You might think it a little odd to write a blog entry just about a train journey, but I'm going to give it a shot. I've actually been looking forward to this for some time due to a love of train rides inspired by long trips to see family in Scotland as a child, plenty of travel in China, and reading too much Paul Theroux. Trains were supposedly the great emblem of colonial rule and the means for bringing the three C's to Africa: commerce, Christianity and civilisation. In reality they were a tool of exploitation and a look at a map shows train lines penetrating the skin of Africa and, like deformed mosquito proboscises, driving straight for the continent's resources, sucking it dry. Nowadays, like so many colonial leftovers they have been lamentably allowed to
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