Sex in Two and a Half Minutes

Swaziland is a sexy country. Perhaps this is why, a decade ago, it lost a quarter of its population to HIV/AIDS and continues to have the highest prevalence of HIV in the world. Perhaps this is why last week in clinic,  I had an 83 year old man asking for help to maintain his erections. Or…

Summer Flowers in Malolotja

Walking Safari in Kruger National Park

“Nothing but breathing the air of Africa, and actually walking through it, can communicate the indescribable sensations which every traveller of feeling will experience” William Burchell, Travels in the Interior of Southern Africa (1824) Yaybo! We staggered out of our tents in Lower Sabie at 4am into the gloaming. The birds were already tweeting away when I made…

Walking on Water

The grey heron looks as though it is walking on water. In the hippo pool close by Lower Sabie Campsite, Kruger National Park, South Africa.

Meeting with the Ministry

Perhaps the cause is el Nino. It is supposed to be summer, but the weather is foul. Dirty-grey clouds were scudding over the peaks on either side of the valley road to Mbabane. But this persistent, mizzling rain is not enough to break the drought. We need heavy downpours. Last week, the temperature hit 40C,…

Bushman Rock Art

The indigenous San people lived as hunter-gatherers in Southern Africa for thousands of years before Bantu people migrated from Central Africa about 1,500 years ago. Laurens van der Post brought them to the public eye as the “Bushmen of The Lost World of the Kalahari” shown on BBC TV in 1956. Between 400 and 4,000…

You buy everything on the street in Mozambique

All the car spare parts shops are painted egg yolk yellow. The plastic bags contain cashew nuts. The white liquor is palm wine, the orange bottles contain peri-peri. There is charcoal in the blue and white sacks. I missed the best shots: A lady carrying an axe on her head, sideways, with the blade over…

Adventure to Ihla de Inhambane

The double sea kayak just didn’t want to go in a straight line. Robin was the powerhouse in the rear, I was up front, trying to establish a nice gentle rhythm with some steady, regular strokes. The rudder’s wiring had been disconnected, so it should have been Robin’s responsibility to steer. But he was more…

Moving in Mozambique

The most common form of transportation in Mozambique is the pickup truck. The idea is to pack in as many paying customers as you can. It doesn’t matter if they are going to market or church. Perhaps it is safer if they are all crammed in like cattle. To be fair, when they do transport…

Inhambane – Terra de Boa Gente

Over 500 years ago, the Portuguese explorer, Vasco da Gama, sailed through a gap in the sandbanks protecting Inhambane Bay from the breakers of the Indian Ocean. He took on provisions and was so impressed by the friendliness of the locals that he called it “Land of the Good People”. Five hundred years before him, ocean-going…