The irony of this image was fabulous, even more so since visual art in Botswana is very sincere, which is not a bad thing, but sincerity can accommodate humor and that element is often lacking. For example, the art work in the National Invitational Art Exhibition currently on view at the museum in the capitol, Gaborone, is damned by good intentions.
There are proficient paintings of history as collage.
Dramatizations of traditional culture…

and virtueless abstract paintings which give truth to the cliché, “painting is dead.” The fashion, however, was good.
There are a few moments of beauty,and one comic assemblage of a goat transformed into a traffic light. Goats are prolific in Botswana and freely roam the roads, making highway driving a contact sport, a fact of life that provides the back story for this bit of sculptural humor. Some of the art works are comic, but unintentionally so. A favorite with tourists and locals alike, celebratory images of the wild animals of Southern Africa are ubiquitous, which makes sense since the animals are a source of national pride, cultural identity and income. This hyperbolic painting of an ostrich on amphetamines is typical of the genre, and it prompts one to ask, “what do people want from pictures of wild animals?” This question has been on my mind a lot, since I’ve been trekking through game parks for a couple of weeks and I find it impossible to see the animals without being reminded of professional photographs and videos that I have seen on the subject. Is it possible that African animal pictures are the third most popular photographic subject after fashion and disaster? To understand the desire for animal pictures, I thought it might be useful to review the criteria I would use to edit photographs if I wanted them to be mainstream.Nxai Pan in north central Botswana was the first game reserve on the itinerary and ostriches were plentiful. The following four photos are of one bird as it pecked and strutted across the grassy stage. Moving clockwise from the upper left, the first ostrich picture is the worst. The legs and neck are straight and the body is strictly aligned on the axis of the spine. As a result the image is static, which would be fine in a portrait of a hod carrier by August Sander, but not for a wild animal. Picture two has more potential, since the neck is curved and the balance has shifted to one leg. But the loose skin under the neck is disturbing for older viewers. A better choice is image three, in which the neck flap is hidden, the weight turns on a single, balletic point and the turn of the head suggests that the bird is enjoying a commanding view. But that scrawny bird neck is not in proportion to the body. The problems of the first three images are resolved in ostrich four and its “quality” reveals my prejudice for a certain type of picture. Loose skin obscured, the neck in this image is pulled close to the body and tensed into a graceful S, ready to strike at prey. Like number three, the body is poised for action and the gaze is intensely focused. This is a bird of purpose. This “best” image emphasizes action, poise, physical beauty and self confidence. These virtues are not only attributes of health but also of vigorous agency. I seem to want an ostrich that is authoritative. Although dialed down a notch, my preference for the dynamic is disturbingly similar to the ostrich on amphetamine painting I ridiculed. I wonder if I want the same from giraffes? At Nxai Pan there were also a pair of giraffes. The male was enormous and he followed the smaller female closely, seeming to hurry her along. Trotting away from my approaching truck, they came in and out of view, sometimes only heads visible, bobbing above the bush. They descended into a dry river bed which was significantly lower then the road, providing an aerial perspective on their escape. Although they covered ground quickly, they seemed to be moving in slow motion like an astronaut who gives a little leap to sail across the moon.

A few days later on a game drive in Tuli, a wonderful park on the border of South Africa and Zimbabwe, I saw zebras grazing with giraffes. Zebras like to hang with giraffes to take advantage or their superior point of view which provides early warning of advancing predators. I grabbed my camera as we approached the group, snapping a shot every second. Later, when I reviewed the sequence, the animals seemed to pose as we got closer. Compare the following pictures, which are the first and last in the sequence. It’s as if I said, “OK, time for the group portrait. Short ones in the front. You, the tall fella, stop eating and get in the back. Turn toward the camera, please. Stand up straight. Everyone ready? Smile!”Of course the zebras and giraffe are not posing for the camera, but only orienting themselves to assess the nature of something new in their environment. It’s clear, however, that the presence of a photographer effects the animals movement in a very particular way, a fact that challenges the assumption that wild life photos are by nature candid. Still, when judging the worth of the four giraffe photos above, I prefer that the subject seem to be unaware of me. Since I wish to portray the giraffe as wild, the animal must appear innocent of my presence. At first it seems counterintuitive to link innocence and wildness, but access to the original wilderness, Eden, depended on innocence and was lost with knowledge. The fantasy of finding Eden is strong in people and can be capitalized upon when choosing an image for popular consumption. The first and second images are decidedly not Edenic, since the giraffe stares quizzically out of the picture. So these images can be eliminated. The third picture has potential. The animal is walking and looking away from the camera, so it seems uncontrived. It also has the advantage of illustrating the effectiveness of protective coloration and pattern in shadow. But popular pictures are not educational; popular pictures are entertaining. Muted color harmony is no match for the vividness of strong contrast, so number three is out. Which leaves picture number four, which is a good one, but for the unfortunate placement of the thorn tree under the chin of the giraffe. But Photoshop can remove the tree to create the perfect silhouette. This pose reminds me of a pretty woman who, interested in someone across the room, turns her back to the love object but flirtatiously sets her head and neck in profile. Like the winning ostrich, I’ve chosen a giraffe picture that highlights poise and beauty. But unlike the ostrich image which emphasizes agency, the giraffe selection promotes the fantasy of original innocence. But maybe a formal portrait of the giraffe would be more winning. Like a Baroque painting of a king on horse back, the giraffe in this photo looks down from above. The body is turned sideways to give full effect to the heroic torso, finely turned legs and richly patterned coat. The horizontal format sets the subject in its estate, like a landowner painted by Gainsborough. But there is yet another option from which to choose.The “portrait” format uses the visual liveliness of a vertical rectangle to reiterate the vitality of the living subject. At twenty feet tall, the giraffe is a natural for the vertical. Both of these pictures successfully ennoble the giraffe and I find this appealing, but I wonder why? Having watched giraffes a bit in the last few weeks I can testify to the fact that they are awkward as often as they are composed. I think it might have to do with making myself feel better. Maybe the reverential image is a way of making amends for taking the majority of the giraffe’s habitat. Too bad the apology is lost on the giraffe.

What at first seemed like simple choices of color, light and composition now seem complicated. Is a picture of an animal more about the person who selected it then it is about the animal? And do people look at pictures of wildlife to be reassured that a robust Eden is still possible? If I want to represent the wild animal free of human interference, maybe I should choose a bad picture.

Any better?

Fifty years ago I religiously watched re-runs of Tarzan the Ape Man and the star, Johnnie Weismuller, presided over my initiation to exotic Africa. Unlike the recent tongue and cheek incarnations, Weismuller’s Tarzan was sincere. On Saturday afternoons we moved expeditiously through the jungle swinging on a network of vines. Our physical prowess was matched by our profound practical knowledge. For information we read the forest floor and conversed with elephants and chimps. Our intimacy with the environment was unsurpassed and together as super-primal-men we patrolled the jungle and enforced the natural law. Once we witnessed a fiendish native execution. To the wild beat of sweaty drummers, native villains bent and tied two adjacent saplings to the ground to form overlapping arches. Next, they hung a victim upside down in the heart-shaped crotch, one leg lashed to each young tree. The drums reached an unsustainable fury and stopped. A machete rose in the frame. It fell, severing the ropes that bound the saplings ripping the man in half. Cruelty like this was not in the natural order of things, so Tarzan and I called the elephants and directed them to trample the fiends. Africa was my manliness.

Like many small cities, there is a statue in the park. In the middle of Gaborone near Parliament, there is a likeness of the first democratically elected president, Sir Seretse Khama. Fortunately for Khama and his young country, diamonds were discovered in Botswana in the late 1960’s only a few years after independence. Khama returned this new wealth to the people by building basic infrastructure and a free educational system. Today, Botswana has a literacy rate near 80% and by African standards, supports a middle-income economy. Botswana was a British Protectorate instead of a colony, so the land was never apportioned to white settlers, but remained in the hands of the original population. Today, the government offers citizens free land, provided it is used for farming or housing within three years of taking ownership.

Forty-five years ago I was sitting in the pew of an Episcopal Church in Kentucky waiting to drop an envelope of cash in the offering plate that was being passed. A picture of an African child with flies was printed on the envelope. The stomach of the boy was round but his limbs were very skinny. His eyes were enormous in his boney face. He sat cross legged on a patch of dirt and looked up at me, as if I were standing above him deciding his fate. Africa was my righteousness.

Botswana is a consumer society. The River Walk Mall in Gaborone offers a good cup of Americano and a quick internet connection. I bought an organic cotton shirt at Woolworths, hiking socks at the Cape Union Mart and the best oranges I’ve ever eaten at the Pick and Pay. At a local fast food restaurant, I had a good piece of chicken for about the cost of a meal at Colonel Sanders. But food isn’t as cheap for the Batswana as it is for working Americans. The minimum wage here is a 50 cents an hour, so a fast food meal would cost a low wage earner a full day of labor.

Thirty years ago I saw a PBS special that presented the African landscape as an epic novel crowded with well-drawn characters. The adventure began with an aerial shot of the open Savannah; abundant game moved across the plane. The camera moved in and I was so close. Right there. I felt as ruthless as the hyena, as graceful as the antelope, as defensive as the water buffalo, as stealthy as the python and as flamboyant as the flamingo. Africa was not a foreign place. It belonged to humanity. It belonged to me. Africa was my heritage. My teenage cousin felt the same and collected plush lions and monkeys for her bed.

Domestic life in Botswana is the usual. There is a solid home-owning middle class that commutes to work five days a week and comes home to feed the kids and goes to bed only to start up again. Unlike the West, however, where homes are segregated by degrees of grandness into neighborhoods of varying degrees of exclusivity, suburbs in Gaborone are mixed income. Very modest homes with swept earth yards are situated next door to…

upscale homes with well tended gardens. This is in part due to the free land policy of the government. As a result the eclectic suburbs give the impression that Botswana is largely a classless society.

Although there is an egalitarian spirit, the majority of home owners believe in the adage that good fences make good neighbors.

The family I am staying with has a small child who is cared for by mom, dad, aunt, uncle, grandma, grand uncle and baby sitter. Even the gardener takes a turn watching over her. This extended family model is typical of Botswana and it is a very sane way to raise children. Paradoxically, homes are walled and guarded, but family networks are extensive and fluid.

The repetitive work of keeping house is the repetitive work of keeping house. But there are interesting difference in the details of keeping an African home. Brooms, for example, have no handles. To use it one bends at the waist and moves across the floor like a gleaner in a Millet painting. But the stiff bristles are very effective on packed earth yards and low nap carpets.

Fifteen years ago there was genocide in Rwanda. I read about the political and social forces behind the killing, but the causes did not stay in my mind as clearly as the effects. I remember the hackings and severed limbs and a river full of bloated corpses bleached white. I remember a building full of people set on fire. Africa was my psychopathology.

Last week a black African man with whom I had a polite conversation, was compelled, after I left his company, to say that all white people care only about money and that they will do anything for it. He wasn’t, I am told, speaking specifically about me, but my presence was enough to elicit this bit of racism.

Ten years ago I started collecting African music both traditional and Pop. Since I was a teenager I’ve listened to all forms of African inspired music like Soul, Jazz and R and B. So collecting African music was a natural direction. When I need a break from painting, I put on a track from Africando or even the wildly sexy, Jamaican homophobe, Buju Banton, and dance with abandon. Africa was my rhythm.

Today, “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” opened in Gaborone. Now Africans can watch the movie and together with Americans, Europeans, Asians, and everyone else go to the exotic world of Hogwarts.

The surface of Southern Africa is hatched with walls. From the air Johannesburg looks like a circuit board in which every choice bit is surrounded by a barrier that requires an access code. In Gaborone, the capital of Botswana and my current home, the growing suburbs are collections of enclosures whose walls and gates hint at the life inside. The basic city wall is made of concrete block and a few homeowners employ it without elaboration.

But many people in my neighborhood select a less minimal design and choose colorful, articulated walls, which divide the African sun into displays of light and shadow.

Organic pattern worked within the grid of the wall is common, suggesting that the life within the compound is exuberant yet ordered.

And walls emblazoned with prominent designs gesture to the street, confirming that statements of bold individuality are welcome in public life.

Gates seem to speak of status and amazingly no two are alike. The grandest are steel and decorated with medallions like the brass buttons on a Captains chest.

One of rusty chain link, however, which surrounds an ornate house that was abandoned during its construction, tells of high hopes and false starts.

But no matter how elegant or common, the city walls all speak the same doubt, “Are you trustworthy?” As a result a foreigner like me, who can not accurately access the level of threat, is apprehensive in this culture of fences and gates. It’s interesting how architecture can create a state of mind.

But it’s a different story inside the walls, at least within the walls of the family home where I am staying. Here the garden within the walls is as busy, diverse and generous as the people who live here.

The row of calla lilies is bracketed by a classical bust and a display of African pots, which are apt bookends for a worldly, African family.

Even the neighborhood strays know this is a warm spot, and huddle on a log every winter morning near the lemon and papaya trees to catch the first heat of the sun.

Outside Gaborone in the semi-arid farmland northwest of the city, the gates and walls are equally imaginative, but here creativity is driven by scarcity.

Stock fences on traditional farms are made from bushes whose thorns are like needles of bone. Dragged into place by teams of donkeys, arranged in lines and overlapped to maximize the tangle, the thorn fence is impenetrable by all but the most inspired flagellant.

The gates are a fantastic mix of forms and surfaces. Rusty bed springs, gray metal scraps, tan vines, brown sticks, orange cord, green hose and shiny bicycle parts are pressed, woven flat and hinged onto trees and posts.

I think these gates are very beautiful. It’s problematic for me, an affluent American, to gush about the aesthetic value of objects which have sprung from poverty. It would be more relevant to consider these gates as indicators of the economic peril of third world subsistence farmers like Rre Motsewabang Motsewabang who created them. But the visual brilliance of the gate pictured above – the alignment of crenulated edges of sheet metal to form a rhythm of teeth and eyes and the selection of twin, forked posts which gesture like long-separated sisters tossing their hands in the air before an embrace, is hard to ignore. This gate opens not only for goats. It is also a passage between aesthetics and economics. Like the wall and gate in the city which indicates the individuality and status of the people within its perimeter, the thorn fence and scavenged farm gate tell the tale of creativity bounded by limited resources.