Cancer and Capricorn

As I prepare to reenter the cacophonous  riot that is Africa, I find myself scouring the resources available, the words that have been written describing these indescribable lands, the words of Rimbaud, Greene, Naipaul, Meredith, and so many others who have had the courage to journey, to describe, to entreat all others to their inner madnesses. And one of the best of modern times is Paul Salopek, the Pullitzer Prize winning journalist for the Chicago Tribune, master of prose, dancer of words and worlds....

From writer and journalist Paul Salopek's collection, entitled The Twenty-third Parallel

The twenty-third parallels north and south—what map makers call the tropics of Cancer and Capricorn—girdle the Earth roughly three thousand miles apart, bracketing the warm belly of the planet. They hold between them some of the poorest, least stable and most culturally diverse nations in the world.

The bulk of humanity lives in or near this immense subtropical belt—about two-thirds of the world’s six billion people. It is a place of numberless villages and exploding mega-cities. It is the source of the greatest human migrations in history. Its face is younger. Its colors are brighter. Its sky is a paler blue. By sheer weight of numbers alone, it is where our common future is being scripted.

Africa 2011. The Plan

Ticket to Cape Town, May 15th, via Dubai, purchased. Its only been 3 weeks since I last passed through the United Arab Emirates on my way to the States from Nepal, and yet, it beckons once again. This time as a quick stopover for another 9 hour flight south, way south, to the southern tip of the African continent. I was in Africa last summer, when I visited Kenya and Tanzania; I remember the late night departure from Dar Es Salaam International Airport, eating a last African meal at the small roadside grill across the darkened road from the airport, drinking a final cold Tusker beer, assured that I would return. And return I will...for yet another "trip of a lifetime." How I've managed so many of these in my years I cannot understand, yet they continue to unfold, and I continue to unfold with them.
My goal: To be way more active updating this site during my travels, as I have always tended to trail off during my various adventures around the world. I want this site to be a true travel blog for the next 4 months of adventure.

The Plan: Cape Town to Cairo, or as far north as I can feasibly get in three months of overland, local transport travel through East/Central Africa. South Africa>Mozambique>Tanzania>Rwanda>Uganda>Kenya>South Sudan>Sudan>Egypt.....visiting some great local Educational NGO's to do field work for my next masters degree starting in September at The London School of Economics. Anything NGO/Education Development will be written about and posted at my sister site, www.theschoolsproject.org.  This blog will be just for the nuts and bolts of travel, the hardships, the glories, and everything in between as I take on the mother of all overland adventures.....
Now: wrapping up loose ends, planning, scouring the internet for information, reading as many African books as I can get my hands on (which means re-reading many, as I've already devoured most of them over the years), buying some gear, mainly for camping along the way, and dropping in and visiting some friends here in my hometown of NYC.

leaving nepal.

isn't it all just as a dream?
nothing starts, nothing finishes, just a continual journey, a continual flow of experience, arising and passing, the screen of consciousness.
I have grown non-sentimental over these years; walking out of Boudha, my back to the giant stupa whose gaze has accompanied me for so many months, for so many nights, its eyes welcoming me home after so many journeys, a simple smile, a simple acknowledgment of time spent, of moving forward on this perpetual journey that life has been, the cumulative experience, the perspectives gained, the whole greater than the sum, lost, seized upon, abandoned.
as the plane lifted off the tarmac in Kathmandu, the haze parted with the recent unseasonable rains, and the ancient city shone below the tips of the white wings, its decrepit and ramshackle glory, the huge village sprawl, the dusty brown facades, life continuing apace from this downward gaze, i recognize this fascinating home now from space, and smile, the perpetual journey swallowing the moment, and pushing further forward, into the unknown, the future.

perspectives

"The cumulative experience of seeing the world from many vantage points has helped me to appreciate the real circumstances of our planet-the causes of poverty, the role of rich-country policies, and the possibilities for the future. Gaining a proper perspective on these issues has been my struggle and challenge for the decades. Nothing else in my intellectual life and political engagement has been as rewarding."

-Jeffrey Sachs, The End of Poverty

Kinshasa Symphony

This looks to be a wonderful film coming from the Democratic Republic of Congo, a rare bright shining light in a place so often portrayed by darkness, both real and imagined, but the foreign press....