Anir Experience 2023

Well this is my first attempt at a blog so I welcome all constructive criticisms and suggestions as you follow me on my return to Southern and Eastern Africa.

I will be posting on FB and Instagram under both Anir Experience and Serengeti Goddess, so if you want the full story you’ll have to follow “Adrienne to Africa” on one of those sites. I hope to start next week but I’ll give you a taste here…

I’ve just started my 30+ trip to the continent of Africa. My very first trip was with my father Harry Belafonte and Stepmother Julie Robinson Belafonte, to Kenya for Kenya’s independence in 1964, I was 14-years old. My second trip was also with my Father, Julie, my dad’s sister Shirley and my younger siblings Shari, David, and Gina, to Guinea, West Africa, where my father had been invited by the first president of that newly independent country, to be the first Artistic Director of their national dance company - De Joliba les Ballet Africains. One internet site, with misinformation, gives me credit for designing the dance company... As the older child I had the privilege of visiting every village with my father, Julie and Aunt Shirley (the other younger siblings had to stay in the host village). I got to view all the villages audition, unbelievable tribal dancing, but I had nothing to do with the dance company’s development - wish I could claim that honor but I was only 17-years old.

My third trip was gifted to me by my sister Shari. Shari had been invited by South African Broadcasting Company (SABC) to the relaunch of their (end of the apartheid era) TV programming - SABC 1, 2, 3. They offered her 2 first class flight tickets, she asked if they would trade for 4 business class. They did and she took her Best Friend Ellen, her publicist Sue Patracola and her older sister ME!

Our family having been at the front of the USA Civil Rights Movement, also supported the anti-Aparthied South African movement of Nelson Mandela (Madeba) by imploring and keeping pressure on the Ronald Reagan administration to place sanctions on the South African apartheid government.

At the SABC-TV relaunch (a very glamorous event) Shari had the honor of being Madeba’s date! The rest of us did have the honor of shaking his hand at the reception. After the event (with the other African American celebrities the South African viewing audience were familiar with - Robert Guillaume, Johnnie Cochran and his wife Sylvia Dale, Malcom-Jamal Warner and his mother Pam, Blair Underwood and his wife Desiree DaVosta) we were gifted a tour of Johannesburg/Soweto, Cape Town (more to come about Cape Town in the next installment) and decadent and questionable Sun City (Las Vagas on steroids but privately owned by Sol Kerzner as part of his Sun International Hotels & Property Group).

After the wonderful gift from Shari, I wanted to learn more about this new country with such promise as the “Rainbow Nation”. Because of apartheid, I never thought I would get to visit; my first visit was Red Carpet but all future visits would be on my own not as a Belafonte but as a Biesemeyer.

My next segment will be about my very first solo trip 1997 adventures and more about this present trip. So please follow Anir Experience and/or Serengeti Goddess.