Zimbabwe Redux

I've never been to Africa. I think I have always wanted to go because growing up watching Tarzan on TV with Ron Ely screaming and swinging from some big vine in the middle of the jungle made it so appealing... Keep your jokes to yourself.

Actually, I believe there is very little jungle in Africa, it's mostly savanna in the middle except for the Congo and desert in the north and parts of the south. In fact TV's Africa looked more like India. I think most of the continent looks more like the King Solomon's Mines Africa with Stewart Granger. But the fantasy is still there, plus I have the subconcious pull of going back to the homeland. You know they say that everyone is originally from Africa, black, white and everything in between, so I have a longing just to be there.

Since I don't have the type of job that would send me to any part of Africa on business or anything else, I would have to go under my own steam and with my own resources. That would probably mean that I wouldn't be able to do the climb up Mount Kilimanjaro, or the 4 week safari on the Serengeti with native bearers and Deborah Kerr or Meryl Streep holding on to my arm for protection against wild game. No, it would probably be the trip where I would probably be caught in the middle of some sort of blood diamond conflict, or a revolution where because I am so dark I would be mistaken as a member of tribe and with my luck the wrong tribe at that.

Maybe even worse than that would be to be struck down by disease in some shit hole of a town that my local travel agent recommended only because they were grateful for a commision. Malaria would be the obvious one I think to send me shivering in the middle of the night, completely delerious and out of my mind to meet the maker, but now they say that cholera seems to be breaking out and spreading from Zimbabwe. Apparently close to 1000 people have died from the disease since their last general election and there are are many more people who are infected with limited opportunities of receiving adequate healthcare. There are also signs that the disease is spreading into the neighboring countries. Thus Zimbabwe is again becoming another threat to the stabalization of the region.

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Cholera, who the hell dies from cholera these days?

I have tickets for Paris next week, but for personal reasons and mistakes that I've made in my thought patterns I don't think that I will be able to make it. So Europe and Africa are out for me right now and I definitely can't afford Asia, so I am left once again with staying home this holiday season, going back to Florida or having thoughts of Hoboken NJ. Don't ask.

As usual, I can't make my mind up.