Zimbabwe, 1994

Oh, the privilege of living on this great continent - Africa! Never before was this realisation brought more sharply into focus than after returning from my series of recent travels abroad - in particular, to Paris, Zimbabwe, New York and back to Cape Town, all within the space of 4 weeks. Jetlag aside, the opportunity for learning was immense, and no greater learning came than from observing the self-evident contrasts between so called “developed” countries and “backward” Africa.

For example, looking at the New York skyline for the first time, I couldn't help but be impressed, if by nothing else than certainly by the grand scale of it all. Standing 107 stories up on the roof of one of the towers of the World Trade Centre, I marvelled at this testimony of human accomplishment (or is it ego?). But what I saw from the platform was no pretty sight. The cluttered urban sprawl shrouded in smog stood in sharp contrast to the breathtaking (in the healthy sense) view from Cecil Rhodes’ grave in the Matopos Hills in Zimbabwe (World’s View). The scattered huts of the African landscape amid fields of sunflowers or mielies seemed so much more natural than the New York scene where 7.5 million people (one fifth of SA’s population) live on top of one another in concrete boxes. So too did the picture of Africans leisurely walking (often long distances) to their destinations, unharrowed by any self-imposed pressure of time, seem so opposed to the frenzied roads of New York, the continuous wail of sirens and the long funeral processions of cars in “rush” hour.

So, as I reflect, it is these and other contrasts which rekindled my deep and abiding affection for Africa and what little it preserves of a different set of values and way of life.