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In the Dust of Kilimanjaro (A Shearwater Book)

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In the Dust of Kilimanjaro (A Shearwater Book)

The Snows of Kilimanjaro are melting,

a review of David Western's book on ethnic relationships and conservation in east Africa,

by CactusMitch

David Western knows the Hemingways, both father and son.

They all hunt and perhaps haunt the same Africa. Father and son Hemingway crafted "True at First Light" over many years. Their work is on the tip top of my list of modern literature greats.

Mr Western's book is a worthy sequel, though his father was not a writer, only a hunter. Papa Hemingway, and his son Patrick, aka. Bwanna Mouse, grew up hunting the north slop of the tallest equatorial mountain in eastern Africa. All became convinced of the need for coexistence rather than segregation. Both seem blind to racial segregation. By "integration," they mean people of all strains living in an as yet to be found world where wilderness and wildlife thrives and the people's lives are the better for it.

Patrick now lives in Montana. East Africa would be a hard place in these troubled times. David is an adjunct professor at University of California, San Diego. David Western founded the Ecotourism Society, the foundation of which, promotes a sort of coffee table vanity. "Oh look where I visited!"

From my reading of "True at First Light," I think that Papa Hemingway's heart and soul were converted to pre-colonial beliefs. He recorded a snippet about his vision of Gitchie Manitou in Wyoming. He saw a new belief system in which all peoples could share.

For some, seeing the truth, even in the shimmering dawn, compels one to abandon everything old to inhabit such a new and wonderful place. Isn't there a parable about a farm hand who found a buried treasure and sold everything to buy the field?

Why did that leopard climb so high? (See the first words in "The Snows of Kilimanjaro.")