The Ultimate Safari

“I am the middle one, the girl, and my little brother clung against my stomach with his arms round my neck and his legs round my waist like a baby monkey to its mother.”

Throughout the short story, Gordimer describes wild animals as calm, caring, family-oriented creatures while the humans in the story are often violent and cruel. Here, Gordimer compares the child clinging to his sister as animal like, while outside the hut, bandits are murdering their neighbors.

“I don’t know what day it was; there was no school, no church any more in our village, so you didn’t know whether it was a Sunday or a Monday.”

This passage poignantly depicts a child’s understanding of war as an unending disruptive force that destroys routines, stripping away a fundamental aspect of society—the calendar.

“I say ‘grandmother’ before ‘grandfather’ because it's like that: our grandmother is big and strong, not yet old, and our grandfather is small. you don’t know where he is, in his loose trousers, he smiles but he hasn't heard what you're saying, and his hair looks like he’s left it full of soap suds.”

Here Gordimer contrasts the self-determinism and strength of the grandmother against the diminutive hopelessness of the grandfather as representations of opposing reactions to the turmoil of war. This portrays the grandparents as foils.

“Our grandfather used to have three sheep and a cow and a vegetable garden but the bandits had long ago taken the sheep and the cow, because they were hungry, too; and when planting time came our grandfather had no seed to plant.”

In a rural community, the story suggests that livestock and a garden signal a good life. These were destroyed, with nothing left to even plant to regrow a life once the bandits left. The grandfather represents the total loss of hope and his lost garden and livestock the loss of the good life.

“We knew about the Kruger Park. A kind of whole country of animals—elephants, lions, jackals, hyenas, hippos, crocodiles, all kinds of animals.”

Gordimer describes a country of animals and lists several dangerous, unpredictable wild animals as residents of this country. Yet when the refugees pass through the land they are never attacked, and the animals pass them by. This is in stark contrast to the country that is full of dangerous humans—the country from which they are fleeing.

“A men led us into the Kruger Park; are we there yet, are we there yet, I kept asking our grandmother.”

Gordimer repeats the childish mantra of “are we there yet” to enhance the poignancy of the refugee children crossing an unimaginably dry, dangerous landscape.

“He said we must move like animals among the animals, away from the roads, away from the white people’s camps.”

In a call back to the opening quotation, Gordimer points out that white tourists are camping in Kruger Park on safari even as the refugees sneak through the bush to escape war nearby. The duality of these simultaneous experiences highlights the willful ignorance of those on safari and their lack of concern for those impacted by the war.

“My first-born brother stopped talking; and when we rested he had to be shaken to get up again, as if he was just like our grandfather, he couldn’t hear.”

The nonverbal, diminutive grandfather represents hopelessness and total loss. When the first-born grandchild begins to act the same way, Gordimer is highlighting the destructive nature of war, generation upon generation.

“She said, come.”

The grandmother’s spouse is missing and she must choose to wait for him to return or stick with the refugee group fleeing from war. In an impossible moment, she chooses to save her grandchildren and leave her husband behind. “Come” is all she says; this brevity implies everything that she must protect her grandchildren from hearing.

“Sister says there’s something wrong with his head, she thinks it’s because we didn’t have enough food at home. Because of the war.”

The baby brother experiences delayed mental and physical development because of the war; these delays are both symbolic and concrete. The war will affect future generations, and this particular child has been affected by the war.

“Long ago, in the time of our fathers, there was no fence that kills you, there was no Kruger Park between them and us, we were the same people under our own king, right from the village we left to this one we’ve come to.”

In southeastern Africa, European colonizers drew colonial borders existing tribal borders, cutting communities in half. The story highlights the consequences of this and suggests that languages and customs bind together what borders sought to tear apart.

“[S]ome people have dug up the bare ground around the tent and planted beans and mealies and cabbage. The old men weave branches to put up fences around their gardens.”

In contrast to the hopelessness of the grandfather, whose garden and livestock in Mozambique were destroyed, some of the men in the refugee camp are finding hope again.

“And what do you hope for the future?—Nothing. I’m here.”

When a white film maker interviews the grandmother in their refugee camp, the grandmother confesses that she has no hopes for the future–only survival. This character development highlights the consequences of war, as even the grandmother’s spirit has been broken.