White African

During Christmas and New Year Season I needed my body to be heated up. The travelling plans that I had intended did not work out. In the last minute I ended up in Sharm El Sheikh on the southern tip of Sinai Desert. Il Mercato, Hadaba, Sharm El Sheikh A rather strange place. Here everything is plastic. It has all been build for touristical purposes. The Egyptians you will meet have travelled far away to come to work here in the tourist industry. Before it was only a small fishing village, but it has long been evaporated by hotels and resorts. A white man enjoying life? - Behind one of many all inclusive resorts I will not say that I regretted to have gone. It turned out to be a very interesting experience. All of Sharm El Sheikh is a modern oasis. An oasis is an artificial place made with a huge use of water and money. So everything cost something. You cannot just wander around. Every piece of beach is property of somebody and they will charge you to enter. This is the rea...

Today is my 10 years anniversary. Exactly 10 years ago I came to Africa for the first time. In Arusha I was looking up in the Tanzanian sky. I saw millions of stars. Cristal clear. I think that I can say that I had never before seen such beautiful sight. It was as if I had a close up of the Milky way. I was night aften night amased because it was never cloudy - always clear. BUT there was none of stars that I could remember from my childhood. Not a single star formation. Everything was alian. Nothing at all ressembled my previous life. This vision of the Tanzanian sky has become a symbol of my African experience. I was a child again and had to start over. I had to gain new experiences and skills. In the beginning it was like a detective novel, but during the years I accepted what I had already read in Kapuscinskis books: That Africa will never become a habit. She will always be a condition, and therefor you cannot understand Africa but you can be Africa. In the same way as you let th...