Book Launch by Local Writer Diane Creber

Wilma Kenny | Aug 31, 2022

“Don’t Pee Under a Tree in Africa” is a sassy title for a fascinating and thought-provoking book by local artist and writer Diane Creber.

When an African friend met in Canada invites Diane and her husband Tim to stay at his home in Nairobi, Kenya, within driving distance of some of Africa’s largest game preserves, they recognize it as the opportunity of a lifetime. All her life, Diane had longed to visit Africa. As a child she avidly studied pictures in the National Geographic of giraffes, elephants and lions, dreaming of someday seeing them “for real” in their natural habitat.

For Diane and Tim, their trip proved to be all they had hoped for, and much more than they had expected.

Friend Paul and his wife Esther live in a modern bungalow in Nairobi, one of Africa’s most densely populated cities. It, like each of the neighbouring homes, is protected by a high wall and gate that can be opened only from within. And all these homes are part of a subdivision located within another outer wall, topped with broken glass and razor wire, with guards at the gate. After Esther and Diane become better acquainted, Esther takes her through a small gap in the compound’s outer wall one day into another world, a world full of filth, stench and poverty, and introduces her to the timidly welcoming women who live there.

Paul and Ester drive their guests into national parks and game preserves, where they stay for days in posh beachfront or mountaintop safari lodges, watching the animals Diane had always dreamed of seeing. Because Paul is permitted to drive them through the parks, they can search and linger as they wish.

Travelling in a private car also lends a realism far removed from the air-conditioned comfort of a tour bus: fortunately Paul was a skillful driver. To Canadian eyes, the roads could be incredibly awful, varying from paved to non-existent except for a line on a map: the chaotic traffic was almost beyond imagination, the heat was oppressive, and sometimes they ran out of water before arriving at the next source of safe drinking water.

Diane is a keen observer and a careful researcher: her stories of their adventure are enriched with African history and details about the animals they see. She is also haunted long afterward by memories of the extreme poverty they witnessed.

And the book’s title? Good practical advice: a poisonous snake, a hungry leopard or a knife-wielding thief could be lurking above you!

Come meet Diane and hear her read at her book launch in Bath at Books on Main (368 Main St) this coming Saturday, Aug 27, 2-4.

“Don’t Pee Under a Tree in Africa” by Diane Creber, Published by Woodpecker Lane Press, Kingston, available now at Truesdales in Sydenham, Novel Idea in Kingston, Books on Main in Bath and the Wilton General Store in Wilton.