Journeys with Janine

Over the vast undulating green hills came the cackles of small children and the chants of native Mammas; the murmurs of Africa that could be heard until the cows came home, and quite literally at that. Where land introduced itself to ocean in a wave of colours, his alabaster skin reflected the sand on which he walked. He was not what I considered your typical African local but I had no doubt that I was the visitor in his home.

As we walked a thousand minute crabs the colour of blood gushed from their hiding holes to the safety of the sea. A coffee colour trickle polluted the swell as the fish eagles above echoed the haunting cries of this majestic land. The brambles overhead where not those of this earth, but aliens that had invaded and destroyed. Our footprints in the sand left cancerous indentations on an otherwise perfect skin.

On the back of an African unicorn, we swam through the estuary and crossed the dirt track dotted with potholes until we arrived at his secret house in the trees. From this perch he watched the invaders steal from his paradise. If he dared to swoop upon them he was threatened with blades of steel and barrels of death. He told me about the animals that once lived there and he showed me the ones that will soon be no more.

At the heart of the wild coast the ‘wild’ had been removed. The rocks were unnaturally smooth and devoid of life, the seas abnormally clear. What appeared untouched to me, the ignorant observer, had been violated to the core. The air was so pure that the scent of the sea clung to every fibre of my being, perhaps in the hope that I could save it, but it was a dying breeze.

I looked over an African utopia as the sun slowly baked me the colour of a creature that once had flourished in these seas. Dazzled by the sparkle of the waves as they reflected the lush forest that balanced on the cliffs above them, I realised that I am not a child of Africa.

Africa is a child of mine, one I need to protect with the utmost of care.