Our African trip came to an end. 'So how was
it?', 'How was Africa'? What comes to mind is: 'Wonderful nature!',
'Kids waving and smiling at you from every corner, shouting: Mzungu!
Mzungu!', 'Women carrying stuff on their heads', 'Unbearable heat
during the day', 'Buzzing mosquitos driving you crazy at night',
'Traditional villages', 'Chaotic cities'. Africa is big and diverse.
African experience is intense. You'll see extreme beauty of nature
and extreme poverty of people. Though, you need to be careful not to
get misled by appearances. The beauty may conceal much more dangers
and annoyances than you think, whereas the hardship does not need to
prevent people form being joyful, hospitable and helpful. This 'inner
happiness' in spite of the dire conditions is one of the most
alluring and fascinating traits of the African people. If you wanna
taste the spirit of African joyfulness just listen to African music.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6iuqLHOj9so
Africa is beautiful – hopefully the previous posts leave little room for doubt on this :).
Africa is big! The five Eastern African countries that we visited cover the area of more than 1.5 mln square kilometers, which is only 5% of the whole continent of 30 mln square kilometers. We travelled more than 5500 kilometers on our journey around Victoria Lake. Although we covered less than 1/3 of East African territory, we still travelled further than the way from Lisbon to Moscow (by car around 4500km – check google maps if in doubt).
If we count in our Victoria Falls detour we need to add 2400 kilometres each way (we flew most of that distance, fortunately).
Intriguingly, our maps do not reflect this vastness of land, due to the spherical shape, the surface of Earth gets much smaller while it approaches the Northern and Southern poles. Our maps ignore this basic fact, which makes the Northern countries look much bigger than they really are. It makes us wonder is it just a negligence or another manifestation of European superiority complex. Just have a look at this map, which accurately reflects the relative size of the continents ...
At first this looks like a scam, isn't it, though this one is more true than the one we've seen all our life :). The fact is that Africa is by far the second biggest continent, larger than China, the USA, India and all Western and Central Europe together!
Africa is poor. The most rudimentary living conditions we saw in Maasai villages. Maasai are the pastoralist people roaming with their cattle across the plateaux of Tanzania and Kenya. They live in round huts made of clay, their roof covered with straw.
In these huts Maasai still sleep in the same room where they cook over a wood-fire – try to imagine the smell in their huts.
Maasai sleep on a bed made of wooden sticks and branches, on such a bed cow-skins substitute the mattress – clearly not too comfortable; below Maasai's bed their hens and chickens have their home. While our car broke down close to Ngorongoro Park, all the 'warriors' (every Maasai adult men is a warrior), came to check why we were lingering on in the proximity of their village.
Some of them were armed with iron spears, all of them wore traditional red and violet robes. Both men and women have big piercings in their ears and tribal tattoos on their cheeks.
Still, you keep on getting surprised how modernity comes to these places. A group of young Maasai asked us in English where we were from. Upon hearing that I was from Poland, they shouted: 'Lewandowski, Lewandowski', the football player. I asked, puzzled: 'How do you know Lewandowski?'; 'From television, how else?'; 'How can you watch television if there is no electricity in your village?'; 'We study in Arusha.' This conversation also made us wonder, how strongly these guys must be attached to their community, that even in spite of tasting the comforts of modern life, they are ready to come back to these medieval conditions and put on again their traditional outfit.
Sure, Maasai example is extreme, though still the things and appliances that we take for granted in Europe are out of reach for millions of people in Africa. Electricity is still a luxury for many Africans, the same goes for the supply of running water. Anywhere you go you will see people (usually women and kids) walking with plastic canisters and carrying water home. Most of the Africans still cook over a charcoal and lit their homes with kerosene lamps.
The same people that don't have water pipes will have mobile phones. If they don't have electricity, how do they charge their mobiles you may ask? It's simpler than you think, there are public charging stations, even if the power wires have not made it to a town, it'll be charged from solar power. Equally surprising for a European, is the fact that many villages that don't have electricity will have a mobile phone network coverage! As mobile phone is not only a means of communicating here, it is also a means of making payments - 'M-Pesa' system is an African 'credit card'.
Africa is expensive. Eastern Africa is ridiculously expensive. Actually, this is our most serious complaint on Africa. Not only you feel ripped off most of the time, but seeing the poverty all around you keep on wondering where does this money go?
Africa is hot! Ryszard Kapuściński, the reporter and travel writer, has given an excellent and vivid account of what the heat is like in East African coastal town in his excellent book: 'The Shadow of the Sun' ('Heban' – the original title in Polish). As his account perfectly reflects what we felt like and we cannot describe it any better, let us quote him: 'The heat was dreadful, and it was impossible to walk for any length of time: there is no air to breathe, your legs grow weak, your shirt drips with sweat. After an hour of wandering around, you are fed up with everything. You have but one desire: to sit down somewhere in the shade. Better yet, beneath a fan. And then a thought strikes you: do the inhabitants of the North appreciate what a treasure they posses in that grey, drab sky, with its one great, miraculous advantage that there is no sun in it?'
Africa is not a 'gourmet' destination, unless you are a fruitarian, in this case you will be in paradise – bananas, pineapples, mangoes and papayas are excellent and come in enormous quantities. In most of the places (apart from five stars hotels) in the morning you will be usually on fried egg diet, whereas in the evenings most of the time you will be served chewy goat or beef with 'Irish' (sweet) potatoes, rice or matoke (mashed green bananas).
Still we managed to find some culinary jewels - Abyssinia Exotica in Nairobi serves excellent Ethiopian food,
Shehnai in Mombasa serves great Indian cuisine; the floating restaurant 'the Moorings' on the outskirts of Mombasa has unique ambience; the night food market in Zanzibar's Stonetown is a must if you happen to be around; the cakes in Bujumbura's Cafe Gourmand could rival the ones produced by Belgian patissiers. The Indian culinary influence is omni-present; on the Indian Ocean coast it is not surprising. Though, even in the landlocked Uganda, you'll get everywhere chapatis, samosas and 'the rolex' (egg omelet rolled in a chapati bread).
Africa makes you meet inspiring people, both locals and other fellow travellers. Obviously, this feature is in no way intrinsic to Africa as you'll meet great people wherever you travel. Staying in backpackers hostels, going to local markets and eateries, taking public transport and being open-minded clearly increases the chances of mind-broadening encounters. Some of the people we met stayed in our memory more than the others. Fred, the director of the Children's Centre in Kampala. Children's Centre is a boarding school that provides shelter, education and vocational training to homeless children from Kampala's slums. I've been financially supporting this project, through a Brussels-based charity: 'Les enfants de la Rue' for the last six years. We are grateful to Fred that he showed us around the Centre as well as for the discussion we had about modern Uganda and its complex tribal social structure. We are also respectful for the good work that the Centre, managed by him, is carrying out. Our safari guide – Godson, showed us the beauty of African wildlife. The two Polish missionaries that we accidentally met in Kampala's outpatient clinic - we appreciated their open-minded attitude even towards the religion and the insights into the ups and downs of Mzungu life in Uganda. While 'on Holidays' in costal Watamu, Claudius and Julia, who are also on a few-months long career break, were great companions to talk and dine during long African evenings. The Polish couple in the fifth month of their car journey from Cairo to Cape Town – the chats about adventures and misadventures of Africa travel made our short trip to Zimbabwe even more worthwhile. Respect for the four people going by bike from Cairo to Cape Town that we met in Zanzibar and the solo biker going from South to the North whom we came across in Livingstone and again in Lusaka. Traveling is our addiction :)!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6iuqLHOj9so
Africa is beautiful – hopefully the previous posts leave little room for doubt on this :).
Africa is big! The five Eastern African countries that we visited cover the area of more than 1.5 mln square kilometers, which is only 5% of the whole continent of 30 mln square kilometers. We travelled more than 5500 kilometers on our journey around Victoria Lake. Although we covered less than 1/3 of East African territory, we still travelled further than the way from Lisbon to Moscow (by car around 4500km – check google maps if in doubt).
If we count in our Victoria Falls detour we need to add 2400 kilometres each way (we flew most of that distance, fortunately).
Intriguingly, our maps do not reflect this vastness of land, due to the spherical shape, the surface of Earth gets much smaller while it approaches the Northern and Southern poles. Our maps ignore this basic fact, which makes the Northern countries look much bigger than they really are. It makes us wonder is it just a negligence or another manifestation of European superiority complex. Just have a look at this map, which accurately reflects the relative size of the continents ...
At first this looks like a scam, isn't it, though this one is more true than the one we've seen all our life :). The fact is that Africa is by far the second biggest continent, larger than China, the USA, India and all Western and Central Europe together!
Africa is poor. The most rudimentary living conditions we saw in Maasai villages. Maasai are the pastoralist people roaming with their cattle across the plateaux of Tanzania and Kenya. They live in round huts made of clay, their roof covered with straw.
In these huts Maasai still sleep in the same room where they cook over a wood-fire – try to imagine the smell in their huts.
Maasai sleep on a bed made of wooden sticks and branches, on such a bed cow-skins substitute the mattress – clearly not too comfortable; below Maasai's bed their hens and chickens have their home. While our car broke down close to Ngorongoro Park, all the 'warriors' (every Maasai adult men is a warrior), came to check why we were lingering on in the proximity of their village.
Some of them were armed with iron spears, all of them wore traditional red and violet robes. Both men and women have big piercings in their ears and tribal tattoos on their cheeks.
Still, you keep on getting surprised how modernity comes to these places. A group of young Maasai asked us in English where we were from. Upon hearing that I was from Poland, they shouted: 'Lewandowski, Lewandowski', the football player. I asked, puzzled: 'How do you know Lewandowski?'; 'From television, how else?'; 'How can you watch television if there is no electricity in your village?'; 'We study in Arusha.' This conversation also made us wonder, how strongly these guys must be attached to their community, that even in spite of tasting the comforts of modern life, they are ready to come back to these medieval conditions and put on again their traditional outfit.
Sure, Maasai example is extreme, though still the things and appliances that we take for granted in Europe are out of reach for millions of people in Africa. Electricity is still a luxury for many Africans, the same goes for the supply of running water. Anywhere you go you will see people (usually women and kids) walking with plastic canisters and carrying water home. Most of the Africans still cook over a charcoal and lit their homes with kerosene lamps.
Can you see the woman turning the hand-crank to pump the fuel?
The same people that don't have water pipes will have mobile phones. If they don't have electricity, how do they charge their mobiles you may ask? It's simpler than you think, there are public charging stations, even if the power wires have not made it to a town, it'll be charged from solar power. Equally surprising for a European, is the fact that many villages that don't have electricity will have a mobile phone network coverage! As mobile phone is not only a means of communicating here, it is also a means of making payments - 'M-Pesa' system is an African 'credit card'.
Africa is expensive. Eastern Africa is ridiculously expensive. Actually, this is our most serious complaint on Africa. Not only you feel ripped off most of the time, but seeing the poverty all around you keep on wondering where does this money go?
Africa is hot! Ryszard Kapuściński, the reporter and travel writer, has given an excellent and vivid account of what the heat is like in East African coastal town in his excellent book: 'The Shadow of the Sun' ('Heban' – the original title in Polish). As his account perfectly reflects what we felt like and we cannot describe it any better, let us quote him: 'The heat was dreadful, and it was impossible to walk for any length of time: there is no air to breathe, your legs grow weak, your shirt drips with sweat. After an hour of wandering around, you are fed up with everything. You have but one desire: to sit down somewhere in the shade. Better yet, beneath a fan. And then a thought strikes you: do the inhabitants of the North appreciate what a treasure they posses in that grey, drab sky, with its one great, miraculous advantage that there is no sun in it?'
Africa is not a 'gourmet' destination, unless you are a fruitarian, in this case you will be in paradise – bananas, pineapples, mangoes and papayas are excellent and come in enormous quantities. In most of the places (apart from five stars hotels) in the morning you will be usually on fried egg diet, whereas in the evenings most of the time you will be served chewy goat or beef with 'Irish' (sweet) potatoes, rice or matoke (mashed green bananas).
Cows in Uganda have very long horns and even more chewy meet
Still we managed to find some culinary jewels - Abyssinia Exotica in Nairobi serves excellent Ethiopian food,
Shehnai in Mombasa serves great Indian cuisine; the floating restaurant 'the Moorings' on the outskirts of Mombasa has unique ambience; the night food market in Zanzibar's Stonetown is a must if you happen to be around; the cakes in Bujumbura's Cafe Gourmand could rival the ones produced by Belgian patissiers. The Indian culinary influence is omni-present; on the Indian Ocean coast it is not surprising. Though, even in the landlocked Uganda, you'll get everywhere chapatis, samosas and 'the rolex' (egg omelet rolled in a chapati bread).
Africa makes you meet inspiring people, both locals and other fellow travellers. Obviously, this feature is in no way intrinsic to Africa as you'll meet great people wherever you travel. Staying in backpackers hostels, going to local markets and eateries, taking public transport and being open-minded clearly increases the chances of mind-broadening encounters. Some of the people we met stayed in our memory more than the others. Fred, the director of the Children's Centre in Kampala. Children's Centre is a boarding school that provides shelter, education and vocational training to homeless children from Kampala's slums. I've been financially supporting this project, through a Brussels-based charity: 'Les enfants de la Rue' for the last six years. We are grateful to Fred that he showed us around the Centre as well as for the discussion we had about modern Uganda and its complex tribal social structure. We are also respectful for the good work that the Centre, managed by him, is carrying out. Our safari guide – Godson, showed us the beauty of African wildlife. The two Polish missionaries that we accidentally met in Kampala's outpatient clinic - we appreciated their open-minded attitude even towards the religion and the insights into the ups and downs of Mzungu life in Uganda. While 'on Holidays' in costal Watamu, Claudius and Julia, who are also on a few-months long career break, were great companions to talk and dine during long African evenings. The Polish couple in the fifth month of their car journey from Cairo to Cape Town – the chats about adventures and misadventures of Africa travel made our short trip to Zimbabwe even more worthwhile. Respect for the four people going by bike from Cairo to Cape Town that we met in Zanzibar and the solo biker going from South to the North whom we came across in Livingstone and again in Lusaka. Traveling is our addiction :)!
Mariusz, thanks for your blog, the stories and photos are great, I enjoyed a lot those virtual travels (I thought it was supposed to be longer). You keep your beautiful literary style, sweet to read it. Greetings from South of France, K
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