I have been very fortunate in my life. I have been to Africa a couple of times, not just for vacation or a safari, but also, I was allowed to work there for a few months. Africa! When I say the word, you can hear the love I feel. It’s the same tone of voice that I use when I say “Hi, honey.”
Africa! Where to begin? And why do I love it so much? Oh, how it puzzled me and how it bothered me at first, when the darkskinned people wanted to look into my blue eyes. When they touched my hair, but then I understood. I felt the same way. I wanted to touch and feel as well. I wanted to get to know them, too.
Africa changed me as a person. I hope it made me better, but even if it didn’t, it did something that I cannot explain. The same thing happened in India. It’s like I try to preserve a bit of African vibrancy in my everyday life.
Africa quickly brings you back down to earth. Life there is not about consumption, performance, and success. For many, it is about survival. You are surrounded by people who carry drinking water or firewood for miles to feed their families.
Here in the US, you often get the impression that you can only be happy if you own the fastest car, the biggest house, or the latest cell phone. Larger cities are especially trendy. There, you can pair handmade cheese from Nepal and wine from Uruguay—pressed in a counter-clockwise direction—with truffle chocolate from Switzerland or Austria.
In Africa, nothing was as delicious as the chicken straight from the fire.
In Africa, death is omnipresent. Every single day. For the poor, certainly, people die of malaria, AIDS, or even right at birth. But the more wealthy are also aware of life’s transience. An accident, a robbery, an encounter with wild animals—it can all end in an instant. Everyone in Africa knows that. Yet, strangely enough, people aren’t as gloomy as we are here in the United States of America. They live in the here and now. Not in a meditative, esoteric sense like in India, but rather with a pragmatic acceptance. They prefer to celebrate today, because they don’t know what tomorrow brings. Alcoholism is admittedly a problem. But only someone who has been there knows just how wonderful an ice-cold beer tastes after a long day on a dusty road, which doesn’t even make sense, because I don’t like the taste of beer. Alcoholism is a problem here in the US too, but we don’t talk much about it.
I was scared at first. Being out there alone in the bush—with an elephant prowling around our vehicle, knowing that if it suddenly turned nasty, we wouldn’t stand a chance. But over time, I got used to it and I accepted the inevitable. Whether I wake up tomorrow is not in my hands. Even though we like to kid ourselves otherwise, that simply isn’t the case. And once you accept the fact, it is incredibly liberating, not in a spirit of resignation, it’s more of an enrichment. That is how precious every single day is—days we so often spend complaining.
To answer today’s writing prompt. When I want to travel in my mind back to Africa, as I just did while writing this post, I listen to a very popular song, and I think about the orange Fanta, which tasted so sweet:
…
And I calm down. Traveling along with this song makes me happy!
What a wonderful post, Bridget. Interesting, uplifting, and so very honest, in a realistic way. I, too, have found it enlightening to experience other cultures and people less fortunate than us. We all need a bit of reality in our lives to remind us of our obligations to others!