From the Plains of Africa to the Jungles of Parliament. Barry Inc. Turner

      Optimum Publishing International

      From the Plains of Africa to the Jungles of Parliament

      by

      Barry Turner

      Copyright © Ottawa 2012 Barry Turner

      With Preface by Patrick Hemingway

      Published in eBook format by

      Optimum Publishing International Inc.

      PO Box 524, Maxville ON

      www.optimumbooks.com

      K0C 1T0

      Converted by http://www.eBookIt.com

      First Impression October 2012

      Turner, Barry, 1946-

      From the plains of Africa to the jungles of Parliament / Barry Turner; with

      preface by Patrick Hemingway.

      Includes index.

      ISBN-13: 978-1-4566-1113-2

      Editor: Michael S. Baxendale

      Book and cover design: Optimum Publishing

      Photography: Unless otherwise credited, from the Turner Collection

      All rights reserved.

      No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, photocopying or otherwise without permission in writing from the publishers except for brief passages which may be quoted in a review for publication in a periodical or by a broadcast reviewer

      PREFACE by Patrick Hemingway

      For me, reading the East African portions of this book has been a very pleasant walk down memory lane. Barry Turner had many of the same friends and did a lot of the same things there as me. The difference is that he has taken the trouble to write about them and I haven’t. I am a little envious of the fine job he has done of evoking les neiges d’antan, although snow is perhaps not the best metaphor for all the hot dry miles and miles of bloody Africa!

      People who have concerns for the conservation of the natural world have tended to polarize into two groups, often in opposition; those who are somewhat easy going and frivolous and those who earnestly believe people are inescapablely part of nature and have the ability to understand the consequences of their actions on the natural world and behave responsibly.

      The first group, most of us, usually comes from a heavily urbanized or suburbanized environment and are apt to look at the less densely populated regions of the world in the arctic, antarctic and tropical regions as similar to urban parks where real people take time out to refresh themselves with sandwiches, bottles of beer, sitting on the grass, with shade trees, squirrels, pigeons and sparrows as relief to the every day tasks of earning a living. This group regards the tropics as a Club Med medley of bikinis, rum drinks, sandy beaches and sex tourism and the polar regions as cross country and downhill ski resorts and polar bear viewing tours, while the second group sees events like the annual burning of the Sahel in Africa and the dry fog it produces as important as the fall of a parliamentary government, the election campaign of a presidential candidate, or the current stock exchange statistics. The people who run things have to contend with both these groups. Barry understands this well, like Shakespeare did long ago: “Dost thou think, because thou are virtuous, that there will be no more cakes and ale.”

      I am about to enter my eighty forth year and as an “old Africa hand” Barry’s book is a delight for me, but it is not to the old, and perhaps in some respects, burnt out “old Africa hands” that I recommend From the Plains of Africa To the Jungles of Parliament, but to Youth, as Joseph Conrad understood that word.

      Young people today in the developed world, most certainly in Canada and the States as they have grown up have been the unrelenting targets of commercial entertainment hungry for the dollars of their parents’ disposable incomes as the outer ring of a chlorine atom for electrons. Lost in a world of cute and loveable dinosaurs, Barbie dolls and video games they have to shake off the chains of what they can buy and get a hold on what they can do. They can learn marketable skills in school. They can choose and attract friends and mentors of their own liking. They can be hammers, not nails. Above all they must grasp that human beings, like wolves and African wild dogs are social animals. They will cooperate, test and rank. Coming of age Youth can learn a great deal from Barry’s book.

      Patrick Hemingway,

      Bozeman, Montana, 2012

      To my remarkable Mom and Dad who provided

      everything to me, and without whom my life would

      never have been so fulfilling.

      ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

      I thank CUSO for the exciting years of my early working life in Africa; CIDA for the middle years, and the voters of my former federal constituency for many of the latter years. I have been motivated by family and friends, especially my sisters, my brother, and my three children to share these true life adventures with you and I thank them for their urging. I must admit that for decades I have had the inclination to share the stories with a wider audience, and thus encourage young people to follow their dreams as I did mine. Having spent some time as a teacher I cannot resist observing that the more one gets done early in life, the shorter ones bucket-list will be later on—as Nike says: Just Do It!

      Take good notes and lots of photos however, as the faded memory syndrome becomes a reality as we age. Keep a diary as your mother or father doubtless suggested, for one never knows when you’ll decide to do as I have done and share the past with the present.

      Without the encouragement and professional analysis of my editor, Michael Baxendale, this projet de memoire would never have come to pass.

      Barry Turner, Ottawa, 2012