travelswithalice

SPOILER ALERT!

The next few days are devoted to intensive resting, boning up on African history to try and make sense of what’s happening today, weather watching, and moon watching.

 I’ve set my alarm for this. 

I’m really not feeling up to a safari just yet. I guess jetlag from last week’s Europe trip with Annette has collided with an epic case of gastritis, leaving me feeling wiped out. Not actually sick yet, but well on my way. Which is why we’ve decided to hole up in Johannesburg for a few days while I sort myself out. 

Day 3

After sleeping almost continuously for two days, drinking gallons of water, and eating next to nothing, I’m feeling much better.

Day 4

I find it difficult to imagine how the culture of injustice, violence, and degradation that this country’s indigenous peoples have been subjected to could result in anything other than the terrible backlash against the perceived perpetrators that is now threatening to further tear this brutalized land apart.

Looking back on the day we arrived, the cavernous airport was noticeably lacking in activity. Airport personnel seemed to outnumber passengers.

Day 5

Stories that come out of Africa always manage to pulsate, to throb, to go on forever. They are inveterate storytellers, the Africans. Stuart always comes back from breakfast loaded with life stories of the staff.

Even discounting for the inevitable differentness, the foreignness of the names of people and places, theirs seem designed to be spoken.

Which of course is part of the reason why I feel wildly excited that I’m soon to be in Mala Mala, or in Zambia- to say Livingstone doesn’t give the same thrill, or in Botswana, in Meno a Kwena.