peregrine by nature

Don’t come to Africa if you think you have nothing to learn here. Take the west with all its time saving gadgets and falsely modest claims of the workaholic and see that it is yet unsatisfied, as empty as a vacuum.

The Rats of Nimh

The ocean feeds without prejudice on the corrupt and the blameless and spits out bones and shells and sea glass.

the fishing ships come in laden with buckets of fruits de mer and mermaid tails

Sometimes you scan the horizon for your vanishing point and just dream.

i saw muslims worrying their prayer beads, lips moving soundlessly. I saw talibés with their tomato cans, mostly empty. i saw a porter carrying flats of eggs balanced impossibly atop his head. i saw women carrying babies; cats, chicken bones and i saw seagulls with silver flashing fish. and i saw a man with nothing, his arms were outstretched and empty but he carried the weight of the whole world.

african dust is kicked up and blown west on the trade winds where it freezes in midair and falls on your tongue and mittens.

Ten minutes after I took this the dust rolled over us and the sky went nearly black.
In this post: Wiki about the harmattan. How snowflakes are formed.

I blog about Africa because I was raised by one of her tribes. And because here things that are ragged are patched and cherished. Because sub Saharan thunderstorms are so deafening you have to believe in heaven. And mostly I blog about Africa because I want you to come, and fall in love.

Thanks awfully to whiteafrican for tagging me. You inspire me. Go read about all that he does for Africa.
I hereby tag Szavanna from South Africa and Esther Garvi aka Ishtar from Niger.

by night you twist and turn and try not to dream and by day you haunt a house you can’t breathe in, can’t eat. but you’re changing.

you avowed young that with suspiciously guarded land borders and territorial waters you could prove John Donne wrong. but you never anticipated pursuit from above.

and so it begins…

From this post:
John Donne

you fall into bed nearly broken, the sorrows and victories of the day bittersweet on your tongue. but joy comes in the morning.

all is well in your comfortable life and you cannot sleep most nights. so you move closer to the equator where the sun and the struggle knocks you flat on your back like a fallen goliath and your alarm clock is the bustle of the street waking up and an occasional early dawn riot.