A Liverpool man is on a lifelong quest to discover more about his heritage by visiting dozens of countries around the world.
James Diboe has been to more than 39 countries and is only 40 years old, having been to 30 of them in 13 years from 2006 to 2019.
He has faced dangerous roads, crossed the longest rope bridges and trekked and travelled for hours to meet locals in some of the most remote and secluded parts of their countries.
It was only the Covid pandemic that stopped him from going to Rwanda and India in 2020.
James told the ECHO he travels the globe in search of the presence of people from Africa, who live in far-flung places.
Many of the places he visits are far away from tourist hotspots and destinations, although James first travelled in 1987 on a typical family holiday to Spain aged about seven.
He said: "As a child, I was very curious, I had maps, globes and later as an adult I was interested in all the different peoples out there and with seeing historical sites."
In 2006 he found himself in Cuba and said: "I knew they had African ancestry, but I wanted to know more about them as a people and how they developed since slavery, because it was not one of the places I heard that much about."
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James developed an interest in black history and his heritage mainly from his father, and also after seeing the Malcolm X film in about 1994, and he said of the civil rights leader "he was like a role model, he was not the perfect man but gave people hope and to be able to feel empowered."
After seeing pictures of Fiji and its landscape he said he wanted to visit there and said: "I wanted to find out more. I was very curious about the people and where they come from".
While in Fiji James said: "After speaking to locals and asking lots of questions about their African origins, I was lucky to meet a tribal spokesman and then some of the chiefs who spoke to me about their origins and when they entered Fiji about 1500 BC, telling about their oral history when they sailed from Africa."
The late Runoko Rashidi was also an inspiration for James and his travels, as Runoko spent many years doing guided tours in Egypt, as well as touring the world photographing artefacts that are displayed in the museums about black people and their presence in the African diaspora.
During all this travelling James has visited some interesting sites; ancient and modern. The most interesting place he had been, he said, was the Bayon Temples in Cambodia.
He said: "I was fascinated by them as I saw African features in the carved faces of these temples."
Travelling to remote and secluded places does not come without its dangers. James recalled how he went via a road called the Snake Bend, while on a seven hour journey to visit the Veda tribe in the Dambana region of Sri Lanka.
He said: "I was on a coach during torrential rain along a mountainside with a very long drop down.
"This was a very dangerous road and I was terrified. That is just one of many horrible journeys in my travels".
Four of his adventures he has completed on his own, travelling to Thailand, Cambodia, Abu Dhabi and Sri Lanka. Usually he travels with his girlfriend or a friend or two.
James said he had "been to see the Mani Tribe in Southern Thailand, the Aeta Tribe in Northern Luzon in the Philippines and the Orang Asli Tribe in Malaysia".
He said all these tribes are the first people who inhabited these Southeast Asian countries and went there from Africa many thousands of years ago.
Here is a full list of the countries that James has travelled: From 1987 to 2005: Spain, Portugal, Holland, France, Cyprus, Ireland, Barbados, Jamaica and Germany.
From 2006 to 2019 he travelled to: Cuba, Thailand, Venezuela, Brazil, Morocco, USA (Los Angeles) Hawaii, Mexico, Dominican Republic, Hong Kong, Fiji, Malaysia, Indonesia, Gambia, Singapore, Australia, Tonga, Philippines, Micronesia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Sri Lanka, Abu Dhabi, Turkey, Kenya, Zanzibar, Trinidad, Crete and finally in September 2019 Madagascar and Mauritius.
James also speaks with many people about their life, from writers, actors, historians and more and you can follow him via Big Condo Online in a series called ‘Discovering with James Diboe’, which you can view on YouTube.
