Student bikes across Africa

What comes to most peoples' minds when they think of Africa? Assuming their only source of information about the continent and its many nations comes from Western news media, the things that most likely come to mind are war, genocide, poverty, famine and AIDS.

Eric Silverman '10 shared a similar perspective before he spent last spring abroad in Cape Town, South Africa. However, Silverman's experience in Africa was vastly different from what he previously expected. Hoping to demonstrate how different the Africa of western media is from the actual continent, Silverman and Washington University senior Aaron Bodansky set out on a 70-day, 3,000-mile bicycle trip from Cape Town, South Africa to Nairobi, Kenya.

Silverman and Bodansky met while studying abroad in Cape Town. As the semester drew to a close, the two friends contemplated taking a trip around Africa on motorbikes, but eventually settled on bicycles. "We were initially going to ride motor bikes and just explore, but myself or Aaron would get at least an e-mail a day from someone telling us not to travel around and we would get killed, just from the motor bike perspective," Silverman said. Realizing that a bicycle trip would be a much larger investment of time and energy, the two decided that they ought to dedicate their journey to a charity or a cause.

"As we threw around ideas about various charities, a lot of family and friends kept telling us how it was a terrible idea to travel around Africa, that we would get killed and it was too unsafe," Silverman said. "So we thought, 'That should be our cause right there.'"

Silverman and Bodansky created Cycle For Understanding, a non-profit corporation designed, as its Web site www.cycleforunderstanding.org states, "to combat Western prejudices and popular misconceptions regarding the African continent by demonstrating the goodwill and hospitality of Africans from a variety of nationalities." By riding bicycles rather than driving, the two hoped to immerse themselves in the local cultures of the nations through which they would travel. And immerse they did.

Silverman and Bodansky packed their gear and hopped on their 70-pound bicycles bound for Botswana. "We'd practiced riding around but not with all our gear. So the first day we got on with all our stuff we could barely go forward," Silverman said. "I fell off my bike about two minutes in." Despite this early but minor setback, the first leg of the trip was a success.

On June 29 the two cruised into Botswana, and Silverman noted the immediate difference from South Africa in atmosphere. Citing the well-known racial tension in South Africa, Silverman said that because Botswana is populated almost completely indigenously, "there is no [racial] tension in Botswana, which you can tell immediately as you cross the border."

Silverman found that Zambia had a unique culture as well. "It is one of the poorest countries in the world but the people are really nice," Silverman said. "Even though they definitely have a lot less than most people, I felt like I was in a parade of some sort. Whenever we biked through a village everyone would come out and run along waving and yelling 'mazungu!, mazungu!,' which is a common word for white person throughout East Africa."

Silverman reported that the areas of Africa through which they traveled, which were mainly rural in character, were inhabited by kind and hospitable people rather than militants and corrupt governments, as many Westerners would believe. Silverman also dispelled another common Western stereotype of Africa: not everyone is starving. Though the people they came across did not practice the indulgent lifestyles that we Westerners consider normal, most had more than enough to subsist. "Their main source of nutrition and livelihood in rural areas is Maize meal which is basically like corn," Silverman said. "No one goes starving but it is kind of bland. I had to eat it a couple of times but its not that great. When you start eating it for every meal it gets boring."

The two wanted to gain a perspective on African peoples, and their encounters were far from mere voyeurism. They needed and accepted the help of everyday people throughout their travels. Whatever their needs, be it directions to the next town or a full repair of a bicycle wheel, they were greeted with immense hospitality by nearly everyone they encountered. In many instances, families invited them in, providing them with lodgings, a warm meal, and even further insight into the dilemma of Africa's negative reputation.

Silverman explained that their attempts to convey the purpose of their journey to locals were met with varied reactions. "It's different in the major cities where people see the news more readily. They see these stories and kind of joke about it," Silverman said. "When we got into the more rural areas and tried to explain what we were doing, they didn't really understand why people think it is so bad and uncivilized." On one occasion a few South Africans expressed trepidation to Silverman about traveling to America, assuming racism to be far worse in the United States.

After completing the journey, Silverman arrived back on Aug. 26 to his hometown of Brooklyn, NY, where he spent a few days before heading up to Skidmore.

"It is sad that our Western culture views Africa as war-torn and impoverished when people there are just nice people," Silverman said. "People anywhere just want the same things in life, just to be happy and have a good life. For some reason, when people think of Africa they don't realize that there are actually just human beings there."