A Touch of Africa

Did a lost population of feral people dwell in the darker recesses of the N.F.D. in Kenya''s remote north? How was it possible to communicate over vast distances without the benefits of modem technology? Why did the Yanomama who lived deep in the Amazon rainforest practice female infanticide as part of their cultural survival? How was it possible for these so called primitive people on two continents to produce a designer poison using only one of the millions of insects that abounded around them? Do elephants have a sense of impending death? Who were the ''white'' men the nomads encountered on the plains of Kenya in a forgotten and desolate wilderness? These are but a few of the stories found in ''A Touch of Africa,'' and Part II ''Onto the Amazon.'' My journeys have taken me to Africa, the Amazon jungle, and the sub Arctic in Canada''s far north. I fished with lepers on the Amazon River in the blackest of nights, walked the slave route in central Africa, and stood on the ground where Stanley presumed to meet Livingstone. The characters encountered in the backcountry were unique, each with their own fascinating tale, and over the years they became unwavering friends. I came to know the smell of famine and buried the dead, came down with malaria and later, black swamp fever. While on safari the unexpected became the norm as roads disappeared and the elephant assumed the right of way. It was in Kenya, East Africa where I experienced a way of life without the benefits of all the creature comforts we seem to believe are necessities. I started off teaching African students in a ''bush'' school. My timetable included weekly forays into backcountry where as a novice, I was expected to hunt enough game to feed the school''s nearly three hundred students. I was fortunate enough to meet a group of Italian old timers who lived and worked in some of the remotest areas of Kenya. Through these newly acquired conta