"This place can't be tamed.
It's sun beats too hard and rain pours too fast...washing out the roads that threaten to turn right back into grassland at anytime they please.
And sometimes they do.
The dogs bellow throughout the night. Letting us know that we weren't here first, while the thunder rattles your inner soul reminding the dogs that they weren't here first, either.
The grass grows tall and the ants run everywhere. Every. Where. Including the sink of dishes that I have to spray with water to slide them all back down the drain...smacking them off as they climb up my arms.
Life being born into red mud caked houses and death being carried out in bleached white sheets.
It is all encompassing.
It is small villages on a big continent holding people with little money but large hearts.
It is the beauty slapped up against despair...or perhaps it is the beauty running through despair...or despair running through beauty.
The cows roam everywhere, heeding not the signs and roads that have been marked for mankind.
Cities with power and movies and restaurants and libraries exist mere miles away from people who have never used electricity for themselves. Some even wonder if they really do exist.
The metal, it rusts. The boards warp.
But the singing never stops.
The energy is never ending, constantly moving.
Not necessarily forward, no, that is Western, to always be attempting to "move forward".
This energy is a different type and it spreads itself thick around all who enter into this place. It is an energy encircling itself, falling back and unraveling onto itself a thousand times over.
It is the continent of hopelessness...or so say some who live across the ocean. It is a project, a trend, a t-shirt, an anarchy state.
But those of us who are here, we know differently.
We know it as the continent of hope and of life. Hard, dusty, joyful, tiring, song-producing life.
We know it as a continent full of context, culture, and tradition. We know it as a place of rules and regulations, for there are many if you only stop to ask.
Some look at Africa as a place to teach.
Those of us who are here know it as a place to learn....for Africa has many lessons for students who choose to study here.
Africa.
This place can't be tamed.
And who would want it to be?"
This is the Africa that I know and love...
