From
Livingstone I took a bus to Lusaka the capital so that I could get a
flight to Ethiopia – my last country of destination (which would also be
the country most challenging and most rewarding to travel in).
From the bus window I decided I liked Zambia (even though it was only a very short time that I had spent there), it was rustic and colourful like West Africa, and most of the people I had met were friendly.
Getting off the bus in Lusaka I met Mika, a 23 year old Israeli girl. Her plan was to backpack around Africa for a year, her reward for completing the prerequisite time in the army.
She had already been to Ethiopia, and loved it! Though her brother lives there with his Ethiopian wife, so I think that made her experience there a hell of a lot easier.
She warned me that Ethiopians are proud but begged shamelessly (I didn’t know at that stage how that could work), she said they are stubborn, scam you and charge you for everything.
“But for every scammer there is a friendly person who welcomes you into their home and shares their food with you. In Ethiopia you never eat alone”.
We had dinner together at an all-you-can-eat Indian restaurant. She gave me plenty of tips about where to go and what to see, I duly noted everything down.
“And fleas… you will get fleas everywhere you go… you just get used to it.”
She said she loved Ethiopia so much that she wished she could go with me. I also wished that she could have. She was cool and insightful and even had very liberal views of the Israel-Palestine war, she had even marched in protest against the occupation.
We spent the next day together at an internet café, we changed money and haggled people to get the right prices for everything. She was so good at bargaining and didn’t take shit from anybody, I was impressed, though every Israeli woman I have ever met has been strong and assertive. However she was impressed with how calmly I refused the not so subtle sexual offers of a guy named God: "I want to feel your warmth" he said holding two fingers up.
Waiting for the plane to Ethiopia I pondered my place in the Southern countries of Africa. And this is what I wrote:
'In West Africa I had wanted so badly not be seen as a typical white person. I made sure I only ate street food, and drank at small bars with locals.
But in South Africa I ended up making friends with white people. I ate in restaurants and drank in bars where white people ate and drank. I stayed in large houses and lodges and went on private safaris and I ended up doing what all white people do here. Black people in Southern Africa are not going to the same places I was going and they are certainly not being served by white people and having white people clean up their mess after them.
My skin is white and for that reason, and that reason only, I have fallen squarely on one side of the racial divide. It couldn’t have happened any other way. That is just how it works here. Maybe it won’t always be like this. Hopefully it wont always be like this. But right now, in 2012 that is just how it is'.
From the bus window I decided I liked Zambia (even though it was only a very short time that I had spent there), it was rustic and colourful like West Africa, and most of the people I had met were friendly.
Getting off the bus in Lusaka I met Mika, a 23 year old Israeli girl. Her plan was to backpack around Africa for a year, her reward for completing the prerequisite time in the army.
She had already been to Ethiopia, and loved it! Though her brother lives there with his Ethiopian wife, so I think that made her experience there a hell of a lot easier.
She warned me that Ethiopians are proud but begged shamelessly (I didn’t know at that stage how that could work), she said they are stubborn, scam you and charge you for everything.
“But for every scammer there is a friendly person who welcomes you into their home and shares their food with you. In Ethiopia you never eat alone”.
We had dinner together at an all-you-can-eat Indian restaurant. She gave me plenty of tips about where to go and what to see, I duly noted everything down.
“And fleas… you will get fleas everywhere you go… you just get used to it.”
She said she loved Ethiopia so much that she wished she could go with me. I also wished that she could have. She was cool and insightful and even had very liberal views of the Israel-Palestine war, she had even marched in protest against the occupation.
We spent the next day together at an internet café, we changed money and haggled people to get the right prices for everything. She was so good at bargaining and didn’t take shit from anybody, I was impressed, though every Israeli woman I have ever met has been strong and assertive. However she was impressed with how calmly I refused the not so subtle sexual offers of a guy named God: "I want to feel your warmth" he said holding two fingers up.
Waiting for the plane to Ethiopia I pondered my place in the Southern countries of Africa. And this is what I wrote:
'In West Africa I had wanted so badly not be seen as a typical white person. I made sure I only ate street food, and drank at small bars with locals.
But in South Africa I ended up making friends with white people. I ate in restaurants and drank in bars where white people ate and drank. I stayed in large houses and lodges and went on private safaris and I ended up doing what all white people do here. Black people in Southern Africa are not going to the same places I was going and they are certainly not being served by white people and having white people clean up their mess after them.
My skin is white and for that reason, and that reason only, I have fallen squarely on one side of the racial divide. It couldn’t have happened any other way. That is just how it works here. Maybe it won’t always be like this. Hopefully it wont always be like this. But right now, in 2012 that is just how it is'.
Unfortunately I'm making the same experiences, no matter how hard I try to stay away from white people and the places they go to, and try to get in contact with black people and integrated in their daily life instead, I also always fall on the same (white) side of the racial divide. It would be a false conclusion to believe that a white person could ever be integrated in a black community and be equally accepted as one of their own. Although there are a few exceptions where white kids grow up alongside black kids (and thus speak their local language fluently) and end up being best friends for life (I happen to work and live with a white guy at the moment who grew up in the Zambian bush and speaks Bemba fluently), but still we only talk about individual friendships and not a full integration in a black community. So yes, its true, that is just how it works here...unfortunately.
ReplyDeleteI came to the conclusion that our way of living and thinking, our beliefs, cultural customs and natural behavior are way too different to ever be compatible for a common life side by side. Hard facts you notice every day around you and which one can't deny.