Africa

Acacia

It looks so much like that flimsy print that comes in the frame. But it’s totally not. It’s from the African savannah.

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Africa Just Is

The soft spongey skin beneath my nails are rimmed with blue paint and there is a spot above my breast, too. It’s from today. We painted a pit latrine at a school for orphans as volunteers for SoftPower Education. It will not be the last bit of blue to stain my body. I felt brighter. [...]

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Zebes–A Blog All Their Own

All Photos By Boudreaux

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Status Report: Uganda

The Things We Carry: mosquito cream, malaria pills, sunblock, journal, head lamp, iodine-treated water bottle, Kleenex, The Food We Eat: beans, bread, eggs, tea, samosas, avocados, cabbage, rice, Pringles, The Stuff We Hate: being asked for money, overland trucks full of mzungu, horrendous bus rides, developED country prices with developING country service, The Stuff We [...]

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Top This

The water is angry and swirling from the splash of the sky, the shoebills are out for a bath, the monkeys are minding the forest and Africans are whooping and squawking along the ruddy, muddy shores while 50-50’s edge grows ever closer. I scoop the waves with futility. . paddle left, paddle right, hold on, [...]

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Soft Kisumu

Kisumu sounds smooth and balmy doesn’t it? Like the texture of a dream where Shamu, a Hawaiian women in a mumu and a squishy kiss are all involved. This is how it felt. Mostly. The soft, square back cushions of the boda (bicycles) felt easy on my ass and much more forgiving than recent mattresses [...]

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The Stuff of Storybooks

Back when the TV had a knob and there were only three channels, I have vague memories of a white mustache in khaki shorts and a jungle jeep. The kind of calm which wise old men always engender. A nature show without photo-shopped colors and fast-forwarded sunrises. The cornbread-brown-and-yellow softness and silence which is the [...]

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Where the Power Lines End

    The farm where we stayed. . .   “Avaseet” says Catherine, with a big smile and a graze of a hand against her smudged purple apron. Her aura is heavy with sweat and dust but she smiles with teeth that have been brushed. Catherine is the wife of Frances, who is the brother of [...]

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Africa Panic Attack

When we arrived at couchsurfer Mutinda’s home after two hours in a matatu, a taxi ride which ended in a flat tire and a forty five minute walk. . .even after we shuffled along the red dirt road lined with cow-herders, vintage bikes and a valley view of coffee beans and bananas, I experienced a [...]

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When Courage Begins to Crumble

What do you do when you’re the only white people on a hill full of hundreds of Kenyans and everyone starts getting up to clap and sing and raise their hands when identically dressed dancers emerge from a semi with the words “Jesus Big Miracle Crusade” written on it? You join in. We were nervous [...]

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