Day One Hundred - Africa

Once Africa gets into you, you get into Africa. There is no other place in the world like it. I would say that the majority of ‘Westerners’ who live here, no matter where they are coming from, what their heritage is either love it or hate it. I do not think it is possible to only kind of like Africa.

I may have already made comments about this but I find it fascinating and it is proven to me almost everyday. What I find fascinating is that contrasts here are in the extremes. The peace of nature and the violence surrounding it, the abundance and the hunger, the slums and the fancy houses that only a small number of people live in. I am also thinking of my experiences in Egypt and in South Africa. In my experience these contrasts exist everywhere.

There seem to be only two sides of the scale here. No in-betweens. No kind of’s, or sort of’s. It is either hot or it is chilly. You are either sweating your butt off or you are chilled due to the rainy weather. The moments where your temperature is ‘just right’ are quite rare. You either rarely/never see bugs and critters or they are taking over the room or there are millions of them swarming around the lights. Bugs come in packs. Our toilet is currently being overrun by termites/ants, and various grasshopper type bugs. Nasty. It is either blue skies with white fluffy clouds or it rains so hard that rivers form on the roads. I actually watched a river form on the road in front of me yesterday. I watched it grow larger and larger. I quite enjoyed the sight of garbage and debris floating past on what 10 minutes before was a dry road. Very entertaining and slightly mind blowing that so much water can fall in such a short amount of time. The roads are either good or they are bad. Tarmac or dried up riverbeds. Which would you chose? A common phrase I have heard from expats and locals from the various places I have been here is, “It is good until it is bad.” Fact. It really is good until it is bad.

Africa is amazing and fascinating and always provides you with some sort of adventure. Africa gets into your blood and once you have been here, whether you have lived here or visited, it never leaves you. And I think when you leave Africa, a part of you is left behind. The part that only belongs in Africa and nowhere else.