Our Country

Hyenas, love and reality through 8,000 miles of Africa
by Bradley Charbonneau
~ 75,000 words

Bradley and Saskia hold hands and drink wine, cook and pay taxes, and go away on weekends. Then they quit their jobs and head off to Africa for six months. 8,000+ miles in buses, trucks, and trains, 24-hours-a-day, 7-days-a-week all alone together. Paradise or ... not?

Bradley is worried about a number of things: hyenas outside the tent, con artists at the bus stations, laughing Zulu warriors raping his girlfriend and chopping him into bite-size pieces. Certainly legitimate concerns, but avoidable. What worries Bradley most is much more real. What worries Bradley most sleeps in the neighboring sleeping bag in the same tent, sits right next to him on the buses and trains, in fact, is with him every step of the way.

“I looked out the tent at the hyena: fierce, hungry, and determined—but probably dumb enough to outwit. I looked down at Saskia in her sleeping bag: intelligent, unpredictable, and female—a breeding ground for wit."

She seems innocent enough: tall, blonde, smiling, playful. But compared to what she wants, the hyena is Lassie. What she wants makes men run down the street with their arms flailing, it brings them to their knees begging for mercy: she wants to talk. She wants Bradley to open up to her, to let her into his feelings, to spill his secrets, and talk about their relationship.

Africa was desperate, violent, and dangerous. I was only desperate.

He has six months to make it work.

Our Country is their true story.

"Powerful and personal without being sentimental."

-- Elise Miller
Art critic & writer