The Live Update

As some of you have no doubt noticed, this blog has been trailing behind me a bit. While ideally it would be updated regularly, time and Internet are two of the many factors that keep me from posting in real time. But since my trip is winding down, it only seems appropriate that the blog represents that as well. I have officially gone as far north on this trip as I plan to go (Nanyuki, Kenya, just north of the equator). I made it back to Nyumbani Village where I worked in 2010, and I was able to reconnect with many friends still living in Kenya. I’ve done everything I wanted to do on this trip, and it’s a relief to realize that.

I am currently (back) in Tanzania, on Zanzibar island. I fly back to Chicago on March 10 and I couldn’t be happier about it. I plan to spend a week or so relaxing here on Zanzibar (an actual vacation!) and then flying home from Dar es Salaam.

While I will do a final post about the trip once it’s actually over, I will say that it has been an incredible journey, one that has given me my fair share of surprises and frustrations. Traveling through Africa like this is not exactly a vacation. It often consists of long days driving in a hot van stuffed with locals and livestock, navigating dangerous cities and eating shitty food. But there’s more to life than comfortable vacations, and for me, seeing the way people live across this insane continent has been absolutely worth it.

Here’s some of the lessons learned, surprise revelations, and general thoughts when I look back on this trip:

1. Trusting in people’s innate good nature is makes for a much more enjoyable experience than assuming everyone talking to you is trying to exploit you–people are usually genuinely friendly.
2. Population growth is without a doubt the greatest threat to humans–2050 is sure to be a nightmare.
3. Many people who aren’t American are convinced they understand the U.S.–a little information is more dangerous than none.
4. I breathed in an outrageous amount of exhaust fumes–thank you western world for putting regulations on that shit.
5. We in the U.S. and Canada are lucky to have free access to crazy beautiful public lands–because that stuff is at a premium in Africa.
6. Just because you lead a simple life of cattle herding doesn’t mean you can’t ruin the land–there is serious overgrazing going on throughout Kenya and Tanzania. Also see #2.
7. Driving in Africa is insane–whether it’s the fact that you’re driving (sometimes) on the opposite side of the road, (sometimes) on the opposite side of the car, and always with a variety of men, women, children and livestock  in the middle of the street.
8. Inefficiencies are everywhere–whether it’s the hundreds of people on the street all selling the exact same junk (wallets, USBs, plastic cups, driving manuals, watches and sunglasses), buses that stop anywhere and everywhere to let people on/off, turning a three hour trip into a seven hour nightmare.
9. People are fascinated by a white person doing completely mundane tasks–I regularly had crowds of people gathered around me staring as I ate a sandwich or checked my email in an Internet cafe.
10. People in even the most remote African villages know at least one phrase in English–unfortunately that phrase is “Give me money!”
11. I do not understand this place.

I am relieved the trip is over–it was amazing and arduous, frustrating and exhilarating. It showed the highest highs and lowest lows of the diverse human experience, combining every possible physical sense, thought and emotion into one complex and diametrical conglomeration:

Africa.

Cue the Lion King soundtrack.