Perceived and real risk

Brian Tracy and I share a couple of important things in common. We spent our formative years in Vancouver, B.C., and discovered our way in the world by journeying through Africa. Mr. Tracy went some years before I did, and took much greater and more dramatic risks. That is perhaps an explanation of why he is a greater success, in the public sense at least. But although my travels were rather tame in comparison to his, there is no doubt that my decision to visit the 'dark continent' shaped my destiny.

Actually, I took two trips to Africa. In the first, upon graduating from university with a history degree in 1976 (and some experience as a student journalist/part time daily newspaper reporter), I joined an overland camping trip originating in London, England, that went through the Sahara, the Congo, and ended up in East Africa in Nairobi, Kenya. I then used local transportation to travel down to South Africa, lingering about a month in Rhodesia.

I returned to Canada, to find a job as a reporter, then sub-editor on The Medicine Hat News. In many ways, the culture shock of living alone in a small Alberta city was greater than meeting the Pygmies in Zaire/Congo or traveling in armed convoys from Victoria Falls to Bulawayo. After some months as a general assignment/entertainment reporter, I moved to the 'desk' -- my job was to select the wire stories, write the headlines and lay out the pages. Medicine Hat, during my tenure, read more African news than it probably had any interest in!

I decided to return -- this time to write journalistically. I found my way to Kenya and then hopped down by air (with one overland interlude between Kigali, Rwanda and Bujumbura, Burundi) to Bulawayo and then Salisbury. I knew, when I arrived, that my funds would run out before the story I had come to see would conclude -- the transfer of power to black majority rule. So I set out to find a job.

As it turned out, The Bulawayo Chronicle was short on sub-editors. They offered me a job. Then, white skin clearly an asset at this time, I approached the Rhodesian Immigration Department for a work permit. I had been told that if I identified myself a journalist on entering the country, I would be put on the next plane or train out. So I entered as a student. Now, at the immigration department, I said I had been lucky enough to be hired as a trainee sub-editor. The story 'stuck' and I received an immigration work permit as a -- journalist!

Now there is something special in working abroad, but something very special about working abroad as a journalist in a country involved in a civil war. Certainly I was a hero among friends and aquaintances back home. I had 'done it'. But day-to-day life was less exciting. Where I was, in the city, there was absolutely no danger, and my job really didn't demand much skill -- turning Robert Mugabe into an "external terrorist leader based in Mozambique". I drank too much (drinking excessively was common among Rhodesian whites), and shared a house with a bunch of young 'Rhodies' who taught me the slang of the land.
Dop = drink (booze)
Gonk = sleep
Chuff = Feel sexually satisfied
and assorted derogatory slang words for Blacks.

I started filing some stories to the news service for the company that owned the newspapers I had worked for in Vancouver and Medicine Hat. None of the work was terribly inspired, but it got picked up, as did word of my writings by the local police. (I was tipped off by the paper's editorial page editor -- I used my 'brains' and called the police, telling them I was sorry for any misdirections, and sharing with them everything I had written. They had much more serious problems to overcome, but I realized that the wisest thing would be to focus on riding motorcycles, drinking beer, and staying out of trouble....until independence.)

Late in 1979, the White government caved in and invited the British to temporarily assume control while elections to set up a black government were implemented. Just as this happened, my father died. I headed back to Vancouver for the funeral, but knew I would need to return to see the end of the story. Three weeks later, I was back in Bulawayo.

The months of January to May 1980 were key moments in my life. I didn't know it then, but at the very late age of 25-26, I was 'coming of age', culminating in a rather wild night at a bar in a tribal village/police camp on Good Friday, 1980, when I realized that something in my life was destining me to more than the ordinary existance. I also realized then what it meant for me to be Jewish.

This story has many chapters, but the one thing I learned in Africa is that it really makes sense to take risks -- at least risks that other people perceive. With some homework and care, the 'real risk' is much less than the perceived danger, and that is the essence of real leverage. Sure, I went to Africa, in a war zone, but I never carried arms and certainly didn't go to dangerous places (most of the time). But going there, leaving my comfort zone, I found new things and learned about what makes the world tick.