhinos and their car being tossed around by a bull elephant. They also took a merchant ship down to Africa. they were the guests of the Diamond company in Angola which manged 2 provinces. The Africa of their travels was the old colonial Africa and the blacks were not treated well by the whites but after independence most of these countries went into tribal conflicts and became very unstable

In their last trip to Africa they went to a Park where they had lions sleeping next to their tents. Titsi flies were everywhere and their bites were very painful.

this is a interesting easy to read book filled with many stories and will give the reader a general information of Africa and that of the white settlers

I agree that the author (somewhat) romanticizes colonialism. However, the family didn't seem to have a lot of contact with black Africans, so she wrote about what she experienced: the privileged lives of the Europeans there. She and her husband seem incredibly politically naive though.

That aside, I found it a fascinating book, in spite of the science, which wasn't too daunting, but caused me to mutter "here we go ..." each time it appeared.

I'd like to hear more of their adventures in other continents.