| Calgary writer Marcello Di Cintio likens his trip across West Africa to the harmattan wind, a wily weather pattern that blows the sands of the Sahara Desert, swirling and obscuring everything in its path.
In his debut book Harmattan: Wind Across West Africa, he describes how his preconceptions and perceptions of Africa, as well as of himself, became something entirely different each time the dust settled.
After graduating from the University of Calgary in 1996 with degrees in microbiology and English literature, Di Cintio craved experiences and knowledge beyond academia. The following spring he joined Canadian Crossroads International, an overseas volunteer organization, which found him a three-month teaching position in Ghana.
In the seaside town of Denu near the Togo border, he taught biology – the only time he’ll ever apply his degree – to secondary school students. At semester’s end, "Canada Man," as the villagers so fondly called him, set out on a seven-month journey through Ghana, Togo, Benin, Niger, Burkina Faso, Mali and Mauritania.
Aside from chaperoned trips to Italy and France years earlier, Di Cintio ventured into West Africa very much a virgin backpacker. While there is a sprinkling of typical travel blunders in his book, the writer within Di Cintio reveals itself in his moments of introspection and reflection.
Grappling along the way with his reason for travelling, he writes: "Sometimes I wondered if it was all about finding stories to tell, about painting myself as a grand adventurer, making myself more interesting… never revealing the secret that anyone can do these things, that I was not as special and intrepid as I wanted to seem.
"Maybe I was creating reasons for people to love me… love me for my stories and my photos, for my African clothes and jewelry, for my malarial blood and the Saharan sand caught by the corners of my pack."
But the 29-year-old Di Cintio does not portray himself as a wide-eyed benevolent volunteer from Canada who is curious, sometimes foolish and endlessly shifting the boundaries of what to excuse for culture and what is universally wrong. His writing is humorous and at times unveils raw honesty – for example, early in his trip he learns about his parents’ breakup and discloses the disturbing details surrounding it.
"That was a very important day for me during those travels," says Di Cintio during a recent interview. "And at the end of all that, this is my story, this is my trip. If no one else buys this book, no one else sees it, this is what I have, these were my experiences."
He’s also generous about recounting stories in which he finds himself in the most embarrassing situations, like the time he used his boxer shorts for toilet paper in a bathroom emergency, or when a local man insisted on washing Di Cintio's feet for him because they stank so badly from not bathing in over a week combined with days of walking in the same pair of socks.
Not only did Di Cintio’s journey to West Africa induce travel fever – leading to future trips to Morocco, Israel and Egypt – it also gave him an abundance of rich material with which to launch a writing career. He has contributed radio and TV pieces to CBC, and written numerous travel stories and letters for magazines, literary journals and contests, garnering him nominations for the Western and National Magazine Awards. His "Letters from Niger" is now included in an English anthology for Grade 12 students in Ontario.
Although parts of his book read like well-written journal entries, Di Cintio’s prose is most beautiful, and immediate, when he finds himself in the inner-sanctum of his hosts’ lives – drinking tea outside the tents of black-turbaned nomads, sharing endless hours and little space with fellow passengers during many a dusty cross-country ride.
And his descriptions of the souls he meets throughout his wanderings, both earthly and otherworldly, are poetic. For example, he writes that the people of Niger "exude a beauty born of camel milk and sweet, sweet dates. A beauty fired in a kiln of sun and drought, flavoured by salt and mint, adorned in silver and smoothed by sand. I could not help but stare, I was jealous. I wanted to be that ancient."
By the end of his travels, Di Cintio is a changed man – more accepting, more open to the unfamiliar. Most importantly, he feels less like a voyeuristic guest in a foreign land and understands more about what it means to belong.
"West Africa was beautiful," he says. "It’s not so much the landscape – it’s not like the Himalayas. And you don’t have the game parks – it’s not about animals. It’s not about the physical beauty of the place – it’s about the people." |
