Khakis, Pockets and Adventurous Hats: Tourism and the Colonial Imagination

I needed an adventurous hat – khaki-colored with a broad brim, evocative of Indiana Jones. Such were my thoughts as I prepared for a visit to Kenya during a summer break from college nine years ago. The hat made me look incredibly silly and eventually I came to my senses, giving it away. But for a few weeks it made me feel like a bona fide swashbuckler.

A couple years later, as I shopped for clothes before going on an aid work assignment in Zambia, I went for the whole look – buying khaki trousers and shirts with hundreds of pockets. I looked like a bad caricature of the European explorer in Africa (see the photo of me by the taxi) but I felt dashing and exciting nonetheless.

As I have spent more time on the African continent I have begun to reflect on the absurdity of this behavior which is so common among North Americans and Europeans that come here.

If you sit at Wilson Airport in Nairobi, a hub for the many small planes shuttling tourists out to the game parks, it is striking to see what people have chosen to wear. I am reminded of David Brooks’ book Bobos in Paradise where he remarks that the clothes of the new American upper class – high-tech North Face jackets, super-sophisticated hiking boots and synthetic underwear capable of wicking away sweat from an intrepid desert nomad – are often more adventurous than their wearers.

Among the foreigners at Wilson Airport, shirts are dark greens and light brown, preferably with plenty of pockets, epaulets and armpit vents. The particularly adventurous might opt for leopard or zebra print. Trousers must be able to zip off into shorts at short notice and have space for GPS units, bird books, hand sanitizer and high-energy bars.

The belt must be loaded with a Swiss Army knife and a Leatherman tool. Around one’s neck must hang a camera with the most ridiculously long lens possible (jokes about ‘lens envy’ are frowned upon). Finally, the choice of hat is crucial, with floppy, cowboy and straw varieties on display. If you are lucky, you might even see the odd pith helmet (see the above picture of a tourist at Wilson Airport).

Why do people wear these things? They wouldn’t wear them at home. And few if any local people wear them. Where do they – where did I – get the idea that travelling to Africa requires an adventurous hat and plenty of pockets?

Living in this part of the world I have started to realize just how ingrained the colonial mythology is in my mind. It is difficult to shake imagery rooted in tales of Livingstone and Stanley, Hemingway hunting big game and Robert Redford and Meryl Streep waltzing on the savannah. For a wonderfully cynical satire of Western images of Africa by one of Kenya’s most promising writers, click here.

Safari lodges are deliberately designed to encourage such images. Luxurious tents complete with hot showers convey the sense that you are doing something exciting and edgy, without having to give up hot water. Guides and hotel staff often dress up in traditional Maasai garb, evoking the ‘noble savage’ who is more in tune with the earth but is pleasingly non-threatening as he smiles and offers you a glass of chilled mango juice.

I must admit that I often really enjoy the experience, the sense of being on a romantic escapade out ‘in the bush.’ Indeed, my wife and I had great fun on our honeymoon in the game parks of Kenya.

But the reel of Out of Africa that seems to constantly play in the back of my mind conceals the incredible brutality of the colonial project in Kenya (and Africa generally). I am currently reading Imperial Reckoning, a Pulitzer Prize-winning history of the British colonial rule in Kenya during the 1950s.

I have been shocked and sickened by its descriptions of the horrific treatment of Kenyans during the British counterinsurgency against the Mau Mau rebellion. The British and their local collaborators incarcerated almost the entire Kikuyu ethnic group – some 2 million people – and subjected thousands to torture, rape, land-grabbing and starvation.

Moreover, rooting our image of Africa in Karen Blixen prevents us from hearing the voices of Africans themselves or seeing the immense political, economic and cultural changes since the imperial era.

Replacing the colonial images in our minds requires actively seeking out film, art and literature that portrays Africa in a more realistic and authentic light. I have found works like Things Fall Apart, The Song of Lawino, Purple Hyacinth, The Poisonwood Bible and even the Number 1 Ladies Detective Agency series an important antidote to the colonial mythologies about this region of the world.

To read my previous article on Western images of the African continent, click here.

-Matthew Bolton reporting from Nairobi, Kenya.

Outreach International works in three African countries to bring about positive social change in poor communities: Zambia, Malawi and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

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Ahhh, this DOES bring back memories of Wilson Airport and the wealthy safari goers in their attire when we were somehow involved with AMREF. Can't remember what that was all about now! And, I'm sure I wore my own OUT OF AFRICA concoctions (inside and out!).

A great reading list. One of my all time favorite quotes about the power of story is from Chinua Achebe's book, ANTHILLS IN THE SAVANNAH (or something like that). I'll have to send it to you at some point. DRB

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