Terra Incognita

Unknown land.  Internal arrangement undetermined.  Here there be dragons.

The Dark Continent.

What is it about one enormous mass of land, supporting countless hundreds of legacies and ethnicities and cultures, that has created such singular grotesque intrigue in the imaginations of those progenitors of the modern West?

Eden.  Land of Lucy.  Where it all began.

There is another side of the same coin, equally obscured by mystery, but this time the obfuscation is accomplished by elevation rather than fog.  Somewhere deep in our collective unconscious, we all seem to have a sense that we have a genealogical home on Earth.

Football and rugby.  Rand and kwatcha.  God and zebras and endless music.

The day to day of a billion souls under solid ground and a blue sky.

Eighty hours prior to my departure, I sit in this coolish room damp from Huron and pre-winter winds, wondering if it is possible or desirable to tease apart the stereotype, and the archetype, and the reality that is Africa.  Like the awkward man in the Toto song, I have these images and legends and they're all from books, because the folks who have been there all seem to have the same look in their eyes; none of them can quite tell me what it is that I will come to know.

And I'm acutely aware that it doesn't really matter, because in a week, God willing, I will be on African soil.  As I am going to a village that is home to fifty-thousand, I cannot discover anything but shrouded shadows of myself; and yet, somewhere in the depths of the spirit of that land, I suspect that there could be discovery in a fashion that I cannot presently imagine.  All my life I have suspected that there may be answers for which there are no questions, and right now I have a naive feeling that some of those answers might well be in the rains of Africa.

I'll find out next week, and I'll try to let you know.