The African Heartbeat
Music is a huge part of my life. Ever since I was a little girl I would play tapes at home and walk around the room dancing and singing along. My mother always played a lot of Portuguese music, which is both lyrical and melodic, to acquaint me with the artistic cultural roots within me. Since then I’ve always loved playing music: my instrument is my voice, I absolutely love singing and could never see my life without it. It’s my means of complete... Read More
Oh, Africa!
entrance to Arusha on my way from work, taken from a dalla dalla My friend Dominic has a really simple, yet rather ingenious way of setting the tone and atmosphere of his emails. Right at the top of his text he names a song, and shares its link for me to listen to as I read the email. It’s normally a song that has recently inspired him. So I’ve decided to adopt this “gift” and do the same in my posts for Go Girl. Music not... Read More
I Dreamed of Africa
I Dreamed of Africa is the title of the book, by Kuki Gallman, that has accompanied me on my first few days in Arusha, Tanzania. A beautiful, auto-biographical love story between the author and her husbands, children and this incredible continent:I see so much of the Africa I once dreamt about depicted in her stories. Unlike her, I can’t really remember when I first dreamt of this vast, diverse and extraordinary continent. It was a gradual adoration... Read More
Visiting Africa
If you’re an enthusiastic GoGirl planning on traveling to Africa, I have a few words of advice for you. After having been in Tanzania in East Africa for little over a month now, I feel that I’m actually in the position to offer somebody some semi-experienced advice (for once!). First, congrats on taking a big leap into one of the more unknown, adventurous, stigmatized and “misunderstood” of the continents. Africa is a beautiful place, deserving... Read More
Tanzania Bound
I have always thought that airports are fascinating places. The constant influx of people, arriving and departing from all over the world, luggage in hand and a destination in mind. Some frantic, some calm, shuffling and striding to the correct terminal. Husbands waiting impatiently for their wives to arrive from a recent vacation in Spain, children running into the arms of their fathers–who knows whens the last time they have been together.... Read More
How to be a Cheapskate… Overseas
I once slept here for a night because I was too stingy to get a hostel. But you don't have to be that cheap... I’m a cheapskate. Honestly. For many people, the words cheapskate and traveling have no place beside one another in a sentence, but I’ve made it work, and have made it to four continents without ever having a ‘real job’. Few people are ever exposed to the inner-workings of my cheap mind, as you would be... Read More
Makeup
Faia comes up behind me, close. You can smell the cologne he’s wearing. It’s an athlete’s cologne, a small spritz and it’s like he’s freshly showered. A cologne of physical power and sexual success, or perhaps it’s the way he wears it that pronounces these two qualities. He plays ever-so-lightly with my hair. “You’re beautiful, you know,” he says to me. “Você é muito linda.” In his head it’s... Read More
This is the last post I will write from Africa.
This is the last post I will write from Africa. On Saturday, I leave Côte d’Ivoire. I have a brief two day layover in Yaoundé, Cameroon (where I studied abroad last semester). Then it’s back to the USA – first Washington, DC, and then finally, finally home. I’ve been in Africa for six and a half months. Time has been a strange thing – days feel like weeks but somehow the weeks accumulate quickly. Now that I have only days left, hours are... Read More
More Zanzibari antics! :)
Another stunning day on Zanzibar island. It’s so hot today — about 36 degrees I think — and the sea is so warm it’s like getting in a bubble bath…not very cooling but still one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen! After cooking in the sun for a good few hours we decide to take cover at a local restaurant for lunch which makes their own pizza…..amazing! On our way up to Eric’s shop everyone wants to stop... Read More
Michaela Finaly Arrives in Zanzibar!
Thank goodness! I have somehow managed to get through the 10 hour coach journey from Arusha to Dar (from one side of Tanzania to the other). After arguing with a man who I thought was trying to run off with my luggage for about 15 minutes, me and my Friend Fran get in to one of the million taxis and head to a hotel for the night. Cant wait for the morning to get to Zanzibar! Yawn…I get woken up at 6:30am by the guy working at the hotel. He has picked... Read More
