Archive for October, 2008
Diving Mozambique
Monday, October 20th, 2008
I am back underwater. In salt water. Where I should be. This is my special little quiet place – the ocean. I can soar above the reef, or hang upside down peeking under overhangs, or meditate to the only sound around – my breathing.
Yes, this would be time well spent relaxing. Trouble is, my nirvana is constantly interrupted by fantastically colorful creatures of all shapes and sizes. Even though my strobe has been recently flooded and now I am left with just my tiny point-and-shoot camera in an underwater housing, I can’t fight the urge and at least try to capture the beauty.
It is hard to believe you are not hallucinating on some psychedelic drug when a blue and white thumbprint floats by, followed by a purple jewelry box with orange polka-dots and a propeller. When something called clown fish inquisitively looks at you from a bush of wobbly fingers. When sharks the size of whales pass overhead like winged blimps, it’s hard to convince yourself you haven’t lost your mind.
Nitrogen accumulation and the need for air limit my diving to a little less than an hour. Perhaps it’s a good thing. Otherwise, I would probably decide to never come back up.
Posted in Places»Africa»Mozambique | No Comments »
Hopping Passports, Crossing Borders
Sunday, October 19th, 2008
Crossing to Malawi from Zambia, I tried to hop passports. Previously, I’d managed to enter Zambia from Namibia on my Israeli passport and avoid paying extra eighty green ones which I’d be charged if I’d entered on my US one. But now I needed to switch back, and the Malawi immigration officer wouldn’t hear any of my very persuasive arguments. Before I knew it, I was flying off the handle, and the man refused to let me into his country because I have “disappointed an immigration official!” In cases like that, I play the woman card. No, I didn’t start crying. Counting on small men in high places of third-world countries to be a bit chauvinistic, I blamed my outburst on “that’s how women get sometimes”. It worked, and in all the commotion we left the immigration offices without even stopping at the customs counter, thus avoiding the fees for the car.
Not having papers proving we’d paid custom fees could cause problems when exiting Malawi. But we presented our park permit from the Department of National Parks and Tourism, and the big shiny Malawian coat of arms on that paper made enough impression to grant us our very last free pass in Malawi – across the border.
I was worried that on the Mozambican side the same problem would come up, and kept my big mouth shut in the immigration office. The officer turned out to be a strictly-by-the-book official who gave us a half-hour lecture on the importance of putting the entrance stamps in the “arrival” columns, and exit stamps in the “departure” columns. Nevertheless, I successfully hopped passports again at that border. I already had a visa to Mozambique in my American one, and, surprisingly, the officer did not bother checking my exit stamp.
Posted in Places»Africa»Malawi | No Comments »
Lengwe NP
Monday, October 13th, 2008
we are still debating whether he was cleaning his horns or fighting with his own reflection.
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Five Kilometers to Adventure
Sunday, October 12th, 2008
Travel Africa by car; go ahead, I dare you. Flat tires and sore bottom from endless dirt roads are guaranteed, and so is a generous load of adventure. During our driving trip to Central America, we had our self-fixed 1971 VW old-timer GreenGo, and in six months it took us to drive it from Florida to Honduras and back, we haven’t had half the trouble we are now having with 1997 Toyota Hilux named “Columbus”, which is on loan and was supposed to be fixed up by professional mechanics for our nine-country loop from Cape Town.
( Funny things have been happening from the very beginning… )
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On Africa’s People
Friday, October 10th, 2008
It has just occurred to me how little I’ve told you about how beautiful African people are. Photographing them, I cannot escape the repulsive thought that by doing this without their prior consent I treat them a bit like the animals in the national parks we visit. We sneak up to a watering hole and lay in wait, camera ready, until a graceful impala stretches her neck, or a careful mother baboon gently carrying her young bends down to the water. Click! I am fascinated by all of Africa’s inhabitants. I respect them and try to do my best to understand them. It just so happens that communication with people rather than with animals can sometimes be more off-putting, and I find myself preferring to do this from the distance my lens allows me.
Every day I am impressed by how strong and self-sufficient African people are from a very tender age. On Lake Malawi, I watch children as young as seven carry big metal buckets into the lake, fill them up with water, then dive under the bucket and carry it away on their head. I watch children build fire, catch fish, and cook it on that fire. I watch them wash their own clothes, too, though this task is mostly done by women. If you spend your day by the lakeshore, it might seem like that’s all they ever do – wash and sing. As one woman leaves with a load, another one is already at the water’s edge, taking off her head an overflowing bin of colorful fabrics. They all wash clothes in the same manner – the right leg is held straight and remains in the water, while the left leg is bent, allowing the left elbow to rest on its knee. I keep admiring their bodies, usually perfectly fit. I couldn’t find one man or woman who were not in prime physical shape. I look at the pictures that I took of them, then at the pictures of me, and (without fishing for compliments) they definitely look better in a chitenge.
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Diving Lake Malawi
Thursday, October 9th, 2008
Ten meters deep in Lake Malawi, I realized that it was my first scuba dive in fresh water. “I can drink it while I dive!” I thought, but didn’t risk trying. Usually, I don’t get cold while diving, given that I have the right equipment. I move around so much taking pictures that it keeps me warm; besides, I am usually so enchanted by what I shoot that I don’t notice the temperature. But in the lake, I did get cold. Not because everybody had long wetsuits, and I insisted on diving in a shorty, but because I was a bit bored. I think, I’d been spoiled by the shapes and colors of the Caribbean underwater, so Lake Malawi’s various cichlids, though colorful but similar to one another, didn’t impress me much.
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African Sunset
Wednesday, October 8th, 2008
never get tired of an African sunsets…
Posted in Places»Africa»Zambia | No Comments »
