Women’s Day and You

How is that men are viewed to be more powerful then women?

Why do men in most cases, get paid more then women?
When did it become OK for a man to hit a woman?
Who said a women’s work is never done?

What have we (women) become today and where are we going?

Does society bemoan the truth of the dictatorship. Who really rules the world? Is it a man or is it a woman?

It’s been said, behind every great man… there is a woman.

Yet, our mindset views an imbalance. Zapped through history, the women’s place has been in the home. Barefoot and pregnant.

In a conversation I had yesterday, my African man told me it was Women’s Day in Uganda. (Yes, they’re a day ahead of us.)

He said he would do all the cleaning and all the cooking for me. If I was there.

So that’s what’s expected of our inherited place in societies? That we be the ones responsible for the cooking and the cleaning. I suppose so. Maybe we do a better job? Or maybe we can handle more responsibilities.
In the results driven world of today. Who can accomplish more in one day? A man or a woman?

Today it’s International Women’s Day.

What does it mean to you?

Film Fest Wonders

Please note: The Victoria Film Festival runs February 4-13, 2011.


You won’t discover it unless you go.

Sometimes I pick the movie for the country that it came from. Other times the topic. Outside the box. In a realm unknown. An opportunity to explore.

Not usually a click click click of sights and sounds. Like the art of film. The movies breathe. There is time.

No big box office guidelines. Stars unborn.

Our society is synced on kismet tales of darkness. Or action action action. Three to five second frames. Like your kid playing a video game. Micro attention spans.

It’s the depth I enjoy. Openings into the vast unknowns.

There’s always a surprise. Something good or at times so incredibly bad. Glaring production flaws. Sound checks unheard. It all ravels into one.

Greatness can come out of a no budget flick. It’s all in the topic, the faces and the music.

Tonight I went to the Congo. To hear the “African rhythms in Beethoven.”

A multi-stored doc the description said. Kinshasa Symphony it was named. It was real. So were the people.

You never know from a picture and a description what the movie is really going to be like. Till you go.

A chance to feel the dynamics of outside the big box offices of filmmaking. The genuine craft of film. Love and art. Through a whole lot of heart.

I’ve been to the Congo. Never expected to hear a stringed instrument in the street.

It was captivating. At times moving. But mostly real.

I saw, I heard, I felt, I smiled and I laughed. When the film faded to credits we clapped.

A Film Fest wonder.

Peaks and Valleys

Wherever you go, there you are. Funny how that is. You bring it all with you.

Recently I’ve taken to dawdling. In the sake of self-pity I suppose. Head down, on the ground.

I’m still recovering from my visit to Africa. Where a chunk of my heart got left behind. Yes ouch!

Mostly I attempt to sweat it out. Makes me feel better. But some days it’s carbs and chocolate, tears and pain.

A pal lent me a book. Hoping it might put me straight. I slogged through it. I’ve been back a month. I finished it finally last night.

It’s relieved some sores I have to say. Pema Chodron’s, The Places That Scare You.

It definitely spread my mind. Brought on new thoughts. Grew me some compassion and how to reach it out. It also ambled me into the middle ground. The place of groundlessness.

A weight lifts now when I say to myself, “Keep opening your heart.”  

Yes, keep thy heart open. 
I then remind myself to live for the moment. The future is ahead. No use predicting. Just be open.

There’s the moon and the sun. 
The stars and the sea.

Like the peaks and the valleys.

Take your pick.

2010 Transformed

The Universe talks. I look back and smile. We humans continue to evolve. With age brings wisdom. In time change. Tomorrow will always be different to today. Once what was, may never be - ever again.

I started 2010 off right. I gained the opportunity to help with Right To Play during the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics. I saw, I learn - I was inspired.

Not long after I lit up. A guest post for MISS604 with Mission Emp-ossible. She’s a ladder of knowledge amidst the fray of the Social Media revolution. What a gift.

Never much to travel the same path twice, I take up an ambitious challenge to my psyche. The Challenge Course for BC Bike Race 2010. Truthfully more then a physical dare. A consumption of my senses. Can I maintain the three-hour training rides before work (varnishing old wooden boats) by getting up at 4:15 a.m.?

My son travels to Quebec and wins another Canada Cup downhill mountain bike race. Later relieving himself of the race pace. I acknowledge the bliss by observing him master rugby. Not quite as extreme.

At some point I confront the notion of time. It moves quickly. Never enough of it. Priorities set in. The kayak is sold.

I’m going to Uganda. It’d decided in May. Six weeks in the plan. Fear sets in. Multiple shots soon required.

Volunteerism runs amuck. With the NS Freeride Bike Park FUNdraiser. A James Bond event. Glowing with gambling amid food and delight – at an airport hanger venue no less.

At some point I create my first vision board. “If you could do anything what would you do?” runs the headline.

Number one son graduates. Same school as I. Twenty-eight years later.

Again I ponder the future.  A blog begins. Raincoaster hosts the first of many Skype broadcasts. I absorb. Like a sponge I squeeze it out into words.

Sometime during I develop a new addiction. Riding in a pack. I become a cardio junky. I savour sweet moments with my new found training partner C.C. AKA missy iron legs.

More inspiration sets in. My soul sister and I attend a workshop at Hollyhock on Cortes Island with best selling author, SARK.

Here I declare worthiness. Open-ness to receiving.   

Uganda Wishes erupts.

Soon after I visit the Museum of Flight in Seattle with dear Uncle Len. Historical planes. Preserved in their time.

Then I depart for more change. It’s Uganda. Africa. A chance to look outside myself. Away from the norm.

The weeks pass. Calamity provides. Love ensues. Emotions are tangled. There’s a gap between time. What is. What was.

Back to red lights, buzz of today, text messaging in tribes and recycled garbage.

I divulge 2010 was Facebooked, Tweeted and such. The learning’s were real, the takeaways were more.

Like Kelly said after returning home from Africa, “It’s not about what we can do for them, it’s what they can do for us.”

Humbly I confess, things look differently now.

Goals may change but life hangs on.

People and Purpose is talked.

I admit in the year 2010 I was rushed, addicted, squeezed, stretched, strayed, inspired and later loved but most importantly - I was transformed.

Here’s hoping for peace, love, stability with good health and meaning for all.

Happy 2011 everyone.

Sincerely,

Jane Victoria King

Two is You

“Feel your heart. Let your heart feel mine.”

It went something like that.

I replied with, “Fear.”

He understood.

I had met a beautiful soul.

We’d boda-boda’d. Eaten dinner. Now we were dancing. I was the only mzungu in the place. Three dance floors. Less space as the night went on. Ratio of men to women – ten to one.

We got a crowd. The mzungu shaking it up with the six foot fiver Lugandan man.
There was Ugandan reggae, rap and pop. Some electro.

It was so much fun.

The guard with the gun at the entrance said we could dance till 6 a.m. I was delighted.

Besides a couple water breaks and one game of billiards, we lasted until 2 a.m.

My African man is Muslim. If wealth exists, so he tells me – he can have four wives. I ask him how many so far? He says two.

“One in Uganda and two is you.”

I laugh and squeeze my wrap around his waste.

A pal before I departed Canada predicted I would meet my future husband in Uganda. This rested in the back of my mind.

It’s been almost a week since I left. I mull over what I did do on my African voyage. My six weeks in Uganda. Uganda Wishes.

Many have asked will I return?

At first I thought no. But now my heart sings yes. There’s the northeast to explore. More documentation post election of people and their wishes. Mt. Elgon to climb.

And of course I stray back to my soul, with the African heart and smile to think.
Two is you.

Uganda Wishes – A Conscious Shift

Didn’t take long for me to miss Uganda. Even the chaos. The dysfunction. But mostly – the people.

In discussing the spirit of the people tonight, I uncovered a profound tidbit of consequence. I’m at a Christmas party. Amongst mostly strangers. As I reeled off my opinionated conclusions (see yesterday's post) for Uganda and Africa’s future (Africa is the only one that can help Africa) - I again stumbled upon the question. How can things change from the historical place they have come from?
My question was given an answer with some hope.

The collective conscious can make the change.

That’s what I heard. If the people can come together – many spoke of unity – then a shift is possible.

Peter Tongue is a spiritual grounder. He’s enlightened many. He provided me with this insight.

But how I asked myself as I left the party. How can that happen? What will that look like?

I suppose by people talking about it. By a circle being formed with minds carrying the same wave length. Through prayers for peace. Through innovative conscious awareness that things don’t have to be the same. They can be made better.

The old saying goes – where there is a will, there is a way.

A conscious shift.

That’s the way.

Uganda Wishes - Concludes

It wasn’t my intention when I left Canada to criticize Africa – or Uganda for that matter. Rather to document the hope. Presume the innocent are innocent. Even though I was exploited by veteran visitors not to trust anyone. It turns out, what most said is somewhat true.

Why though? Why is there so much distrust, theft, poverty and corruption in Uganda? In Africa? Aid pours in everyday. Foreigners set up orphanages. NGO’s.

It’s rumoured that profits sit in administrator's back pockets. Lugandans fear help. For each other. Why? Why no trust?

In six weeks I learned how to survive in Uganda. To manage myself. To buy bottled water. To eat cooked foods. To keep my cameras hidden and my money belt inside my skirt at my crotch. To avoid driving into downtown Kampala during rush hour. Full stop.

In the first week I was counting the days. By the second I’d declared utter dysfunction. I was even heard to say, “Africa is fucked.”

But by the third week I’d grown acceptance. In the fourth I was a blended Mzungu. During the fifth and sixth weeks I started to learn the speak and fell in love with a beautiful soul. An African man. A muslim. From Uganda.

Leaving was sad. Very sad. I’d come to know it as home. The early morning sunrises - a cornucopia of colours, lights and sounds. To run before the heat. Before the traffic. To awake with the birds in high treble. The monotones of the garish storks. Always a rooster. Even in the dusk of the still night’s air. Live or canned. Always the sound of music.

Come a Sunday the gospel sway. Everyday early morning prayers. Goats. A cow. Traffic. Non-stop horns honking.

Savvy street smarts when crossing – at anytime. Who to buy fruit from. When to ask what it costs. Clarifying Mzungu or Lugandan prices?

Yes, leaving Uganda has been difficult. Africa is in my heart. But I’ve learned. I’ve spoken to many. Doctors, nurses, teachers, tourism professionals, HIV/AIDS patients, children, teenagers, IT professionals - even housemaids. What keeps these people going in the face of such adversity?

Faith. Their faith. Their belief that God will fight the battle for them.

And hope. There is hope. Their hope lies in stability. Renewed leadership of trust. An end to corruption. Education for all. Skills training. Peace. Peace for stability. Peace for economic development.

But will it happen soon?

At the grassroots level t-shirts wear the words, Peace and stability, or Do you know your child’s HIV status? and Discipline, stamina, knowledge, sills for social and economic transformation…

As I sit aboard a 747 I contemplate again. What can I do? What can the world do?

Unity. Sharing of knowledge. Resources. Spoken from many when I asked for their wish for the world.

How?

A man from the Netherlands sits next to me. He’s an irrigation consultant who has been working in Kenya. He tells me of Transparency International. A public poll of corruption. ID’ing the sources. What’s affected you, by who and how? In Kenya the media is low, the police are high.

Transparency. Will that work to erase corruption? To identify the sources and oust them from power? What if the power is too strong? Like in politics.

I know my wish for Uganda. That people develop trust in one another. To share the wealth. The rich help the poor. The poor know more. Most importantly, for everyone to have an opportunity to learn to read and write. For everyone to have fair access to health care. For the future with a HIV free generation.

Meanwhile, I head back to the comforts of Canada. To a television set. Reliable Internet access. A mobile phone network that can manage the volume. A toilet that flushes. A shower that works. The availability of water – at all times. Power that rarely turns off. The ability to walk into a grocery store and not leave your backpack at the front door. To go to bank machine without a guard with a gun. To walk into a restaurant and not have your bag checked or your body swept with a metal detector. To accept the change as being right when you’ve paid for goods. To not have to lock your bedroom door, your front door and your backdoor during the day when you’re home. To look out the window and there be no metal grates protecting the glass. To walk home and into your front door without a No hawkers allowed sign displayed. To forget about your laundry being hung up overnight on the clothes line and not have to fear it being stolen in the night.

Yes, Uganda is full of mistrust. From the top down. A case of survival? True. But Uganda is also full of beauty.

A lush rich fertile land with sunshine, warm air, night rains, wildlife in their natural habitat and women who everyday look their best. It’s also full of hope. People with dreams and strength to make things better. To improve the lives for everyone.

Peace will come.

It will take time.

Africa will fix Africa.

Uganda Wishes – Bwera Wrapping Up

A view to the Congo.

To think yesterday the whole village ate the cow. (Post originally written Dec. 6).

The clean-up is underway after yesterday’s African wedding celebration for Peter and Natalie. I sit amongst some locals posing for their cameras. Joy is in the air.

I speak to some of the young men. Two want to become doctors, one a lawyer. I listen with hope. They also claim they want access to music. The young villagers are using sticks to play the cultural dancers rhythm box. Slabs of wood. Numbered for tonal definition.

The music box!

It’s time to sit down with Nelson. I watch as men untie the wood framing of the pavilion. We plant ourselves amongst the tear down. Where everything took place yesterday.

He shares with me his wish for Uganda today.

“My wish is improving the livelihood of the people, so the people get land and can match their environment,” he explains.

“For the whole world, I wish for stability. Peace and joy. Where there is peace, there is development. Where there is joy, the development comes in.”

My mind circles around the word infrastructure. Needed first. Accessible water, sanitation (at the camp we have a cement hole the size of matoki in our outhouse). Roads without potholes. A power supply.

Later Nelson takes me for a walk. To the river bordering the Congo and past where some collect water. Also a watering hole for the local waragi – distilled banana hooch.

Coffee trees.

Along the way we pass crops of g-nuts, coffee, vanilla beans, rice, maize, beans, banana trees, palm oil trees, yams, tea, a plant which Nelson claims only two leaves boiled to a bitter two cups of tea cures malaria. Also a tobacco plant. I’m delighted to witness the lush and richness of the land. Scattered mud huts abound. Intertwined soil paths lead the way. We follow a guide.

Vanilla beans.

Women carry water up a steep hill.

Another view to the Congo.

Children entertain themselves in the river floating downstream with Jerry cans. Some splash in from up high.

The river running through the Congo border.

Upon our return trip I discuss with Nelson the fear of disclosure and HIV/AIDS. He explains AIDS is like any other disease. Cancer is in some cases a curable disease. We mope on the stigma around it. He tells me there are songs and drama made for awareness. To shed the right light.

In camp again I sit around idly chatting to more locals. I hear how the cash crops in the area include both coffee and cotton. Cotton sold to the textile industry in nearby Jinja.

The tents frolic about in the wind. I start to think about going back home to Canada. What I will do and how things will be different. Have I changed?

Africa has lots of work to do. To become a country for competition. For advancement. To fill the people’s lives with hope. I imagine positive results for Uganda with the election. An end to corruption. That peace and joy prevail and the hope for the nation will be one filled with freedom. Freedom from HIV. Freedom from corruption. Freedom from the sorrow and poverty.

But if the riches come, will the corruption increase?

The generator blares and the winds continue to stir up dust. I wonder what those back home really know about Africa.

Eventually you find your comfort level in Africa. Then it’s time to leave. You get used to young men walking down the street holding hands. Even younger women wearing children close to their backs. Goats tethered on the sides of the road. Women carrying the weight of water or wood on their heads. Bicycles with barefoot pedalers. Pineapples hanging from rat traps. Men with guns.

What does Africa mean to me? It will take time once I arrive home to answer that. Tomorrow concludes my time in Bwera.

Soon also, my time in Africa. 

Bwera Bound

I take up an opportunity to visit PODA’s project in Western Uganda near the Congo Border with Peter and Natalie Hunt and number of other fellow Canadians. We departed Dec. 2. The next few posts are a catch-up due to lack of Internet access.

Alongside the tea plantations

I left my computer behind. Hope I have enough warm clothes. There’s eight of us in a 10 passenger Toyota van. We’re off. Two wheelchairs on top. If you opened the aft hatch too much would fall out. It’s a seven and a half hour trek. That we know. Bye bye Kampala.

First stop, the drum vendors. On the side of the road. Barter, barter. Some are drunk. We get a bass and a treble sounding one each. By 11 a.m. we’re passing white circles. The Ugandan markers for the equator. The usual amount of produce is sold generously at the sides of the road. A guy walks out with a string of fish as we drive by. We’re near a lake. As we travel further west the density of foliage becomes richer. We see a boda-boda with a speed wobble. No, it’s two people with three goats.

Lunch is a stop in an Indian style restaurant. Here I learn of a wedding celebration on Sunday. Pete and Nat’s. African style. I feel honoured to be able to attend. Apparently the sacrificial cow is already standing by.

On our way again. Another stop by the traffic police. Nat’s driving now. He asks for her International Driver’s license. She says it’s not in her purse but in the back. In English with a accent he explains the importance of having your license next to you when you’re driving.

“When you have a gun – you keep it by your side. Why do you not?” he insists and waves us on.

This after he asks why is it that “she” is driving?

A tea plantation in Western Uganda.

As dusk slopes down we make another stop to photograph the tea plantations. Spectacular. We then cross through Queen Elizabeth Wildlife Refuge. And halt for elephants. Pete caught them in the corner of his eye. More speed bumps, they’re everywhere. Then baboons. Funky faces. Curious.

I ask Pete and Nat why Bwera? They’re tangled with a group called Cobra to build a secondary school.

Pete met Nelson, the on-site project lead for Cobra at Mengo Hospital. Nelson was a guard. He invited him to Bwera to visit his family. That was six years ago.

We arrive at dark. The locals greet us in broken English with “You are welcome.”

The tool shed is then laid out with a tasty African dinner consisting of cabbage, sweet potatoes, beans, g-nuts, pineapple and melon.

Our tent is raised and Colleen (also from Victoria who only arrived to Kampala yesterday) and I are home.

The stars are deep in Bwera. It feels peaceful here. I look forward to the rise of the sun to seep in the surroundings and the progress of the school.

Uganda Wishes - What They Do

Internet has been sketchy again. I’m heading to Bwera tomorrow to help out with Partnership For Opportunity Development Association and return Dec. 8^th so posts may be a little delayed.

Making do. If you don’t know it exists then you don’t need to manifest that you need it. Suppose that’s true.

I’m counting pills in fives. First thirty, then 60. Then 120. Using a tongue depressor. I am thinking there must be a better way.

Everyday at the AIDS Clinic at Mengo Hospital between 100 and 175 patients are seen. Most HIV positive. Most requiring medication. These women that work in the pharmacy have to do this every single day. I’m exhausted after two hours. There must be some modern pill counter I mull over in my head. Like how the banks count money?

But I’m in the groove. I’ve got the fives down. With only some spillage – on the floor.

Kelly adds laughter during pill counting at the pharmacy!

Kelly, who left Mengo yesterday to return home to Victoria jokes with the women in there when I’m there. She manages to talk one of them into playing some music. No CD player. It’s her phone. We get the Ugandan rap and reggae till the battery runs out. Then there’s a scramble for a charger. Oops. No power. We settle for chatter.

I finish up and head down to IT. Data entry.

Esther is a beautiful vibrant young woman. I’d say in her 20’s But when I ask her she won’t admit it. Henry who sits opposite her says African women if they’re over twenty reveal their age less two years. If it’s over 30 it’s five. I give a smirk.

She starts drilling me on Canada. How much does a house cost? What is an average salary?

Esther concludes that if there’s an average salary of say $54,000 (Canadian) and a house is over $500,000 then no problem it wouldn’t take long to save to own one. I laugh. Not a chance.

I start rattling off the costs for medical insurance, phones, taxes, insurance, driving a car, food (way more expensive then here in Uganda), clothing, cable, etc.

Then I sit back. She tells me the average income for a Uganda is not even a third of ours.

No point in voicing my opinion. There’s not much that can be done. It’s what is. We do have so much. Can we live without it?

I tell her she speaks very good English. She tells me she’s trained in Tourism. No jobs though. Took some computer courses. Now she inputs data for the TB patients at the AIDS Clinic. She works from 8 am till 7:30 p.m. five days a week.

I ask her if she could wish anything for Uganda today, what would it be?

“To put education for free. For young children especially. In better schools,” she explains.

Then I ask her about the world. What her wish would be for the world.

“We live in a different pace. They are much better off then us. I wish for them to have Christ. Unity. No racism. To see Africa,” she concludes.

Today I’m walking along the street. Ahead of me are two women carrying some kind of wood. On their heads.

They are in sandals. Heading up a long hill. No wheelbarrow. No bike to put it all on. Only their heads.

They make do with what they have. It’s what they do.

Do we?

How is Your Life?

“Do what you like, but like what you do,” dear old dad used to say.

I contemplated those words today as I walked the streets of Kampala. What if you did what you did because you had to? Suppose you didn’t have a choice?
No way out.

One of my housemates at Mengo Hospital, Kelly, also from Victoria and myself came across a young boy lying face down on the street. He was sleeping in the shade. On the cement. In bare feet.
We’d seen him there the day before. Hand out. Looking for money. As we pass by Kelly invokes an earlier conversation we’d had around poverty. The issue of HIV amongst the less serving.  The high incidence of the incurable disease amongst the poor.

Together we theorize the way out of the HIV/AIDS crisis in Africa is to end poverty. But how? Africa’s not the only continent with poverty issues.

As we scurry past him Kelly remarks if she had Abbey, the leader of the African Hearts’ contact information – she could of given it to him. Abbey has assisted many young boys leave the streets and find hope and family for their future with the help of music.

Good idea I say. I totally agree. To show him a new path. To find a new road to travel on. One without a hill or any speed bumps.

I’ve been contemplating the income generating ideas HIV mothers have grabbed onto. Basket and mat weaving is one. Beads for necklaces another. Sewing up clothing and bags.

Why can’t Africa become the next China for manufacturing? Give somewhere for this young population to grow into.

Next week I travel to Bwera to help out with PODA (Partnership for Development Association). They’re building a school.

I have heard from Natalie and Peter that one of their plans is to build an area where the women and girls can hang up their laundry. Because when the women menstruate they can’t go to school. They don’t have access to the sanitary napkins and tampons as such as we do in the developed countries. So they wanted to make sure they had an area private where they could hang their laundry. Without shame.

Since my son was born, I’ve been using Luna Pads during my cycle. To cut down on garbage and they’re recyclable.

I show one to Natalie. She asks if I can bring it to Bwera so the women can make a pattern.

No problem I think to myself. How easy it would be for them to make them. No more missing school. A possible income generating project?
Perhaps. But more importantly. A road for opportunity. So when one asks “How is your life?”

The reply will be, “Perfect.”

Uganda Wishes - The Flip Side

Needed to get out of Kampala for a bit. My room mate at Mengo Hospital, Jennifer and I took a bus trip to see the Murchison Falls.

Once outside Kampala you get a feel for Uganda. For Africa. Lush green countryside with intermittent cement or brick homes. Palm trees. Smooth roads. Termite mounds. No forests. Long grasses. She breaths. Police checkpoints.

I leave my computer behind.
Roadside markets. Vegetables. Tomatoes piled in pyramids. They make do with what they have. No dwelling on what they don’t have. Clearly there is acceptance for what is.

Further away, rolling hills. Cows lie down on the side of the road. Goats eat tethered up. Cell phone towers stand up. Wells pump water into yellow Jerry cans. Children line up and wait. I ask myself at one point. Have I been here before? Maybe in another life?

Bananas are everywhere. Bundles of green bananas laden bicycles. It’s amazing what can be carried.

Garbage is burned. Smouldering plastics.

Walking roadside I see many. Where are they going? No one speaks.  A young girl in a purple dress waves as we drive by. Does she know us?

You feel the country. I see Africa now. Huts crop up as we get deeper. Clay round huts with straw roofs. Children standing naked at the door. Bright coloured laundry hangs outside.

Out of nowhere “God is Great” is painted onto a roadside building.

Corn grows in front yards. More traffic police. Today my family seems a world away.

Bicycles lean on kickstands at the side of the road - alone.

Boda-bodas are washed in streams. Men piss freely into the ditches. 

These are only my casual observations.

Women laden heavy on their heads move to the side for car horns. Horns honk a lot. No one gives you the finger.

Soon we see baboons. Slowly they cross the road. A red road. One road - two tire treads. Red dust. Oncoming drivers flick their lights to say hello. No police now.

We’ve reached a wildlife refuge.

It’s a poem of nature.

This is my respect for Uganda. Protection of their wildlife.

We look beyond ourselves when we come to Africa. You see the outside then when you spend time you get in on the inside. With a naked eye.

We roam Murchison Falls. I ask our guide for his wish for Uganda today.

Discipline, stamina, knowledge, skills for social and economic transformation (shirt back).

“To stay in peace,” he says. “Especially with the politics of Uganda. Peace forever. Not to keep grumbling for leadership. The tourism industry needs it to be a peaceful country.”

His answer is the same for his wish for the world.

“Peace.”

We’re dropped off to the Red Chilli Rest Area where we’ll be camped out in tents. All of a sudden the full orange moon appears. Like magic. Round, just like the world.

Only love will heal the wounded.

Only love will heal this world.

Only love.

Here is the other side of Africa.