By Paul Theroux; 472 pages; Houghton Mifflin Company,
2003; ISBN 0-618-13424-7.

Reviewed by Michael McCarthy

Love him or hate him, there’s no ignoring veteran travel writer Paul Theroux. He’s been called a misanthropic complainer and things a lot worse; now you can call him an old misanthropic complainer too, because on the verge of his 60th birthday and after writing a dozen other books of travel literature to describe his visits to far flung regions of the planet, Theroux makes a return to his first foreign posting, Africa.

As a member of the Peace Corps in his youth, Theroux taught school in Africa and this return to his roots lets him examine what has transpired to the Dark Continent in the 40 years of his absence. As he explains in this hefty and serious tome, it’s not a pretty sight; Africa has been raped by military thugs, tin pot dictators, do-gooders and missionaries, and international aid agencies out to save a few souls while creating new empires to replace the old colonialism. Theroux writes:

"Charities were well-established. Between the Bata shoe store and the local Indian shop, you would find the office of World Vision or Save the Children – 'Blurred Vision' or 'Shave the Children' to the cynics. These organizations had gown out of disaster relief agencies but had become multinational institutions, permanent fixtures of welfare and services.

'Aid is not help' and 'aid does not work' are two of the conclusions reached by Graham Hancock in his Lords of Poverty; The Power, Prestige and Corruption of the International Aid Business, a well researched account of wasted money. Much of Hancock’s scorn is reserved for the World Bank. 'Aid projects are an end in themselves,' Michael Maren writes in The Road to Hell. One of Maren’s targets is Save the Children, which he describes as a monumental boondoogle."

Theroux travels from Cairo to Capetown via chicken truck, bus, foot, thumb and, of course, by his time-honored favorite of hopping trains. It’s astonishing that a man nearing sixty would attempt such a dangerous feat, and, as he admits in the book, it almost got him killed more than once. Law and order are not in evidence in many areas of Africa, and in fact he picked up an intestinal virus that put him in hospital for five months after his return home to America.

While Dark Star Safari is an excellent travelogue to some of the most obscure countries on the planet and a good read too – Theroux’s writing seems to get better with each and every travel book he publishes – the real story is what international (i.e. “American”) aid agencies have done to ruin the dark continent.

Recently, on his book tour, Theroux appeared here in San Francisco to sign books of his book at stores as well as appear on a local radio station. When prompted by a caller (travel writer Brad Newsham, who taped the interview and transcribed the following remarks; surf Newsham’s site at www.bradnewsham.com) about what travelers to Africa could do in lieu of handing out charity or supporting international aid agencies, Theroux responded:

"I think there's a lot you can do. The main thing, the first thing you should do, if you're reasonably fit - doesn't matter how old you are, if you're reasonably fit - is go to the place you wish to help. Don't put money in an envelope and send it. Maybe Afghanistan ain't a great idea, but let's say you want to give money to help people in Kenya. I would say go to Kenya first, walk around.

Have your b.s. detector finely calibrated and then go to a village, go to villages, travel around, talk to people, ask questions about the government. In other words, before you do something, pre-ramble the territory and see what they need. Actually, I think what people need doesn't come from the outside, it has to come from the inside, but if it makes you feel good to give something I would say go. Be a traveler first, a reader, a traveler, an investigator. Research the whole question, and then you might say that someone needs a cow. Buy that person a cow. You might want to find a little individual and give him some money to go to school, adopt someone.

I wouldn't give money to a charity, I wouldn't give money to an NGO, I would not give money to a religious organization, I would give it person to person. I would go, find the person or the situation, and then adopt that thing to make myself feel good. I would not give money personally.

When I left Africa after this trip I stopped giving money to panhandlers, I stopped giving money to aid agencies, and I started decrying the IMF and the World Bank throwing money at problems. I thought: It's the worst thing I've ever heard of, because in 40 years nothing has improved, nothing in Africa has improved because of money. But if personally you want to make a contribution, I would say be a reader first, then a traveler, and then maybe... give something."

You don’t need to ride chicken buses from Cairo to Capetown to realize what Theroux discovers on his epic journey overland; the road to hell is paved with good intentions.