So, I went to Africa

All was quiet on the digital front. I spent 33 days in Botswana and South Africa detached from email and completely disconnected from Facebook and Twitter. Try it.

People I know who go to Afrika seem to consistently have “life changing, inspiring, indescribable” experiences. I did too, which is a little boring for you, the reader. I went with dear friend, Sam who is preparing her PhD Thesis in HCI. I like to say she’s studying the ways we, try to develop Afrika with Western technology culture, thereby screwing up. I was visiting my lifelong friend Peter (below) who is living in Gaborone, Botswana and doing research, I suppose, for my thesis.

We did not go to Afrika to ride in wooden boats and see animals. We did not go to “fix the aids problem” and we did not exit through the gift shop.

We did what what we do when we go anywhere. We  hopped the velvet ropes and went to Afrika to meet people. We walked the pace of their life as best we could and learned about humanity, exploration and ourselves.

Kind new friends granted us Setswana names. Sam’s name, Botho, loosely means humanness, with respect, dignity and kindess. My non-traditional hair, colour and features gave me the name Bontle: beautiful.

I’ve been to India more times than I can count. It’s hot, noisy, crowded and not very safe, kind of like all the places we went in Botswana and South Africa. When I go to India, I cannot wake up and think, “I’d like to walk East today and maybe, possibly visit this part of the city,” knowing full well I’ll get distracted, make two friends along the way and discover something I could not have even known existed. I can’t go on that walk when staying with my grandparents. But there is nowhere else in the universe I can hear the stories they have to tell.

But Sam and I did that wanderlust traveling. One day we even wandered our way  all the way to the top of Kgale Hill.

We wandered our way into a drum circle. Moving by and with music is the only way I know how to listen. I started playing music before I could write a sentence, as one should. Without an exchange a single word, I hopped into a drum circle ont he street with my new friends. They taught me their beats, their rhythms, their language, without a word: and we jammed.

Sometimes, we rode in the back of a pickup truck. Why? Because that’s how we got around the village. Ask me know long we knew the people driving the truck. 2 minutes. Ask me if we actually knew them. We didn’t. Ask me if we were hitchhiking. We weren’t. Because if we were, my friends would probably get fired from their job–not that there was any other option.

But us two Londoners at heart, flew through our city and indulged in Wagamama that otherwise only seemed to exist in dreams. We stopped in Heathrow, in the city where I spent so many days of my life, wandering around, looking for something more and finding it. It was city that taught me how to do it on my own, and there I was back again.

I’ll tell you this, though. The Batswana people can cook but it’s near impossible to get an invitation over for dinner–unless you make the right friends. If someone can teach me to make chicken, squash or collard greens like this, please leave a comment.

And Zac was with us. He was here from Uganda. And needless to say, like us, he made a new friend everywhere he went.

Sam and I did take some time apart. We both jumped, well, tumbled, or fell, really, out of an airplane 10,000 feet above the Earth at the Southern most tip of Africa. It took me 7 pages of free writing to begin processing the rest of my life after that moment.

I’m back home now, zero feet away from the Earth. Driving my car instead of taking the combi.

I’m back home now, where the white people are not people donning a “white face” parade costume.

I’m back home now, where I am not ordering ostrich, kudu, springbok or crocodile to eat.

I’m back home now, very far from a huge body of water.

I am back home now, where the roads are roads and the roads are clean.

But, I love where I live. And I might not ever eat a leg of chicken and dance at the same time again. But, I’ll have done it.

We are grateful for all the real friendships we made and opportunities to experience a Southern Afrikan lifestyle as best we could. This is 2% how I spent one of the most enlightening months of my life.