Living Africa Photo Journal
Haunted by Africa

© Dusk over Moremi. Botswana

Africa - the name inspires, evoking images of a forgotten part of us / our souls - a part that we yearn to embrace or that we attempt to keep hidden far from our present-day ideals. Africa frustrates those who fight its rhythm - and rewards those who surrender to its charms.

Africa is a contradiction - a name so evocative
all have opinions about it.

Africa's great rolling plains, brooding mountains, steaming rivers and vast menagerie of wildlife - combined with intriguing cultures and turbulent history - ensures the continent its foremost position in peoples' ideals.

Here is a place that awes, frustrates and inspires - a place that never allows anyone who has felt the brush of the air to remain silent in expression.

Today

I have been privileged to have experienced varied aspects of the African continent - from hearing the slanted whoop of a hyena carried on the night to seeing the face of an excited little child upon seeing a wild animal for the first time.

I have heard the silences of a desert night, with the only intrusion the thoughts of the mind and seen into the eyes of a blood-splattered buffalo fighting to the death against a pride of lions.

I have heard the terrifying screams of a young girl possessed by the 'Tokoloshe' and the ancient sound of a lion's roar from the edge of wilderness, carrying across time and I have seen a seasons' dust rising from a yearning land - and I have experienced the evocative release of the soul as the season's first rains caress the earth...

I have heard the ideals of those that do not live on the continent, so innocent / self-righteous in misunderstanding ....

I am easily seduced by Africa - the mere whisper of the word sending my mind into dreams of its plains and rivers. I find myself dreaming through books and websites showing the remote regions of Africa - areas such as northern Zambia, Lake Tanganyika and northern Kenya ....

I am haunted by Africa .... Africa haunts me .... a haunting that happens from living Africa every day.

Expressions and impressions of Africa is a collection of thoughts and ideas from the continent's haunting of me - thoughts from a life of living Africa every day.

by Leigh Kemp

South and East African Safaris
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