Tag Archives: Politics, history, and culture – The streets were clean, the stop-lights worked, the road lines were being freshly repainted. It was hard to believe that exactly twenty years ago, one of the most widely-publicized genocides in history was planned and executed from here. We were driving into Kigali, and I had expected anything but this.  We followed in the footsteps of David Livingstone along Lake Malawi and the lush hilltop town of Livingstonia. It taught me a lot about missionaries, slavery, and the legacy of a great explorer.  Malawi feels like the poorest country I have ever been to in Africa – and I’ve been to quite a few of them now. In fact, according to most statistics, Malawi is one of the 10 poorest countries in the entire world. It shows.  Here I was in Zambia for the first time, and all I could do was compare it to Zimbabwe, where I had lived for over a year. The two countries share a similarity in name, culture, food, and history, after all. But for all the similarities, Zambia felt different – like a Zimbabwe minus Mugabe. It felt good to be in Zambia.  Today I got to see something quite cool right here, on the farm – bushman cave paintings! Who were the bushmen? They were the indigenous inhabitants of Southern Africa. Short in stature with a hunter-gatherer lifestyle, they roamed the plains of Zimbabwe for over 1000 years before anyone else set foot on these lands. In […] |
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