TRAVEL TUESDAY 572 - GABON, AFRICA

“As we look to the future, we cannot improve our living standards while simultaneously degrading the natural environment around us.” - Ali Bongo Ondimba 

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Gabon, officially known as the Gabonese Republic, is an equatorial sovereign nation located on the Atlantic coast of Central Africa. Renowned for its rich biodiversity and dense wilderness, it is bordered by Equatorial Guinea, Cameroon, and the Republic of the Congo. The country spans roughly 270,000 square kilometres and is home to a population of approximately 2.5 million people, making it one of the least densely populated nations in Africa. Its capital and economic epicentre is Libreville.

Gabon is a crucial component of the Congo Basin, serving as one of the planet's primary ecological strongholds. Pristine tropical rainforest covers between 85% and 90% of the country's landscape. This immense forest cover allows Gabon to act as a critical net carbon absorber.  The geography transitions from a low-lying, lagoon-rich coastal plain along the Atlantic Ocean into interior highlands, including the Cristal Mountains and the Chaillu Massif. In 2002, Gabon established a network of 13 national parks covering roughly 11% of its landmass. Notable reserves include Loango National Park—famous for its "surfing hippos" and forest elephants that roam the beaches—and Lopé National Park.

Gabon possesses one of the highest GDP per capita rates in Sub-Saharan Africa, driven largely by its vast natural resource extraction. Offshore oil reserves discovered in the 1970s account for roughly 45% of the nation's GDP and 80% of total exports, making Gabon the fifth-largest oil producer in the region. Beyond oil, the country is a significant global exporter of manganese and timber. Despite its high structural wealth, Gabon suffers from acute wealth inequality, with over a third of the population living below the poverty line.

French serves as the sole official language, a legacy of French colonial rule prior to Gabon gaining independence on 17 August 1960. The population is composed of over 40 distinct Bantu ethnic groups, with the Fang being the largest. The population is predominantly Christian, often interwoven with traditional animist practices. Gabon is globally recognized for its Iboga traditions, utilizing a sacred rainforest root bark central to its spiritual rituals and currently under close protection due to growing global pharmaceutical interest.

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TRAVEL TUESDAY 566 - DAKAR, SENEGAL

“Music in Africa often contains messages. Music in Senegal, and Africa, is never music for music’s sake or solely for entertainment. It’s always a vehicle for social connections, discussions and ideas.” - Youssou N’Dour

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Senegal, officially the Republic of Senegal, is the westernmost country of mainland West Africa, situated along the Atlantic Ocean coast, with an area of 197,000 square km and a population of 19 million people. It borders Mauritania to the north, Mali to the east, Guinea to the southeast and Guinea-Bissau to the southwest. Senegal nearly surrounds the Gambia, a country occupying a narrow strip of land along the banks of the Gambia River, which separates Senegal's southern region of Casamance from the rest of the country. It also shares a maritime border with Cape Verde. The capital and largest city of Senegal is Dakar.  French is the official language, while Wolof (Ndakaaru) is widely spoken.

Like other African nations, the country includes a wide mix of ethnic and linguistic communities, with the largest being the Wolof, Fula, and Serer people. Senegalese people are predominantly Muslim. As a developing nation, Senegal is classified as a heavily indebted poor country, with a relatively low ranking on the Human Development Index (169th out of 193). Most of the population lives on the coast and works in agriculture or other food industries; other major industries include mining, tourism, and services.

Dakar is the vibrant capital and largest city of Senegal, located on the westernmost point of the African continent on the Cap-Vert peninsula, with a population of approximately 1.28 million in the department, with around 4.0 million in the broader metropolitan area. Senegal is generally safe for travelers who exercise normal to high caution, though certain regions and urban areas carry specific security and health risks.

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TRAVEL TUESDAY 563 - TRIPOLI, LIBYA

“As a young boy in Libya, it was hard to escape the conclusion that the women were the most feeling and most functional part of society.” - Hisham Matar

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Libya is a large, oil-rich country located in North Africa along the southern coast of the Mediterranean Sea. It is bordered by Egypt, Sudan, Chad, Niger, Algeria, and Tunisia. As the fourth-largest nation in Africa, the vast majority of its terrain consists of the Sahara Desert, forcing about 90% of its 7.3 million residents to live in fertile cities along the northern coastline, primarily within the capital city of Tripoli.

Libya is historically and culturally divided into three primary regions: Tripolitania (Northwest): Home to the capital, Tripoli, featuring a Mediterranean climate and the Nefusa Mountains. Cyrenaica (East): Centred around Benghazi, known for the fertile Green Mountains (Jebel Akhdar) and major oil infrastructure. Fezzan (Southwest): A vast, hyper-arid desert region dotted with historic trade oases like Sabha.

Because Libya lacks permanent rivers, it relies heavily on the Great Man-Made River, a massive engineering network of underground pipes that pumps fresh water from ancient desert aquifers to coastal cities.

First inhabited by indigenous Berber populations, coastal Libya was later colonised by the Phoenicians, Greeks, and Romans, leaving behind prominent archaeological ruins like Leptis Magna. Arab forces introduced Islam in the 7th century. The region was later absorbed into the Ottoman Empire from the 16th century until 1911. Italy violently colonised the area in 1911, formally unifying the provinces under the name “Libya”. 

The nation achieved independence as a monarchy in 1951. In 1969, Muammar Gaddafi seized power in a military coup. He ruled the nation with an authoritarian, highly centralized system for 42 years.

Following the 2011 Arab Spring revolution and the fall of Gaddafi, Libya entered a prolonged period of instability and civil factionalism. The country remains politically fragmented. Power is split between the internationally recognized government in Tripoli (West) and a separate administration backed by the Libyan National Army in Benghazi (East).

Libya boasts the largest proven oil reserves in Africa. The economy is completely tethered to hydrocarbons, which constitute over 90% of government revenue. Financial management is highly volatile, overseen by the Central Bank of Libya which devalued the Libyan Dinar to stabilise the economy amid persistent political gridlock.

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TRAVEL TUESDAY 517 - VIRUNGA MTS, RWANDA

“When the missionaries came to Africa they had the Bible and we had the land. They said 'Let us pray.' We closed our eyes. When we opened them we had the Bible and they had the land.” -  Desmond Tutu

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Rwanda, officially the Republic of Rwanda, is a landlocked country in East Africa. Known as the "Land of a Thousand Hills" (French: Pays des mille collines) for its high elevation and rolling terrain, its geography is dominated by mountains in the west and savanna in the southeast. The largest and most notable lakes are mainly in the western and northern regions of the country, and several volcanoes that form part of the Virunga volcanic chain are primarily in the northwest. The climate is considered tropical highland, with two rainy seasons and two dry seasons each year.

Its capital and largest city is Kigali, located at the centre of the country, at 1,567 metres above sea level. Rwanda lies a few degrees south of the Equator in the Great Rift Valley of East Africa, where the African Great Lakes region and Southeast Africa converge. Going clockwise Rwanda is bordered by Uganda to the north, Tanzania to the east, Burundi to the south, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the west. It is the most densely populated mainland African country; among countries larger than 10,000 km2, it is the third-most densely populated country in the world.

Rwanda is a de facto one-party state ruled by the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) and its leader Paul Kagame continuously since the end of the civil war in 1994. Although Rwanda is nominally democratic, elections are manipulated in various ways, which include banning opposition parties, arresting or assassinating critics, and electoral fraud. The RPF is a Tutsi-dominated party but receives support from other communities as well.

Tourism is one of Rwanda’s fastest-growing economic sectors and remains the country’s leading foreign exchange earner. In 2023, Rwanda recorded over 1.4 million international visitors, generating about US$620 million in revenue, according to the Rwanda Development Board. The World Travel & Tourism Council reported that in 2024, the sector supported nearly 386,000 jobs in Rwanda and contributed over 10% of GDP.

A major draw for visitors is mountain gorilla tracking in Volcanoes National Park, one of only three places worldwide where mountain gorillas can be seen in the wild. Other attractions include Nyungwe Forest National Park, known for its chimpanzees and canopy walkway, the resorts of Lake Kivu, and Akagera National Park, a savanna reserve in the east home to elephants, lions, and giraffes. The Virunga Mountains in the photo are a great scenic location.

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TRAVEL TUESDAY 483 - ANNABA, ALGERIA

“It is true, as Sartre once wrote, referring to French Army atrocities in Algeria, that the real tragedy in our time is that any of us can be, interchangeably, victim or torturer.” - Gore Vidal

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The St Augustin Basilica (Arabic: بازيليكا القديس أوغسطينوس; French: Basilique de Saint-Augustin) is a Catholic basilica and pro-cathedral located in Annaba, Algeria. It is dedicated to Saint Augustine of Hippo. Construction of the basilica began in 1881 and finished on March 29, 1900, led by Abbe Pougnet. The church was dedicated April 24, 1914 and dedicated to Saint Augustine of Hippo.

It was built not far from the remains of the Basilica Pacis built by Saint Augustine, where he died while the city was besieged by Vandals. The statue of St. Augustine in the basilica contains one of his arm bones. It is under the circumscription of the Diocese of Constantine.

The Basilica was built with Stones imported from France. Its Carrara marble, breathtaking stained glass and massive arches depict Roman, Byzantine and Moorish architecture style influences.

Augustine of Hippo (Aurelius Augustinus Hipponensis; 13 November 354 – 28 August 430), also known as Saint Augustine, was a theologian and philosopher of Berber origin and the bishop of Hippo Regius in Numidia, Roman North Africa. His writings deeply influenced the development of Western philosophy and Western Christianity, and he is viewed as one of the most important Church Fathers of the Latin Church in the Patristic Period. His many important works include “The City of God”, “On Christian Doctrine”, and “Confessions”.

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TRAVEL TUESDAY 450 - KINSHASHA, CONGO

“A mistreated woman will drown her husband in tears” – Proverb of the Congo

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Kinshasa (Lingala: Kinsásá), formerly named Léopoldville until June 30, 1966, is the capital and largest city of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Once a site of fishing and trading villages along the Congo River, Kinshasa is now one of the world's fastest-growing megacities. Kinshasa's 2024 population was estimated at 17,032,322. It is the most densely populated city in the DRC and the most populous city in Africa, Africa's third-largest metropolitan area and the leading economic, political, and cultural centre of the DRC.

Kinshasa houses several industries, including manufacturing, telecommunications, banking, and entertainment. The city also hosts some of DRC's significant institutional buildings, such as the Palais du Peuple, Palais de la Nation, Court of Cassation, Constitutional Court, Cité de l'Union Africaine, Palais de Marbre, Stade des Martyrs, Immeuble du Gouvernement, Kinshasa Financial Centre, and multiple federal departments and agencies.

Covering 9,965 square kilometres, Kinshasa stretches along the southern shores of the Pool Malebo, forming an expansive crescent across flat, low-lying terrain at an average altitude of about 300 meters. Situated between latitudes 4° and 5° and longitudes East 15° and 16°32, Kinshasa shares its borders with the Mai-Ndombe Province, Kwilu Province, and Kwango Province to the east; the Congo River delineates its western and northern perimeters, constituting a natural border with the Republic of the Congo; to the south lies the Kongo Central Province. Across the river sits Brazzaville (seen in the distance upper right of photo), the smaller capital of the neighbouring Republic of the Congo, forming the world's second-closest pair of capital cities despite being separated by a four-kilometre-wide unbridged span of the Congo River.

Kinshasa is the largest nominally Francophone urban area globally, with French being the language of government, education, media, public services and high-end commerce, while Lingala is used as a lingua franca in the street.

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TRAVEL TUESDAY 446 - MADAGASCAR

"Nature doesn't need people - people need nature; nature would survive the extinction of the human being and go on just fine, but human culture, human beings, cannot survive without nature." -  Harrison Ford

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Adansonia grandidieri is the biggest and most famous of Madagascar's six species of baobabs, all in the Malvaceae family. It is sometimes known as Grandidier's baobab or the giant baobab. In French it is called Baobab malgache. The local name is renala or reniala (from Malagasy: Reny ala, meaning "mother of the forest"). This tree is endemic to the island of Madagascar, where it is an endangered species threatened by the encroachment of agricultural land.

Grandidier's baobabs have massive, cylindrical, thick trunks, up to three meters across, covered with smooth, reddish-grey bark. They can reach 25 to 30 m in height. The crown is flat-topped, with horizontal main branches. Leaves are palmately compound, typically with 9 to 11 leaflets. This is the only species of baobab with leaflets that are blueish-green and that are densely covered with star-shaped hairs.

It is a flowering tree, producing flowers that are made up of 5 (sometimes 3) calyx lobes that are bent back and twisted at the base of the flower. The lobes are fused at the base forming an open cup about 1 cm deep. Petals are white, aging to yellow, up to 20 mm long and about 5 times as long as broad. The fruits are large, dry and rounded to ovoid. They have a hard shell 2 – 4.5 mm thick and are covered with dense reddish-brown hairs. They contain large (12-20 mm long) kidney-shaped seeds within an edible pulp.

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TRAVEL TUESDAY 442 - VICTORIA, SEYCHELLES

"The Seychelles archipelago: a symphony of beauty and tranquility." - Seychelles Tourism

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Seychelles, officially the Republic of Seychelles, is an island nation and archipelagic state consisting of 115 islands (as per the Constitution) in the Indian Ocean. Its capital and largest city, Victoria, is 1,500 kilometres east of mainland Africa. Nearby island countries and territories include the Comoros, Madagascar, Mauritius, and the French overseas departments of Mayotte and Réunion to the south; and Maldives and the Chagos Archipelago (administered by the United Kingdom as the British Indian Ocean Territory) to the east. Seychelles is the smallest country in Africa as well as the least populated sovereign African country, with an estimated population of 100,600 in 2022.

Seychelles was uninhabited prior to being encountered by Europeans in the 16th century. It faced competing French and British interests until it came under full British control in the late 18th century. Since proclaiming independence from the United Kingdom in 1976, it has developed from a largely agricultural society to a market-based diversified economy, characterised by service, public sector, and tourism activities. From 1976 to 2015, nominal GDP grew nearly 700%, and purchasing power parity nearly 1600%.

Since the late 2010s, the government has taken steps to encourage foreign investment.  As of the early 21st century, Seychelles has the highest nominal per capita GDP of any African nation. It has the highest Human Development Index of any African country. According to 2023 V-Dem Democracy indices Seychelles is ranked 43rd electoral democracy worldwide and 1st ranked electoral democracy in Africa.

Seychellois culture and society is an eclectic mix of French, British, and African influences, with infusions of Chinese and Indian elements. The country is a member of the United Nations, the African Union, the Southern African Development Community, and the Commonwealth of Nations.

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TRAVEL TUESDAY 405 - THE SAHARA DESERT

“Where are the people?” the little prince at last took up the conversation again. “It is a little lonely in the desert… ” “It is also lonely among men,” the snake said. ― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

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The  Sahara is a desert on the African continent. With an area of 9,200,000 square kilometres, it is the largest hot desert in the world and the third-largest desert overall, smaller only than the deserts of Antarctica and the northern Arctic. The name "Sahara" is derived from the Arabic word for "desert" in the feminine irregular form. The desert covers much of North Africa, excluding the fertile region on the Mediterranean Sea coast, the Atlas Mountains of the Maghreb, and the Nile Valley in Egypt and the Sudan.

It stretches from the Red Sea in the east and the Mediterranean in the north to the Atlantic Ocean in the west, where the landscape gradually changes from desert to coastal plains. To the south it is bounded by the Sahel, a belt of semi-arid tropical savanna around the Niger River valley and the Sudan region of sub-Saharan Africa. The Sahara can be divided into several regions, including the western Sahara, the central Ahaggar Mountains, the Tibesti Mountains, the Aïr Mountains, the Ténéré desert, and the Libyan Desert.

For several hundred thousand years, the Sahara has alternated between desert and savanna grassland in a 20,000-year cycle caused by the precession of Earth's axis (about 26,000 years) as it rotates around the Sun, which changes the location of the North African monsoon.

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TRAVEL TUESDAY 360 - SUNSET IN THE SAHARA

“What makes the desert beautiful is that somewhere in it lies a hidden well.” - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Welcome to the Travel Tuesday meme! Join me every Tuesday and showcase your creativity in photography, painting and drawing, music, poetry, creative writing or a plain old natter about Travel. There is only one simple rule: Link your own creative work about some aspect of travel and share it with the rest of us. Please use this meme for your creative endeavours only. Do not use this meme to advertise your products or services as any links or comments by advertisers shall be removed immediately.

The Sahara is a desert on the African continent. With an area of 9,200,000 square kilometres, it is the largest hot desert in the world and the third-largest desert overall, smaller only than the deserts of Antarctica and the northern Arctic.  The name "Sahara" is derived from the Arabic word for "desert" in the feminine irregular form, the singular ṣaḥra' (صحراء /ˈsˤaħra/), plural ṣaḥārā (صَحَارَى /ˈsˤaħaːraː/), ṣaḥār (صَحَار), ṣaḥrāwāt (صَحْرَاوَات), ṣaḥāriy (صَحَارِي).

The desert comprises much of North Africa, excluding the fertile region on the Mediterranean Sea coast, the Atlas Mountains of the Maghreb, and the Nile Valley in Egypt and the Sudan. It stretches from the Red Sea in the east and the Mediterranean in the north to the Atlantic Ocean in the west, where the landscape gradually changes from desert to coastal plains. To the south it is bounded by the Sahel, a belt of semi-arid tropical savanna around the Niger River valley and the Sudan region of sub-Saharan Africa.

The Sahara can be divided into several regions, including the western Sahara, the central Ahaggar Mountains, the Tibesti Mountains, the Aïr Mountains, the Ténéré desert, and the Libyan Desert. For several hundred thousand years, the Sahara has alternated between desert and savanna grassland in a 20,000-year cycle caused by the precession of Earth's axis as it rotates around the Sun, which changes the location of the North African monsoon.

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POETRY JAM - YOUR FAVOURITES

“Poverty is the worst form of violence.” - Mahatma Gandhi

For this week, Poetry Jam enjoins its readers to write about “a toy or game you liked in your childhood”. Almost all readers of this blog will have a wealth of happy childhood memories where many hours were spent in carefree play. It is important to remember, however, that there are still children in the world who live and die in poverty.

Of the estimated 2.2 billion children worldwide, about a billion, or every second child, live in poverty. Of the 1.9 billion children in developing nations, 640 million are without adequate shelter; 400 million are without access to safe water; 270 million have no access to health services. In 2003, 10.6 million children died before reaching the age of five, which is equivalent to the total child population of France, Germany, Greece, and Italy. 1.4 million die each year from lack of access to safe drinking water and adequate sanitation while 2.2 million die each year due to lack of immunisations...

Our Favourite Toys

A hard life, where every day is a struggle,
Where putting bread on the table is hard labour,
Where drinking water is never taken for granted:
A life that cheats death every day.

A hard existence, where everyone works
To eke out a living, and children grow up early,
To till the barren soil, trying to raise a meagre crop:
A life that gives pleasures rarely.

A poor man’s lot, where bitter food is eaten greedily,
Where hunger never goes away completely, and disease kills,
Where most children never get a chance to grow up:
A life of want gratefully stopped short.

Our favourite toys:
A ball of rags kicked stealthily, in between chores;
Worn plastic containers, no good for reuse,
Make toy houses, cars and drums to beat:
In secret, while we steal a few moments to play.

Sticks, pebbles, twigs – and if you’re lucky –
An old bicycle wheel, to make of them whatever
Your boundless imagination desires,
Rubbish transformed into wondrous things;
And most precious of all:
Your little sister a living doll to care for…

If you are able to, please donate some money to ease poverty in some part of the world so children are able to live, and perhaps play:

UNICEF is the United Nations Children’s Fund. UNICEF’s vision is of a world where the basic rights of every child will be met.

CARE Australia is an Australian charity and international humanitarian aid organisation fighting global poverty, with a special focus on empowering women and girls to bring lasting change to their communities.

World Vision is a worldwide community development organisation that provides short-term and long-term assistance to 100 million people worldwide (including 2.4 million children).

MERCY SHIPS

“Here are the values that I stand for: Honesty, equality, kindness, compassion, treating people the way you want to be treated and helping those in need. To me, those are traditional values.” - Ellen DeGeneres

I recently became aware of a fantastic initiative that promotes health and well-being in some of the most needy and disadvantaged populations in the world. It is the Mercy Ships, which is an international charity that was founded in 1978 by Don and Deyon Stephens. Mercy Ships currently operates the largest non-governmental hospital ship in the world, providing free health care, community development projects, community health education, mental health programs, agriculture projects, and palliative care for terminally ill patients. Mercy Ships has operated in more than 70 developing nations around the world, with a current focus on the countries of West Africa.

The organisation has its International Operations Center (IOC) in Garden Valley, Texas. Mercy Ships also has 16 national resource offices in countries that include Spain, Britain, Canada, Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands, South Africa, and Australia. A major inspiration for Mercy Ships founder and President Don Stephens was the work of the international hospital ship SS Hope. Stephens’ research showed that 95 of the 100 largest cities in the world were port cities. Therefore, a hospital ship could deliver healthcare very efficiently to large numbers of people. The birth of Stephens’ profoundly disabled son, John Paul, also inspired him to move forward with his vision of a floating hospital. A visit with Mother Teresa in Calcutta, India, further deepened his commitment to serving the world’s neediest people.

Mercy Ships currently has one vessel in service: the 16,500-ton flagship Africa Mercy, which measures almost 500 feet long. The Africa Mercy has greater capacity than all three previous Mercy Ships combined. The Africa Mercy is currently serving in the port of Pointe Noire, Congo, where its field service will last from August 2013 to May 2014. The ship was previously docked in Conakry, Guinea from August 2012 till May 2013. Before that it was docked in Lomé, Togo, for the first months of its 2012 Field Service. The Africa Mercy docked in Freetown, Sierra Leone for its 2011 field service, which lasted for 10 months. At the conclusion of each field service, the Africa Mercy goes into dry dock, where it is resupplied and receives any needed repairs or upgrades before heading to its next port of call.

Early in 2010, the ship was docked in Lomé, Togo for the 2010 field service. In August 2010, the Africa Mercy went into shipyard in South Africa, where it was equipped with new, more efficient generators. In 2009, the ship was docked in Cotonou, Benin from February to December, providing free surgeries and medical care. Mercy Ships also worked with Beninese citizens on agriculture and water development projects on the ground in Benin. In 2007, the ship made its official maiden voyage to Monrovia, Liberia, from the shipyard in England.

In 2008, the Africa Mercy continued its service to Liberia, offering free surgeries, assistance in healthcare infrastructure development, and community-based preventive health care programs that benefited thousands of individuals and many communities. More than 1,200 surgical procedures and 10,000 dental procedures were completed, along with community health projects such as HIV/AIDS prevention and construction of wells and latrines. Before the Africa Mercy arrives in port, flyers are distributed to alert the public to the ship’s upcoming visit. An advance team begins a massive screening of thousands of prospective patients, to see which men, women and children qualify for a surgery. It is common for people to walk for days (and even from neighbouring countries) to find out whether they may be eligible for surgical treatment.

The video below shows the ship and describes some of the work carried out by the dedicated staff that sail within.

Please share this and if you can, donate and help to continue the good work that is carried out by these worthy people.

MUSIC SATURDAY - THE BLACK MOZART

“Music is nothing else but wild sounds civilised into time and tune.” - Thomas Fuller

For Music Saturday, some of the violin concertos of a remarkable musician whom I heard of first only recently, Joseph Boulogne (1745-1799). Joseph Boulogne “Chevalier de Saint-Georges” was born on Christmas Day, 1745. He was an African-French classical music conductor, composer, musician, and military officer. Boulogne was born on the West Indies island of Guadeloupe, where his mother Nanon was a slave. Boulogne’s father was a Frenchman, George de Boulogne Saint-Georges. He owned the plantation on which Joseph spent his early childhood.

The word “Chevalier” means Knight in French. It was a title of nobility in the Kingdom of France. Joseph could not inherit his father’s status as a member of the nobility because his mother was an African slave. Even so, he was called “Chevalier de Saint-Georges” from a young age. At age 10, Saint-Georges moved to France with his parents. There he continued his studies in classical music. He was tutored in violin by Jean-Marie Leclair, and studied composition with François-Joseph Gossec.

Saint-Georges also spent six years at the boarding school of Texier de La Boessiere, a master of arms. Athletics and fencing brought him a reputation at an early age. He swam across the River Seine in winter with one arm tied behind his back. Saint-Georges’ military career began in 1761 as an officer in the King’s Guard. In his music career, the conductor of the prestigious Le Concert des Amateurs orchestra chose Saint-Georges as First Violin in 1769.

Saint-Georges made his public debut as a violin soloist during the 1772-73 concert season, performing his own violin concertos. Many say that Saint-Georges demonstrated the influence of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. He has even been called “Le Mozart Noir” or The Black Mozart. History shows that Mozart came to Paris in 1778 to study the “Paris School” of composition while Saint-Georges was active there.

In 1775, Queen Marie-Antoinette appointed Saint-Georges as her music director, and King Louis XVI named him director of the Paris Opera. Saint-Georges was also the first person of African descent to join a Masonic Lodge in France. He was initiated in Paris to “Les 9 Soeurs”, a Lodge belonging to the Grand Orient of France. As a conductor, he later traveled to Vienna and commissioned Franz Joseph Haydn to compose the Paris Symphonies, Nos. 82-87, which premiered in 1787. No. 85, called "The Queen", was a favourite of Marie-Antoinette.

Saint-Georges joined the pro-Revolution National Guard in 1789. That same year the Declaration of the Rights of Man was issued by the National Assembly. On Sept. 7, 1792, a delegation of men of colour asked the National Assembly to allow them to fight in defence of the Revolution and its egalitarian ideals. On the next day the Assembly, authorised the Légion des Hussards Américains [Legion of American Soldiers], which had 1,000 volunteers of colour, with Saint-Georges as their colonel. One of its squadron leaders was Alexandre Dumas Davy de La Pailleterie (1762-1806). Like his colonel, he was the son of a French aristocrat and an African slave. He later had a son, Alexander Dumas, who wrote “The Three Musketeers.”

On September 25, 1793, Saint-Georges lost his command due to false charges of misusing public funds. He spent 18 months in the house of detention at Houdainville before being acquitted. After his release Saint-Georges took part in the Haitian Revolution. Saint-Georges produced 14 violin concertos and 9 symphonies between 1773 and 1785. He wrote 2 solo violin sonatas, 2 symphonies, 3 sonatas for violin and harpsichord, and 18 string quartets divided into 3 collections of 6 quartets in each. Saint-Georges also composed several operas for the Comedie-Italienne, beginning in 1777. Saint-Georges lived alone in a small apartment in Paris during the final two years of his life. He died of gangrene in a leg wound on June 12, 1799.

Here is Jean-Jacques Kantorow and the Orchestre de Chambre Bernard Thomas playing four of Joseph Boulogne’s violin concertos.

MOVIE MONDAY - MOGAMBO

“Film is like a personal diary, a notebook or a monologue by someone who tries to justify himself before a camera.” - Jean-Luc Godard

Movie Monday today is devoted to an old Hollywood film, John Ford’s 1953 “Mogambo” with Clark Gable, Ava Gardner and Grace Kelly.  We watched this on DVD yesterday and despite its age and slightly passé atmosphere, we rather enjoyed it. We made a matinée of it, in fact, with soft fizzy drinks, home-made popcorn and the heater going full blast as it was cold and wet outside.

Rather than concentrating on the story, which was a simple love triangle, I found myself looking more at the cinematography (beautiful!), direction (impeccable) and the chemistry between the Hollywood veterans. The locations in Africa were also breathtakingly beautiful and the film was rather interesting in that the stance taken is one of green environmentalism, with Gable not wishing to hurt animals if he can…

This film is a remake of the 1932 movie “Red Dust”, also with Clark Gable in the lead. Amazingly, the 20 years that passed the two movies did nothing to diminish Gable’s shine and although the more recent film has the advantages of technicolour, gorgeous locations and great on-location safari shots, the older black-and-white film is steamier and more reliant on the plot and chemistry between the stars for its appeal.

Jean Harlow was Gable’s co-star in the older film, a part taken by Gardner in the more recent one. Mary Astor has the role taken in the later film by Grace Kelly. Harlow and Gable have wonderful chemistry together, and the same may be said of Gardner and Gable, however, the on screen interaction between Grace Kelly and Gable falls flat. This is curious as the two enjoyed a steamy real life love affair for several months around the time this film was made.

I think that it’s worthwhile seeing both films and comparing them. I really like the old Hollywood films and some of the 1930s and 1940s are amazingly good, some are classics that will never age and a few are real masterpieces.  Both “Red Dust” and “Mogambo” are good films, and a good to watch if you wish for some classic Hollywood escapism with great performances by some of Hollywood’s “Sacred Cows”. They don't make stars like that in Tinsel Town any more…