#17: The Search for Africa's Fighting Spirit – with Tim Butcher

For many years Sierra Leone and Liberia have been too dangerous
to travel through. They were places of terrible violence –
associated with child soldiers, prisoner mutilation and blood
diamonds.


With their wars officially over, Tim Butcher set out on a journey
across both countries. In this episode, he remembers this
journey. It is his second appearance on Unfolding Maps. In
episode 13, he talked about his book “Blood River” and his
explorations through Congo, following the historic tracks of
Henry Morton Stanley. This time, in Sierra Leone and Liberia, Tim
followed the trail blazed by Graham Greene in 1935 and
immortalized in the travel classic Journey Without Maps.
Greene took 26 porters, a case of scotch, and hammocks in which
he and his cousin Barbara were carried. Tim walked every
blistering inch to gain an extraordinary ground-level view of a
troubled and overlooked region, and he wrote a great book about
it: “Chasing the Devil: The Search for Africa's Fighting Spirit”.


In this conversation, he talks about what kind of devil he chased
and whether he has found the Fighting Spirit of Africa in these
two war torn countries.


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