Review
An African adventure to be savoured, says Cathal Coyle.
- Truck Fever: A Journey Through Africa
- (Brandon Press)
Truckers
For the past eight years Manchán (pronounced Man-a-hawn) Magan and his brother Ruán have travelled the world making a series of documentaries for Irish Language Network TG4 titled Global Nomad.
This ‘travelogue’ precedes these recent adventures and involves Manchán travelling overland from London to Nairobi in a truck (in the words of the author “an old troop transporter”) with what can only be described as a motley crew; including privately educated school girls and a locksmith claiming to be a UFO abductee.
Truck Fever is a rollercoaster of adventure, anecdote and fresh observations about the nature of Africa and what it means to travel through the dark continent. Arriving in Morocco, driving through the Sahara and across the centre to Kenya, the six month journey contains a set of adventures that are poignant as well as crazy. In the town of Rutshuru in the Virunga Mountains the truck accidentally knocks down a Frenchman who is speeding down a hill on a child’s scooter, while another ‘hairy’ moment sees the group come face-to-face with silverback gorillas that are fortunately of a docile temperament!
Not all recollections are light hearted; when describing the attempt to avoid dehydration as water bottles had run dry, Magan records their anxiety of the risks involved in drinking water from African rivers such as the Zambezi. Purification tablets only work effectively against micro-organisms, and the travellers had to run the risk of catching disease when drinking the water. The reader catches a glimpse of the trials of living and travelling in a developing country.
The style of Truck Fever is very personal – and not simply on the part of the author. He successfully relays the thoughts, feelings and anguish of his colleagues to the reader. Magan’s use of language is delightful, he quotes one of the traveller’s main reason for undertaking such an arduous journey as being: “my life is more or less a selfish one, and now springs up the opportunity of wiping off a little of the long score standing against me.”
Written shortly after Magan’s father had deceased, the author places a great emphasis on the dreams he has of an imaginary friend, Johan. While initially he isn’t convinced that he is dreaming about his recently deceased father, but having read Carlos Castenada in school he tries to train himself to become conscious in his dreams to discover the true meaning of them. This voyage of personal discovery is fascinating, and Magan incorporates this sub-theme skilfully into the travelogue.
The beauty of Truck Fever ultimately lies in its narration, Magan conveys the essence of his journey to the reader, and towards the end of the book he acknowledges the people and places that infused him with experiences and helped him to develop as a person.
