If you love Africa, you’ll resonate with these words by Clare Mulvany on socialedge.org:
Here’s a taste:
Africa is everything.
It is music that makes your soul come alive. It is life that seeps into every open pore. It is death that hangs over cliff edges, so close, always too close.
It is colour, bright, shocking, glaring colour, which adorns every inch of clothing. It is stench, dark smells that rise from the gutters and hover like omens.
It is sunsets, which give new meaning to orange, to golden, to red, to amber.
It is houses of mud, which look like they would either crack in the sun or disintegrate in the rain. It is mansions overlooking lakes, with east and west wings full of empty rooms.
It is knowing that every third or fourth person you see probably has AIDS. It is knowing that the life expectancy of some is twenty-seven. It is knowing that there are men in power lining their coffins with gold-leaf. It is knowing that in some places there are no longer enough trees to make coffins.
It is laughter, resounding around street corners.
It is spontaneity, now.
It is hotels with four poster beds and crisp linen. It is hotels with no doors, no beds, no guests.
It is giraffes and elephants and a myriad of multicoloured butterflies. It is nasty ants, termite hills, mosquitoes. It is malaria and the constant fear of malaria. It is mosquito nets being used as fishing nets. It is condoms being used for making footballs.
Read the whole article here.
