A year ago I was packing my bags to leave for Africa for nearly 3 months. I left the US just shy of a year ago, I left on October 1, 2008. I don’t think I will ever forget my first run-in with Africa, the beginning of my love affair with a continent and countries we also love to loathe.
I have just started reading a book called “Africa, Altered States, Ordinary Miracles”. Its really good. I kinda wish I could quote it all on here. But the author, Richard Dowden, went to Uganda in the early 1970s, thus beginning his own love affair with the entire continent, and has since developed into a well-written, thought-provoking 550 page book.
When he first arrived back in England after his time in Uganda, he writes “I arrived back in dark, cold, wet, December London. It was as if I had been woken from a magnificent dream or dragged out of a wonderful theatre and thrown into a dungeon…People had warned me about the culture shock of going to Africa. Nothing prepared me for the culture shock of coming the other way.”
I have to agree. I got back last December 23, to a cold Connecticut, and was in a daze for a few weeks. I cannot imagine how my sister’s friend will be when she returns in just over a month after 2 1/2 years in the Peace Corps in South Africa. I am thinking “If it is almost a year post-Africa and I was there for 2 1/2 months only as opposed to 2 1/2 years, how on earth is she going to make it back here in America?”
Ah, there is so much more I could write about this book or Africa. But its late. So I’ll leave the book review for another day. Maybe. 1 Year since Africa. I just want to go back.
