c'est l'afrique

yoff, senegal

traveling to africa must be something like playing in the world cup. you can dream about it, you can plan for it, but there is nothing you can do to be truly prepared for when you step off that plane (or to step onto the pitch). my flight arrived after 3 in the morning and following the passport stamp i was greeted by about 30 taxi drivers beckoning to every potential passenger. i had prearranged a pickup through my hostel and was fortunate to see my misspelled name right away.

stepping out of that airport was like stepping through a time portal in my own life. it has been a few years since i was last in africa (malawi), so i definitely have not forgotten the continent. but there are certain sensations that are ephemeral to the traveler: you can keep the imagery in the mind but there is no way to truly access every rich detail of the memory when not here. conversely, resurfacing here opens up a world of emotions and memories that had been locked away, not deleted, from the conscious. i am thousands of miles away from any point in africa i have been, so geographically it would almost be as if i was describing the memories of san diego that come flooding back upon a trip to nova scotia. but here, it makes perfect sense.

there is certainly a smell to the continent. it is not fresh cut daisies and you would never buy it bottled, but its presence becomes comforting and familiar in the same fashion as a tolerably annoying relative during the right occasions. africa certainly has its own sights and sounds, but the most potent sense is definitely the feel. there is a rhythm to everything from the traffic to the way that people walk to the cadence of their speech. some aspects are frenetic (see: traffic), some languid, while others have a certain grace to them. they are disjointed, but they combine to form some sort of syncronization in the same vein as acid jazz.

these impressions are just from the sleepy muslim fishing village of yoff. dakar is a whole 'nother jar of pickels, something i'll get after tomorrow. i figured that after sleep-deprived weeks of finals and hours of endless travel, i can reemerge into this continent at a slower pace.

a plus tard, mes amis. bonsoir et bonne chance