But the problem is not, as Theroux says, that Africans are not involved it is, if anything, the opposite. This, it may be argued, is itself a problem, creating a comprador class dependent on foreign patronage. In some African countries it is international aid agencies that provide the most consistent source of employment. But the majority of employees of international aid agencies in Africa, at almost all levels, are Africans. Aid is a failure, he says, because 'the only people dishing up the food and doling out the money are foreigners. The problem is that Theroux knows next to nothing about it. Sometimes it actively contributes to conflict. Aid corrupts its recipients and its providers. In some ways the situation is even worse than he says. It's not that Theroux is wrong to criticise the empire of aid. But if he started ranting on about aid workers the way he does in this book, I would have had to suggest that he quieten down and do some research. And I have a four-wheel drive, though it's neither new nor shiny.

I'm not an aid worker, but I was working in Kenya myself at about the time Theroux passed through. In Tanzania, still in those culpably white cars, they 'travel in pairs, in the manner of cultists and Mormon evangelists'.Īnd here is Theroux's coup de grâce: 'Aid workers in rural Africa are in general, oafish selfdramatising prigs and, often, complete bastards.' Aid workers might, I suppose, be justified in returning the compliment. In Malawi we hear of 'a white person driving one-handed in his white Save the Children vehicle, talking on a cellphone with music playing loudly - the happiest person in the country'. Throughout the remainder of his account of his trip we are reminded of the uselessness of aid workers and, in particular, the offensive luxury of the vehicles they drive around in. It is clear to him that these charity workers' lack of charity towards him is a déformation professionelle, the arrogance of the rich and powerful. It doesn't seem to occur to him that getting involved with a hapless stranger at an African border post might not be sensible for a foreign national with business to attend to elsewhere.

In Ethiopia, he has already told us, he requested a lift across the border from some aid workers (Brits, this time).

Dark Star Safari by Paul Theroux