[ Image ]

It is not uncommon for people I meet in the U.S. to refer to Africa as a country or to tell me that they would like to go on a 10 day safari and during that time go to Victoria Falls, Cape Town, see the Great Migration and the Gorillas in Rwanda. I usually pull out my trusty map of the continent of Africa and show them how vast the continent is (3 United States can fit in it) and how far apart everything is.

Olduvai Map

Olduvai Map

I usually blame this on the fact that we as Americans are geographically challenged sometimes. Well it seems we are not the only ones.

It appears that Rosemary Odinga, the daughter of a Kenyan Politician, Raila Odinga, gave a speech as a participant at the 2015 program for International Young Leaders Assembly where she claimed the Olduvai (or correctly Oldupai) Gorge is in Kenya. Anyone who has been to Tanzania or looked at a map clearly knows that it is in Tanzania.

The Tanzanians are rightly very proud of Olduvai, a world heritage site, because it is where Mary & Louis Leaky carried out research to demonstrate that humans evolved in Africa. I sometimes send clients to see the small museum that is there.

Needless to say this has caused quite an uproar with petitions and demands for retraction. If true, perhaps Ms. Odinga needs to look at a map.