Decades later, you can find the artwork and cartoons of Michael Reed at Art Hops or perhaps coming up in a future issue of the New Yorker magazine. Decades ago, you would find Reed, a cultural anthropologist, walking the streets of the tiny African village of Ndjolé. He talks about how his childhood living around the country and around the world inspired his interest in life abroad. His memoir is called Ndjolé Memoir: Africa 38 Years Ago.
“I grew up an Army brat, as the saying goes,” says Reed. “And a lot of traveling. I saw the world, but when I had children years later, my then-wife and I decided we did not want to bring our two daughters up as military brats.”
Reed settled in Kalamazoo, but his early life travels stayed on his mind. During his college years, pursuing a PhD as a cultural anthropologist in Seattle, Washington, Reed lived for 15 months in Ndjolé during 1984 doing fieldwork for his thesis. He was 32 years old. It was the most intense and memorable time of his life, he says.
“I used French for all of my research,” he says. “The African people were always very forgiving and understanding about my French … Africans in Gabon, French is not their original language either. A typical day for me was to go out early in the morning, and I would walk into town, which was probably a mile away … I felt it was better to be on foot so that I could encounter and interact with Africans at their own level. I wanted to be a man of the people.”
Reed used his diary, a journal, maps, drawings, interview notes, correspondence, and photos to reconstruct his experiences. He self-published the memoir in 2022. More of his photos from his time in Ndjolé may be viewed here.
Today, Reed occupies his time pursuing his artistic interests—colorful, abstract as well as realistic drawings and cartoons based on what he refers to as observational humor and occasionally participating in local Art Hops.
Listen to WMUK's Story Beat every Friday at 7:50 a.m. and 4:20 p.m.
