AFRIKA! Hie' ko' ek!

For anyone growing up on the Cape Flats in the seventies, the spatial connection with the African continent was at best limited to an outdated map in an outdated Atlas. Africa was seldom mentioned in the classroom and I don’t recall it being a significant part of any of the subjects. Personally, I regularly used to spend holidays in what was then South West Africa and with our own South Africa these two cardinal references were the extent of my African perspective, but fortunately since then my horizons have evolved through research and reading as well as working and interacting with refugees from across the continent. A combination of factors have however always prevented me from travelling more extensively in Africa, but finally an opportunity has presented itself and I will be heading off to Nairobi to begin my own African odyssey – a two-month journey to Cape Town by road of close to seven thousand kilometers.

Departure checklist: notebook, pencil, espresso pot, camera, sloffies, sunhat, passport and yellow fever certificate…