Africa
By Anthony Akaeze
IN his decades long career as a journalist and adventurer, Jan Fleischmann, a Swedish national, exemplifies two things: passion and courage. Both qualities have seen him explore terrains that many others will prefer to avoid, for fear of the unknown. In an interview with Anthony Akaeze, a Nigerian freelance journalist, Fleischmann said his adventurous side manifested early in his life in Gothenburg, Sweden’s second largest city after Stockholm. He recalls, in the conversation, many places he has been to, including in Africa; some of his amazing discoveries and why he would return to visit some of the places again and again.
Excerpts:
You have travelled round the world as a photojournalist. Was it a deliberate career choice or accidental?
I wanted to go to Kenya when I was very young. At that time, I watched the nature TV, and I read wildlife books. My uncle had a book publishing agency and he sold rights to foreign authors to publish in Sweden. He died not long ago but before then his company published books of some famous people and I read them. He gave me books about wild animals during Christmas, and I also bought some.
So, I found out about adventures. In the late 70s, I began to hear about travel agencies related to wildlife Safari in East Africa. I wanted to go to Kenya when I was 12. I had read about many animals including the Leopard and I wanted to go to Kenya, East Africa, to see it. But my parents thought I was too young to travel to Kenya for that and I was very upset. I said I would boycott school, but I later calmed down. I eventually travelled to Kenya when I was 15. And since then, I’ve seen the difference each time I returned there. For instance, whereas Nairobi was a large city, it’s now chaotic with traffic gridlock.
I’ve been to Kenya many times but even more times to India, to track the unique wildlife such as the large cats, the one horned rhino and many others, and to Brazil, to see the wetlands Pantanal and the jaguar. I’ve also visited the US many times. My first time there was in New York, for a city adventure. That was in 1986. I later signed a contract to rent my pictures from the trip in a slide show to a newly opened night club. So, since I was very young I have gone out on exciting adventures, mostly to track threatened wild animals and also to cover international sport and sometimes also bring my cameras to concerts. I have been able to publish in magazines and daily newspapers, mostly in Scandinavia but a few times also in magazines such as BBC Wildlife Magazine, German GEO magazine, Zambia Traveller, the India nature photo magazine Saevus and also appeared in local radio and TV channels. Many people here in Mariestad, western Sweden, where I’ve lived since 1989, love to read my adventure stories. And I covered a lot. The editor of a very nice Swedish magazine about cats, called Kattliv, has published many of my wild cat stories and pictures. I mostly team up with Jonatan Borling. He is a Swedish environmental journalist and an expert in predator. The magazine also wants us to continue with more reports about wild cats next year. Part of the collaboration includes publishing a photo book about a snow leopard on the International Snow Leopard Day 2014, and a photographic Childrens books about wild animals. Apart from Borling, there’s another book collaboration with Annelie Strömberg, an author.
My father was interested in my work, and he always wanted to be sure I did the right thing. He said before I signed anything with any company, I must have the organization’s number. When the owner heard that, he replied: my organization´s number, are you from KGB?
Your father was interested in the contracts you signed with publishing houses?
Yes. One time when I gave a lecture where I grew up, he was with some of his friends, and he said (jokingly) that he thought I would be eaten up by a tiger. When I was to go to north western Pakistan in the Hindu Kush mountain, he read about terror attacks (there) and reached out to say, ‘you’re not going to Pakistan.’ I told him I had been assured by a local guide I would be safe, and he said, ‘no, you’re not going to Pakistan.’ I did. Unfortunately, my parents had passed away before I saw (and took photos) of one of the animals I was tracking in the wild, the elusive snow leopard that I found on my forth mini expedition in Central Asia. I was not lucky finding the snow leopard in Pakistan. My parents were aware of my interest in it. It was a lonely male who called out his desperate search for a female in the Spango Valley in the India mountain kingdom Ladakh. When I returned there the following winter I saw many snow leopards and some were in distance for my zoom lens. In late 2012 when I returned to Pakistan and tried the mountain area in the northern (part of the) country I could not enter a large national park due not getting all licenses that were needed. Instead I walked with two local men in the mountain and was rewarded with fantastic sceneries of 8000 high mountains. In the city Rawalpindi, I met three players from the best female football team, Young Rising Stars. I also traveled in Abbottabad, the year after the Al –Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden was shot there by a US special force.
How long has your career lasted?
I did not start professionally, so I would say 1985, even though I had my first camera in 1977.
When was the last time you went on an adventure?
In August this year, in Malaysia. And I’m going to India and Nepal in December. It’s economically tough now to travel but I still have the strong desire for adventure. I hopefully also will be in Andalucia in Spain. I tried to go there in November 2021 but I thought it was too expensive but I want to do it. There’s a beautiful lynx, low cat there to track. Some call it Panther lynx but it’s a special species of the lynx family, low cat. It’s a beautiful cat. I’ve already booked accommodation in a hotel and discussed with a guide and if I can get one or two persons to come along and share the cost it will be cheaper. But it’s really about having the right person with the chemistry to join you. I’m often quite adaptable.
How long do your trips last and what are the arrangements you put in place to achieve your objective each time?
Each trip is different each time. When I was younger and did my first Nepal and India trips, I think I stayed almost two months (in those places). I had just finished the post secondary high school, one year studying Communication and Media. I had also established freelancing work with a new newspaper in Gothenburg, called Morgon -Posten. But the editors (told) me I could travel and when I returned home, I would get more work. In January 2010 I spent one month in Pakistan, and one month when I covered the Women’s World Cup in Germany.
In recent travels, I have spent less time due to, among others, economic factor. Sometimes you can achieve your target in a few days. Now I feel If I can be one week in one place it’s a long time. It’s different each time and depends on the location. If I want to go to Kenya for migration of wildebeests…(it might be different from that of another location).
Have you been to Nigeria?
No. I once planned to go to Cameroon, but I realized, when I planned the expedition with a local agent, that it would be rainy season, so I switched to Gabon. Gabon was one of my most complicated places to travel.
Why was that?
In a city like Libreville, there are casinos and restaurants but lots of mosquitos too. There are very limited trains and buses to reach the national parks. Maybe my photos can explain better. I was also in Zaire in 1994 when Mobuto(Sese Sekou) was ruling. It was the most corrupt country I had been to. I traveled there to meet Swedish missionaries. They were assigned to assist the refugees from Rwanda after the civil war. I visited Zaire from Burundi and while there in a mission station in Bukavu, sometimes, refugees were hiding in the churches. There, I joined a missionaries’ flight to Goma where there was a huge (refugee) camp. One day, one of the soldiers there, after seeing my camera, suddenly became angry, threw his bucket of water and shouted at me. Perhaps he had something to hide or wasn’t comfortable with my presence. I had visited Rwanda four years before then. I later returned to Zaire in November 2020 after it had been renamed the Democratic Republic of Congo. I was going to meet the third species of Gorilla, the eastern lowland gorilla.
You also cover sports. How did the interest come about?
For many years I made freelance work for a friend, Urban Emilsson. He ran a very nice and successful woman football magazine and he sent me to cover the Women´s World Cups, Champions League and together we always travelled to my home city Gothenburg to follow one of the largest world youth football tournament, Gothia Cup. The artist and actress Jennifer Lopez sent me her signed idol photo after she received my first book in which I published my picture of her at the (FIFA) Women’s World Cup final on 10th July 1999. Emilsson and I travelled to USA and met Swedish and US professional players. He sadly passed away at Christmas 2016. One of his brothers asked me to continue the work (and I choose to do so.)
Africa is blessed with amazing wildlife and natural sights. Which, among them, do you consider the most attractive?
When I talk to friends or do lectures, I say Zambia because they have walking safaris, boat safaris…it was quite mythical.
How do you get funding for your travels?
I use my money but a few times I got scholarship to travel to Brazil where I visited a very nice publishing house. I also got a similar assistance to Indonesia. The scholarships often cover flight ticket.
Talking of faantastic adventure, theKomodo Dragon, the largest lizard in the world, stands out. Me and one of my brothers Björn Fleischmann, and a friend in Mariestad, Anders Sundberg, traveled to Komodo in Indonesia in September
1991 to see the giant reptile and we were almost pioneers in the Dragon tourism. I still maintain contact with my friend here in Mariestad, and I received an email from him today (November 4). Most tourists came to see the dragons feed. The Rangers killed a goat and threw it to some dragons in a ravine. We wanted to meet the dragons ourselves when they came walking in the forest paths and on the beaches, and so we stayed there, in a bungalow, four nights. It was a fantastic adventure. We met a film crew from Jakarta. We shared the same cottage. We exchanged T-shirts and I still have the T-shirt. I published the stories in my first book and my brother published his own story with my pictures in a Swedish cinema magazine.
Last August 2022, I returned to Komodo to meet with the dragons again. This time I stayed two nights in the village and had a fantastic meeting with a huge dragon the locals called Rock. For a short moment I was able to capture with the camera when the dinosaur-looked like reptile attacked a female, trying to mate.
When I was waiting for the captain from the boat to take me back to the small city Labuan Bajo in Flores, I showed my book of my first journey to the village to some people and one man recognized himself in the photo. He was young, about 15 at the time of my first trip there, when the photo was taken. Another man saw his photo
How professionally rewarding would you rate your work?
(In recent times), it’s been very tough even for local newspapers to have advertisements, so (it’s hard to pay for) stories and photos, unless it is almost for free, which is frustrating.
I have recently been freelancing (working) for a newspaper called Ruotsin Suomalainen, which I deliver each Friday to some clients. It’s about Swedish-Finnish culture relations. I have been making personal portraits and also covered Swedish-Finnish visually impaired association’s 30th anniversary celebration among other subjects.
Of all the places you’ve been to, which of them did you find something that surprised or shocked you the most?
It might be when I was in a Brazilian township. I saw people living in garbage areas. Brazil is a country where I had the best, memorable experience, even dating nice women. In Goma, Zaire, in 1994 I saw orphaned Rwandan children who were macheted in the head. Actually, I hate the sight of blood that’s why I won’t be a good surgery photographer.
Was there any journey you regretted embarking on?
Yeah, I think my third time in Far East Russia was too expensive. I was disappointed about the cost but even more about (not really) achieving the target. The arrangement was fine, excellent food but… if I go to Kenya, I’m almost sure I will see lots of animal but of course they have open savannahs…. Well, I often say, if I want to achieve the most economic way of travel, I should stay home. Often it is expensive when you do special guided tours. Even if I try to stay cheap, and I can stay very cheap, but sometimes it’s almost impossible and sometimes I may be unlucky with finding special animals.
As someone who visits the wild, don’t you fear for your life? Are you not scared that you could be attacked?
I do have respect for animals. I know for instance that elephants could kill people. One time in Kenya, after being robbed in Nairobi on a city bus, I was bitten by a rodent, called hyrax on a safari in Nairobi National Park. This fellow has a nasty bite. It is actually the closest relative to the elephant. The bite was painful but I used my scarf to tie the wound and began to take photos. The pain subsisted on my flight home. Not until I got from the flight crew an aspirin or something like that could I sleep and relax. When I arrived in Landvetter Gothenburg airport, my father took me to a clinic in Gothenburg and the doctor shouted. He was not happy I had not checked about tetanus.
If you were to revisit any country you’ve traveled to, where will it be?
That will be the wetland in Brazil to see the Pantanal and the jaguar. I’ve been many times there. Sometimes when I go, I meet local guides on boats and they are like, oh, you are back again. I’ve been to Yellowstone National Park in US a few times and also had many great wildlife adventures in Sweden.
We live in very troubled times. First was Ukraine-Russia war and now it’s Israel-Hamas. What’s your take on them?
It’s extremely sad development. Maybe I’m a bit romantic but when I do some of my lectures, I often say that many of these countries faced with conflict or crisis have fantastic eco-tourism (and so the war mongers should channel their energy towards peace and that way be able to attract people to those countries). Israel has interesting desert antelopes, Russia has tiger, leopard, bear, and many others. DRC, name them, are blessed with wildlife (and natural sights). There are many places around the world people would want to visit but what you hear is rebels killing rangers (or people in the areas.) People should explore peace. Even in my country, Sweden, it’s politics of division. You hear of killing and shooting, (more often), often related to gang conflicts. It’s very sad.
Anthony Akaeze is an award-winning journalist and author of four books and co-author of the recent book published by Taylor and Francis in the UK titled Media Ownership in Africa in the Digital Age: Challenges, Continuity and Change.
A.I
Tags: Jan Fleischmann
