Joining The Great African Caravan

I first found out about The Great African Caravan through Ife Piankhi when she shared something about it on her facebook wall. I clicked the link to their website and everything about the project spoke to me on an intimate level.

A group of 12 artists from 4 continents (Africa, Asia, South America, and Europe) and 6 countries (India, Uganda, Argentina, Germany, Kosovo, UK). Traveling by road from Cape Town to Cairo for 200 days through 12 countries (South Africa, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Malawi, Tanzania, Rwanda, Uganda, Kenya, Ethiopia, Sudan, and Egypt). In the different cities/towns they pass through, they were to collaborate with local artists on artistic projects in music, poetry, visual art and theater. There’s also a unifying agenda to encourage people to look beyond country and other borders that divide us and highlight our similarities as humans instead. What’s not to like?

When I next met Ife, I asked her how I could get in on the action and she shared the contact of the coordinator Akram Feroze, with me. I DM’d him and shot my shot. I wanted to come on board as a writer, do collaborative projects around that and also document the journey. My current career goal is to launch my travel writing career as I try to achieve my mission of visiting every country in the world using our segregated African passports. This seemed like a perfect opportunity to kick start this.

Sadly, the 3 Mahindra vehicles they were traveling with could only carry 12 people optimally and they were already full. I allowed my loss and asked them to let me know if anything changed. I switched my attention to other potential travel writing opportunities but followed the project closely on social media. Despite the fact that I was unable to be directly involved, I was still very invested in its progress and the works that were coming out of it.

100 days into the project, the team entered Uganda, crossed the Equator and went to Kasese where they had some activities planned. I’d been waiting for them to reach here so I could interact with them and hear the stories they had to tell from the journey so far. Instead, I got a call from Akram asking if I was still interested in joining the caravan. Ife wasn’t going beyond Uganda for parenting reasons and a spot had freed up. I mean, yes of course! I dealt with urgent pending business in Kampala, packed a small bag and went to Kasese to link up with them. Let it be known that I am not one to sleep on opportunities.

Kasese was an eye opener on the realities of the project. It was barely funded and had managed to survive so far on an inspiring combination of teamwork, determination, sheer will, generosity from strangers in the countries they passed through, favors, accumulated debt, prayers and plenty of luck. If it were to be put in a traditional project model, it wasn’t meant to even take off but here they were, halfway through the journey and now I had to decide if I still wanted in despite the challenges that obviously lay ahead. 

Yes, we can.

So, for the next 100 days or so, I will be traveling with this group of strangers and meeting more strangers to make art with them. This picture is of us yesterday at the Source of the River Nile in Jinja. We shall be as if racing it till Cairo because the water apparently takes about 90 days to reach Egypt.

We entered Kenya and are now on Rusinga Island on Lake Victoria for activities at the Rusinga Cultural Festival. I’ll be sharing my personal experiences of the journey on my social media and blog. I invite you to follow the projects social media pages to keep track of the other team members, the people we are collaborating with, the projects that shall be worked on and the experiences on the journey.