Augustas Kligys Katja Lachmann
  TIPS, TRICKS AND OTHER USEFUL INFORMATION ABOUT AFRICA  
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ON THIS PAGE:
o Books about Africa
o Words in Swahili language (Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, etc.)
o Wild animals - How to react
o Exotic of South Africa’s Northern Cape
Books about Africa

I read some books about Africa and would like to recommend a few of them when preparing going to Africa. Unfortunately, all of them are in German, but I will try to translate title thus maybe you can find it in English or another language, too.
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Sieben Jahre im Sattel: Durchgedreht - Weltanschauung auf Rädern (German)
Le Chant des Roues (French)
Seven years on bike: Crazy - View of world on wheels (English - free & direct translation by Katja)
Author: Claude Marthaler
Publisher: Reise Know-How Verlag
Year: 2002
ISBN: 2-88086-277-9

Claude was traveling seven years around the world and all by bicycle. When coming to Africa he traveled from Cape Town through South Africa, up to Botswana, Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, DR Congo, Central African Republic, Cameroon, Nigeria, Niger, Burkina Faso, Mali, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Gambia, Senegal, Mauritania, Morocco. The trip through Africa last about 1,5-2 years.
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Afrika - Das letzte Abenteuer - Die Geschichte eines Safariführers (German)
Dangerous Beauty. Life and Death in Africa: True Stories From a Safari Guide (American)
Author: Mark Ross
Publisher: Argon Verlag, Berlin and Verlag Hyperion/Talk Miramax Books, New York
Year: 2002 (in Germany), 2001 (in US and Canada)
ISBN: 3-596-15596-7

Mark Ross is a guy living for many years in Kenya working as a Safari guide. It is a personal history how he became Safari guide including stories about his life, his love to Kenya, animals and difficulties he had to face especially during his life in Kenya. It is a fantastic book not only when you want to learn about wild animals but what else you might face when living in Africa.
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more books soon

by Katja, created: 26/06/2004 [botswana, burkina faso, cameroon, central african republic, gambia, guinea, guinea-bissau, kenya, malawi, mali, mauritania, morocco, mozambique, niger, nigeria, senegal, south africa, tanzania, uganda, zambia, zimbabwe]
Words in Swahili language (Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, etc.)
Hello. Hi. Jambo?/Habari Zako/ Mambo?
My name is John Ninaitwa John / Mimi Ninaitwa John / Jina Langu Ni John
What is your name? Wewe Unaitwa Nani? / Unaitwa Nani? / Jina Lako Ni Nani?
Where are you going? Unakwenda wapi?
Are you going to Arusha? Unakwenda Arusha?
Are you going direction ...? Unaelekea upande ... / Unaelekea mahali gani?
Where is the road direction ...? Ipi ni barabara ya kuelekea ....?
I am going to ... Ninakwenda ...
No money Hakuna pesa / Sina pesa (in Tanzania: Sina hela)
Gas station Kituo cha mafuta / Kituo cha gesi
Traveler (hitchhiker, backpacker) Msafiri
Where to go Niende wapi / Kwenda wapi
Where to get off Nitelemke wapi or kituo ninapotelemka
Where is the city center Wapi ni mjini?
OK, fine etc. Sawa / Safi / Poa / Sawasawa
I am tired Nimechoka ("sana" = very much, therefore nimechoka sana = I am very tired)
Go away! Ondoka / Kwenda uko [Very rude], use "nenda zako" - go your way.
Stop the car! Tafadhali (=please), simamisha gari!
Pretty woman Mwanamke mzuri / Msichana mzuri
Mwanamke mrembo (but this means that the woman is married so take care). You can use "msichana mrembo",  i.e. prety girl/lady. Most kenyan ladies like this.
I do not know Mimi sijui / Sijui
Internet cafe internet cafe / Huduma za mtandao za kisasa
Toilet Choo
Entrance Sehemu ya kuingilia / Kuingia
Exit Sehemu ya kutokea / Kutoka
City Mji
Country Nchi
Yes Ndiyo
No Hapana
And Na
You Wewe

Funny phrases in Swahili (slang):
This depends with age and area of usage. Teenage people like a lot of these. But widely by many people are:
Sauti nyororo --- Good and beautiful voice.
Kiboko yao --- Beautiful lady.
Diambo --- Fight/war.
Koinange street --- pesently used and very hot word. It means a street where you go for prostitutes. This place even ministers go to collect women. It was in the newspaper so people are aware of it.
I am broke --- meaning i do not have money.
Are you fresh (in english) and Uko freshi? (in swahili) --- meaning you do not have AIDS virus.
Niko sware --- meaning i am ok (refering to AIDS)

by aloyce, onyango, updated: 22/05/2004, created: 13/05/2004 [burundi, central african republic, comoros, congo, congo (zaire), kenya, madagascar, malawi, mozambique, rwanda, south africa, tanzania, uganda, zambia]
Wild animals - How to react

I read the book "Between Cape Town and Kalahari". The author is Rainer M. Schröder. He and his wife went together on a trip through South Africa, Zimbabwe and Botswana. They had some friend called Willy in that book, who had 20 years experience with doing safaris and wild animals. Here I translated myself some important information:

LIONS

There is no need to be afraid of lions when meeting them in the wilderness. Lions are not up to search the near of human beings, especially they are not searching for men as victims. The reason is that they hunt for what they have learned during their "childhood". That means, everything they are interested in are animals being on the "menu" the mother provided them as tasteful and worth to hunt. Lions need a special technic to hunt animals and as men are not in their natural life circle they never learned which technic to use for hunting them. There are lion specialists i.e. that hunt buffalos because in their region are very much. If buffalos leave that area and only zebras and other animals are left, they have difficulties in hunting them. They are not sure which technic to use best because in the first 24 months of their life they learned only to hunt buffalos. Lions are always doing that what they have learned from their mother.

Elephants

There is no danger as long as the elephant does not feel threatened, but you never know what the elephant thinks. So if elephants react angry and start to follow you (a very sign for being angry), it is good to have some cloth (i.e. t-shirt) that spoils by perspiration. You should take that and throw behind you when you are sure the elephant goes after you. Elephants do not have good eyes, they rely more on their nose. So when throwing a sweated cloth the elephant will think this is what he did not like to be in it is area. The elephant will thus attack the cloth in its blind rage. That will give you time to escape - thus RUN!!! (an elephant can sprint from 0 to 50 km/h in a (few) seconds)

You should try to find out, too, from where the wind blows. Go against the wind.

It helps to make noise that the elephant does not know to make him leave from you. For example, when hitting a metal (car) with a stick. This kind of noise is not natural and not known to the elephant. Thus he will better leave as he does not know if it is a sign of danger.

One more thing: Elephants hate clapping of hands.

Giraffe

You can follow giraffes in case you search a way out of a dangerous situation. Or just in case to search a safe way to get through some area. The reason why is that giraffes are very tall and can scan the area. If there would be any danger, they would not walk there. It is good to know when wanting to cross a river, as there could be crocodiles.

Leopard

You have to be very quiet because it really hates noise and it can turn wild.

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Anyway, always rely on your own instinct, too.

Katja, augustas, updated: 22/05/2004, created: 08/05/2004 [angola, benin, botswana, burkina faso, cameroon, central african republic, chad, congo, congo (zaire), cote d'ivoire, equitorial guinea, eritrea, ethiopia, gabon, ghana, guinea, kenya, liberia, malawi, mali, mauritania, mozambique, namibia, niger, nigeria, rwanda, senegal, sierra leone, south africa, sudan, swaziland, tanzania, togo, uganda, zambia, zimbabwe]
Exotic of South Africa’s Northern Cape
Three participants of Lithuanian team in XV INQUA Congress in South Africa chose the geological excursion route in Northern Cape to see the sands of Kalahari, diamond fields and stone engravings of prehistorical people. The Big Hole – Kimberley Diamond Mine visited told us about the 21 carat first diamond the Eureka found in South Africa on the banks of Orange River near Hopetown in 1866 (Beaumont, 1999). The number of diggers had grown to 2 000, with most of them being in tent camps in the vicinity of present-day Barkly West. In 1870-71 within 5 m of each other three rich diamond-bearing volcanic (kimberlite) pipes were found. Soon the cook of restaurant, near the place where he and his seven friends were camping found an even richer source. The pipe was first worked individually, but this become increasingly more costly and hazardous as the hill was transformed into Kimberley Mine. Gradual amalgamation of adjacent holdings culminated in 1888, when the major remaining company was absorbed by De Beers, who than operated the mine until its closure in 1914. The “Big Hole”, reputed to be the largest hand-made cavity on earth, has a diameter of 500 m and a maximum shaft depth of 1100 m. The 22.5 million tons of rocks removed from it yielded 14.5 million carats of diamonds. About 1.2 km depth of these pipes around Kimberley have been eroded away over the past 90 millio years. The total number of diamonds removed in this way throught southern Africa has been estimated at 3 billion carats. Estimated that alluvial, nearshore and cntinental shelf mining has, as yet, produced only 0.6% of that total.
Geological site at Nooitgedacht was proclimed a National Monument in 1936. The recent removal of Karoo sediments has exposed volcanic Andesites belonging to the Vendersdorp Supergroup. On the surface of these latter may be seen striation, while overlying Dwyka remnants include tillites. From evidence of this kind it has been deduced that glacial radiation took place from a number of Ice Center at a time of late Carboniferous – early Permian when area was close to South Pole. On some of the surface there are also pecked engravings made during the past two millennia. Also due to numerous stone pecked engravings is famous the low hill on the farm Widebeestkuil.
Near the Norlim settlement visited, the extensive lime tufas deposited over time by the Thabasikwa River, which is fed by perennial springs that issue from dolomite rocks some kilometers further upslope. There in 1924 the about three years old Taung child skull, the type specimen of Australopithecus africanus was recovered.
The southwestern Kalahari sand sea, bordered in the west by the Namibian highlands and in the south by the Orange River, is covered by extensive dunes of linear form. Wind velocities are too low to move much sand in Floradora area, even when the vegetation is sparse. At the Witsand the bleaching of sand due to perennial waters that seeps to the surface is observed.
Wonderwerk is an ancient solution cavity. The investigation have reveled that the deposits there have an accumulative thickness of about 7 m. The drawings representing game animals garnish the walls of the cave. According the findings, the cave was started to used for living by Stone Age people 900 thousands years ago.
The low hill on the farm Widebeestkuil is famous due to numerous stone pecked engravings. The high concentration of the finds as hominid evolution in South Africa is the Mc Gregor Museum in Kimberley.
by Petras Sinkunas, www.geo.lt, created: 09/05/2004 [south africa]
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