African sojourn

Bruce — Sat, 20 Mar 2004 05:40:24 +0000

Flashback to 1991. A lone medical student makes his first trip to Africa, passing through Zimbabwe and Zambia en-route to Malawi... The Dark Continent The Day Star, sulking low in the haze of a winter horizon lights, but barely does it warm. There are few colours in the frost-crippled botanical gardens although the earliest of blossoms now appear, signalling life's eagerness to flourish at winter's end. Ducks waddle with exaggerated unsteadiness across the surface of their frozen pond, while sparrows peck expectantly in the mud and among the fallen leaves. This crisp day predicts a cold night, one sure to thicken the existing coating of ice always found in the abode of shadows. Children are skipping in play-motion, singles reading and couples talking, huddled on the benches. And the dreamers, we are dreaming... like the others, expelling condensation with every breath. Winter is a time of the senses... a reminder of vulnerability... the recollection of past suffering at the hands of Nature. And how our kind must have suffered upon leaving the warmth of our African cradle, exposed in both nakedness and naivete. Were it not for the endowment of intellect, our ancestors could not have wandered so widely, and I could never bear witness to such a winter in southern New Zealand. Africa. It's very name commands images of animal majesty, and human prehistory. As a child of Africa, of sorts, how could I not return? Nowhere but in Africa has one such a strong sense of being Natures' subject rather than ...

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African sojourn