Alphabet Travel

‘We buy all kinds of crap,’ Seth is telling me, ‘Actually, it’s you – you buy all kinds of crap.’
We’re in our new flat unpacking boxes and he’s holding up a solar powered plastic chicken which shakes its head from side to side. I bought it in South Korea last year and it makes me smile whenever i look at it. Ok, so it may have no actual function, but i glance at it and i am back in Seoul, which is kind of brilliant. What both of us are discovering right now, as we sift through the life we put on hold for six months, is that we have managed to bring nothing (material) back with us from Africa. Nothing that will provide that same sense of transportation, however brief. Six months, twenty four countries, and all we have to show for it are: an assortment of unusual stones/some newspaper pages that made me laugh (‘Animals Rule Our Town!’, ‘Dead Man Tells His Story’)/an empty bottle of Tembo beer from the DRC, because its old and has ‘Zaire’ printed on the label/a couple of Nigerian movies and the hysterical song, celebrating fraud, ‘I Go Chop Your Dollar!’/a stash of my favourite strawberry Lux soap from South Africa, and one – ONE- genuine souvenir; an applique showing the animal symbols of the Dahomey kings, from Benin. Other than those, what i pull out of my rucksack are clothes damaged beyond repair, old tickets, leaflets and bottle tops, books that look like they’ve been buried in the Sahara and notes, barely legible. It is a bit like sifting through the belongings of a madman. Outside the sun is shining and Oxford is its usual self. Very soon, both of us will be back at work, and i will begin in my free time to write up the manuscript describing the journey we have just taken – a journey that ended just 48 hours back but already feels insanely remote and distant. Continue reading »

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This is Lu’s fourth video, running from the Congo to Namibia. The music is No Time, by P-Square. Click to buy their album

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Here’s Lu’s third video, from Ghana to Congo Republic. The tune this time is Do Me, by P Square, another N-Pop band.

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Lu’s second video, from Gambia to Ghana. The tune is Masiteladi, by Amadou and Mariam, a blind duo from Mali. Check out their album, Welcome to Mali, it’s great.
Click to Buy Welcome to Mali, by Amadou and Mariam

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Lu’s first video, from Morocco to Gambia. The tune is by Bracket, Yori Yori.