Our time in Malawi coincided with an appalling civil war in Mozambique, estimated to have displaced two million people. Refugees fleeing to Malawi only had to cross a road. For a stretch, the main north-south highway formed the border, and on the Malawian side there were huge refugee camps. The crossing into South Africa was more perilous. Thousands of refugees traversed Kruger National Park, a reserve the size of Israel, taking their chances with elephants, buffalos, and lions. The flow has never entirely ceased.
Once, during one of our extended self-drive safaris there, my wife and I saw in the distance a group making the crossing, porting all of their belongings with them. Nadine Gordimer’s The Ultimate Safari, published in 1989, puts the reader in the shoes – or lack of shoes – of the refugees.
First published in Granta in 1989, and then in the collection Jump and Other Stories, Bloomsbury, 1991
A Personal Anthology 