By Richard Saasi, Founder of Go Amazing Africa
The First Lesson: Patience is Not Waiting – It’s Seeing
I still remember my first safari group as a 22-year-old guide in Queen Elizabeth National Park. A German couple complained endlessly about the “lack of action” until I stopped the Land Cruiser near a lone fig tree. “Look closer,” I said. It took 17 minutes. Then—movement. A leopard, golden as the evening sun, uncurled from a branch none of them had bothered to study. The Germans apologized. That moment taught me what Silicon Valley still struggles to learn: True opportunity comes to those who observe deeply, not those who rush loudly.
Part 1: The Bush Telegraph – East Africa’s Leadership Academy
- Reading the Unspoken (Like a Maasai Reads the Wind) In the Serengeti, you don’t wait for lions to roar. You watch:
The way impalas stiffen their necks. Birds that suddenly abandon a tree. Zebras staring intently at nothing. American Translation: When my tech startup co-founder avoids eye contact during budget talks, I know trouble is coming—long before he speaks.
- The Rule of the Buffalo Herd Buffalo move as a unit, but their secret? The elders lead from behind, letting young bulls charge ahead while they steer the group’s direction from the rear.
My Boardroom Epiphany: At my first investor meeting in San Francisco, I watched a 28-year-old CEO talk over his gray-haired CTO. I thought: “This herd is heading for a ravine.” (They folded in 14 months.)
Part 2: Culture Shock in Reverse – What America Taught Me About Home
- The Curse of the “Quick Fix” In Uganda, if a safari vehicle breaks down, you:
Diagnose properly Improvise a solution (wire + duct tape = bush mechanic’s PhD) Respect the process In America? People reboot iPhones like voodoo priests shaking bones at the sky.
Lesson: Modern life has made us fear slowness. But as we say in the bush: “The lion that panics starves.” The Gift of Scarcity I grew up sharing one textbook with five classmates. Now I watch Palo Alto teens cry when Starbucks gets their oat milk order wrong. What I Tell My Kids: “Appreciate abundance, but master contentment. The happiest people I know are the Hadza hunters of Tanzania, who own nothing but sleep under a sky no billionaire can buy.”
Part 3: The Safari Guide’s Guide to American Life
- How to Spot “Predators” in the Corporate Jungle
Hyenas: Colleagues who laugh too loud at the boss’s jokes (they’ll turn on you)
Honey Badgers: Underestimated workers who actually run everything Elephants: The quiet VPs who could crush you but choose not to.
- The Campfire Test In the bush, you learn someone’s true character by:
How they treat the camp cook If they share their binoculars. Whether they complain about the tent’s thread count. My Hiring Policy Now: I take job candidates camping. You’d be shocked how many MBAs can’t light a fire but will lecture you on “burn rates.”
The Last Lesson: Home is a Direction, Not a Place Some nights, when the fog rolls over San Francisco, I close my eyes and hear: The whoop of a hyena in the Masai Mara. My mother’s voice saying “Webale kyo kwegatta” (“Thank you for coming home”). The sound of 1,000 wildebeest crossing the Mara River—a thunder that still beats in my chest. America gave me opportunity. But Africa gave me eyes to see it. To Those Longing for Home: You don’t leave the savannah. It leaves its marks on you—like the scars on a ranger’s hands, or the way my daughter still tilts her head at the moon, as if waiting for a lion’s roar to answer.
Want to Experience East Africa Through the Eyes of a Guide Who’s Lived Both Worlds?
Join me for a journey where the land speaks—if you’re willing to listen.
