Blogs from Africa - page 2966

When the structures of society seek to steal away our common experience, we must intentionally create new structures that defy those separations. After these months of continual conflict with myself, of daily frustrated attempts at seeing the truth of this place which is South Africa, I decided to drastically alter the structure of my life. I arranged to work at a children’s home at the village of Umzinyathi in the Kwa-Zulu Natal province. Why not dive head-first into this thing called reality? Umzinyathi is about an hour’s drive outside the city of Durban. This small Zulu village consists of rolling hills of green traced with dirt roads and dotted with concrete houses. All day long taxis zip up and down the main stretch honking and signaling the code for their destination. One finger for Durban, two ... read more

By my second day in Morocco I’m completely drained. I’ve been hustled, harassed, cursed at in Arabic on three separate occasions, and shown enough Berber rugs to carpet the Sahara. It’s hardly encouraging to hear everyone describe Chefchaouen - a mellow mountain town with a cool blue medina - as very tranquilo. Mention the word Fes and eyebrows begin to raise. That’s where Morocco really begins, where the hard sell can break glass and the guy shaking your hand will probably make off with your underwear. For all the wearisome persistence, there’s a good-natured air to how these guys hustle. Everyone is all smiles, happy to hear I’m from New York and having such a pleasant time in their town. Though I suspect most are looking to get something out of me - a suspicion ... read more

So I'm enjoying my last night of electricity before leaving for the second half of the village stay. We had a very enjoyable retreat but I think we're all excited about seeing our families again. I'm really excited to go back to the ugly turkeys of Dudevi. Man, they're really, really ugly. They have layers and layers of skin hanging off of their faces....euugghh. Anyway, one night in the village, we were sitting outside digesting our nighttime meal--delicious as always--and we were chatting by the lantern light. The moon wasn't out so it was pretty dark. Woesta was telling me that it was a taboo not to whistle at night, because it disturbs the spirits, and attracts dwafs. I thought she said giraffes so I got really excited, but she was like, "No, dwafs, you don't ... read more

Game Drive Set out early this morning into Chobe National Park. Were only inside the park boundary for a matter of minutes and had spotted a herd of elephant walking along the ridgeline. Impala, puku, turtle, warthog, hippo, banded mongoose, and crocodile were also spotted on the way, as well as a variety of birds. River Cruise At 1530 we loaded up with other guests at the hotel on the river cruise boat, and spent about two and a half hours looking at the animals close to the river banks. Initially, it was just large animals. As we went further upstream, a greater range of smaller animals were also spotted.... read more

We were luckily enough to muster together a group of 5 of us to hire a car and see what we could in Namibia as the public transport stystem here is almost non existent. We got a Nissan Almera. Probably not the best car for 5 adults, but it was the only affordable one, so it had to do. We started off at Etosha NP. The park was big, but it was good having our own car as we could explore it at our own free will. We stayed in campsites inside the park, which were basic, but had all that we needed. The campsites also had a waterhole out the back, which they light up over night. These were great as you get to see a variety of animals come down for a drink once ... read more