Tag Archives: travel

Zambia Travel Diary – Day 12

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2015.19.21 11.16  I don’t feel a lot about leaving. I don’t know why. Maybe because I’m so inspired for the rest of my life to continue, inspiration usually comes after travel, but maybe because I’ve been here so long, it has already managed to sink in.

15.30 This is not sad, because this is not going home, it’s travelling to yet another place and then you go somewhere else from there.

16.04 I’ve never been interested in finding myself, I think while on the bathroom at Lusaka airport. If I was, I think airports would be a good place to look.

Anyway.

I read about bicycling in the magazine on the plane, and while sitting here it makes me want to be on a bike instead, inhaling fresh air, seeing bright colours and feeling my muscles work. I want to travel by my own strength. Maybe not far, but at least a walk through the woods when I get home.

20.50 At the airport in Addis Ababa. It’s a good one. If I were to travel the world I think I’d like it here. It’s not too big, but not small enough to not feel international. People of different cultures everywhere, the most beautiful Ethiopian scarves in the gift shops and a prayer room at the end of the corridor. The cafés are crowded as well, and they remind me of how the streets outside might be (not as if I know that) with traditional coffee making and people laughing.

Also they have these chairs everywhere that you can lean back in so they become almost like beds. When we finally found an unoccupied one (and now we found two more) I left my bags there and went to look around. I must have looked a bit strange. With no luggage, taking really slow steps and just walking around looking with a blank expression and soul far away in some way, while still being very present, maybe the deepest form of present, because I’m aware that I am. And maybe the least deep form. Then again, no one was probably looking at me.

I’ve been living in that good place in my head ever since I saw The Secret Life of Walter Mitty and it changed me in the way good art does. It was beautiful, and inspiring, and maybe actually the sort of thing you should watch before you travel, and I knew of it because of a song from the soundtrack that my dance group danced to once. In the movie they played it during the credits and I just leaned back and listened to it while the lights of Addis Ababa closed in underneath our wings. White lights from buildings and yellow from the vein-like streets. Yes.

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Zambia Travel Diary – Day 11

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2015.09.16 16.19  Lord, give me patience. I’m getting bad again. My head. My patience. My ability to deal with myself when it comes to control of creativity and the irritation of people that irritate me, I’m torn between believing the fault is not in them and not caring because I’m still annoyed.

16.53 I’ve written about this on this blog before, but a few years ago I realised that moving away from home probably wouldn’t make me sad. It escalated to the point where I thought not moving away from home would make me sad. Now it’s easier, travelling is better because obviously I’m not as focused on my family. But then comes the normality of it. Or not really normality I suppose, but when the amazing strangeness of travelling becomes everyday life. My mind falls back into my body, and I’m conflicted again. I spend more time being annoyed, or doubting myself. But I don’t think I’m the type of person that by force of restlessness never will be able to settle down. Maybe it’s just that I need the passionate friendships of youth, and to be more with people who grow with me, are the same size, look at me and see me.

21.30 I finished ‘I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings’ by Maya Angelou. It was amazing. It’s the first part of her autobiography, and I find it difficult to believe that a woman can have experienced all that in her early years, while I also understand that obviously that woman can become nothing less than extraordinary.

21.45 Sometimes I wonder what things humans would be if we didn’t die every night. I helped my brother with his english homework a few hours ago and while explaining the Swedish translation of ‘subconsciously’ the word suddenly lost all it’s meaning to me. You know the way words do sometimes, but I realised it only happens in night time. In the morning language is fresh. New. It grows old, like we do, both over spans of decades and periods of hours. It’s such an amazing thing, such a well thought out plan, to give us this rest so that during the day we can actually be awake and ride our roller coasters of up and down, because we forget anyway so why does it matter. (But some nights I walk above my mind, thread the thread binding awareness and hours, and sometimes I know, sometimes I almost know, before it slips away from me, forever, again and again.) (We’re not kids anymore and we don’t have the hope of a million more nights.)

22.14 Lusaka is such a quiet city. You hear the dogs bark. Birds sing in the morning and cicadas after sunset, but the sound of cars only passes by every few minutes and voices are rare, music and laughter not often close by. It sings a quiet song. (goodnight)

22.27 You have a nice garden, right Father? Take me anywhere on this earth, but I know you have a nice garden. (The music I listen to sounds like water drops falling off leaves).

Zambia Travel Diary – Day 10

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Do you know who Casey Neistat is? Shame on you if you don’t, he’s awesome. And many years ago he made this video:

The Devil’s pool is this natural swimming pool just at the edge of the Victoria falls. When I found out we were going to to Zambia, I never even thought of actually going there. But we did.

I don’t even know what to say about it. Adrenaline rush turned into laughter, I smiled until the wind turned my open mouth dry. We got to lean over the edge as well. The guide held my feet and I lay on my stomach, arms stretched out and face pointing down. I saw the fall, but also just so much water. The rainbows. Like I got thrown into a happy hurricane, I wish I could be there always.

Zambia Travel Diary – Day 9

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2015.09.14 22.12 “You want to stay here forever?” Our safari guide said while we took a break to stretch our legs by the Zambezi river. He was really sweet, polite in a way you could be to friends and not “rich white people” and he knew everything about the animals and different uses of plants. Strong cheekbones and kind eyes, the type of person who seems quiet, regardless of how much they speak. I answered “What?” and he repeated the question.
“Yes. Yes I do.” I said but followed him and my family back to the car.

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There was something about the temperature. I’ve been spending so much time getting too hot and cooling down, sweating and freezing, that the perfect weather soothes my skin and mind in waves of wind. We sat by the Zambezi river, where it’s still calm and not rushing down the Victoria falls, and I, someone who sleeps with three covers in the middle of summer, wasn’t freezing. My body totally relaxed. The definition of warm wind was blowing past and the late afternoon sun managed to keep the temperature from getting too high while still not making a single chill rung through me.

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We continued on our safari after that, took pictures of elephants and impalas. And here I’d been thinking I would need to borrow my mom’s camera, since my 50 mm lens has no zoom whatsoever, but it turns out zoom wasn’t needed.

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We had to leave the car and walk to the part of the park where the rhinos where.

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Also I stole a part of a roof and put it in my notebook

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A lot of trees are very short since the elephants break them down with their trunks.

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Earlier in the day we went to the Victoria falls as well, but we’re going back tomorrow so I’ll have even more to show you! Goodnight.

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Zambia Travel Diary – Day 7-8

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2015.09.12 20.04 We haven’t had electricity all day so we went out for lunch. I had some fruit salad thing with yoghurt and honey, because when your parents pay you might as well.IMG_2941

I’ve thought about sensitivity today. In the way you use the word when describing personalities. I pick up others’ feelings so easily, as if I constantly go around just waiting for something to exchange my own ones with. Or like I have no guard, just let it change me. I thought about it because I can get so annoyed with people who complain a lot and really radiate that they’re unhappy or irritated. And usually it’s not their fault, fault is such a flawed concept, it’s just that they don’t work like that and might just need to say what they think even though they might not feel it very strongly. And maybe it’s something I haven’t thought about because I take for granted that everyone is like me, and so it turns into the height of egoism, to constantly go around putting people down. And maybe part of why I dislike conflict so much, I can’t inflict pain without hurting.

Completely unrelated, but because the power’s off we’ve been introduced to our housemates; the cockroaches. It presents the perfect test of relationships, killing cockroaches. Something I would like to do with a possible future husband. When everyone’s a bit irritated with each other and someone feels something in their hair and you scream and don’t know who’s gonna koll it or who’s gonna have the few flashlights you own. I’m not even kidding. I’m curious. Would you kill the person with the spray that’s made for the insects? Then they probably weren’t made for you anyway. In all seriousness though, I’m gonna stop writing now, it feels like the light attracts the bugs.

2015.09.13 21.53 I really want to go to sleep, so I’m just gonna do a quick recap of the day in list form, since that feels faster.

  • This morning I actually remembered my glasses, and the outfit combined made me look like a pretentious hipster. My dad confirmed that by saying I looked like someone who could sit and read at a café in New York.
  • We spent 7 hours in the car, heading from Lusaka to Livingstone and the Victoria Falls. We bought sugar canes as a snack along the way. Also, when we stopped to eat sandwiches, someone jumped off their bike and just stood a few metres from us, watching us eat. We’re like exotic animals.
  • The hotel we stay at is amazing, I like it here. But when pulling my shirt up to see what was itching I realised that I have red rashes all over my upper body. I’ve been feeling weird the whole day, so I think it’s just heat rashes because my body hates me and is always either too warm or too cold, but I’ll have to look it up when I get home and see if there’s something I can do about it. (Edit: I haven’t)
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Driving through Zambia

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Buying sugar canes

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Zambia Travel Diary – Day 5

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2015.09.07 11.36 It’s easier for me to feel alone here because I don’t understand. It’s foolish, maybe, of me to look at people and think I know them through my first judgemental presumptions. But I do. And usually they’re close to me. Most people I see, I see a lot, and I like to imagine I solve them like puzzles even though maybe I don’t. Here I can’t even pretend. I look at people and my mind doesn’t trick me into believing I know what’s inside their heads when they look at me. I know that we’re similar all over the world, humans with sparkling nerve-endings and weird theories, but cultures still manage to change us until we don’t recognise each other. Myself as much as anyone else. I wish I could be here long enough to learn how they think, and that we could look the same and erase any visible distance.

12.00 My book is so good. The Ocean at The End of The Lane by Neil Gaiman. Like daang, it might be one of the best ones I’ve ever read.

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22.16 The streets are different here. If you were to drive to the sister of the woman my uncle’s marrying, it’s a right left right left, and you pass by kids walking around in school uniforms, people selling fruits and marble columns. And I found a nice book store today, in one of the slightly fancy shopping malls. Self help book after self help book and tons about business and career, but they had some fiction too (That’s what you need, learn to see from that, learn to see from that).

(2015.09.08 00.04 I just finished my book, The Ocean at The End of The Lane by Neil Gaiman. I think it’s one of my favourites. It’s small in a way, not high and mighty, bigger on the inside. Not bound by logic in a way that’s inspiring, and magic seeping through every letter into my heart.)

Zambia travel diary – Day 4

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(2015.09.05 I’ve got the world’s greatest grandma. She says she doesn’t care what colour her hair is so when I added some pink to mine she said I could add some to hers too. I put it at the back of her neck, because she suggested a pink fringe but I think it would’ve made mum a bit mad.

(Okay, so apparently that’s all I wrote that day))

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My grandmother. This picture doesn’t look like her. Not like her personality, the way good photos sometimes do, but it looks like someone so I like it anyways.

2015.09.06 I’ve lost count of the days. Or the energy to count them. Maybe that says more. I’m in that moment of wanting to express everything, because what even is my life, at the same time as I’m living a lot, thank you very much, so I’m not sure as to when I should find time for that expression.

Today I went to a kitchen party. It was different. Try to imagine the most stereotypical traditional african party, but then mixed with I don’t even know. It’s one of the ceremonies leading up to the wedding and the woman getting married is brought in covered with a chitenge (piece of fabric in bright patterns that they make clothes of or just use as it is around the waist) and then there was something about the groom being led in to uncover her and give her gifts, but they did it in a bit of a strange order. No one knew exactly what was happening except for the older woman who led everything and walked ahead of us while dancing (shaking her booty). Everyone simply did what she said while everyone cheered and they played loud music on the drums and sang. We laughed a lot.

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Where I sleep and/or hide from insects

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Lizard next to the shower, they’re everywhere but since they don’t crawl into beds or suitcases they’re my homies anyway.

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Ego pic before the kitchen party

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Warm nights (but wrapped in a chitenge anyways). Night!

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Zambia Travel diary – day 2

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2015.09.03  10.55 (Technically, even though my understanding of time is a blurry mess by this point. We ate lunch at 1 am). Kenya airspace. This journey has been a journey. Because I love travelling, I really do, but there is a point where your body feels so weird from lack of sleep mixed with not being able to go anywhere that makes me itch. I shouldn’t complain though. We just flew by Kilimanjaro, life’s pretty good. A weird thing I’ve thought about though: It feels like I’m not leaving anything at home. Some things that would be a bit heavy of course, my books and creative stuff, but everything I use on a daily basis I’ve brought with me. Apart from my bed (which I’m regretting). But I could live like this. I could. From a bag with my favourite clothes. Laptop and camera and notebook. I could.

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Streets of Lusaka

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20.05. Lusaka. It feels like it’s the middle of the night. I’m sorry for my ungratefulness. For being spoiled. For intending to make all this about me. It’s difficult to be so far away from your comfort zone, but I know that I need it. Let me grow from it. I thank God for showing me people beyond the ones who think just like me.

Zambia Travel Diary – Day 1

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Arlanda airport, Stockholm, right before we left

2015.09.02  22.32 Vienna. It’s raining outside. Sky black, bright lights. Lamps are blinkin all the time, greens and reds, guiding the airplanes home. We’re not staying here, not really, we only stopped by to refuel (I think) and in half an hour we’ll be on our way again. Next stop is Addis Abeba in Ethiopia. We won’t have time to leave the airport which is a pity because apparently (according to my friend) that’s the only way you’re allowed to add a place to the list of countries you’ve been to. Anyway. Not the point really.

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Then we’ll continue to Zambia where we’ll land some time or whenever, I don’t really know, probably should have checked that. But it’s been a good flight so far. Good food. You get blankets. I don’t think you’re allowed to keep them but I might anyway. Will keep you updated. (As I write this I know that I didn’t steal the blanket. Did on the way home though.)

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Packing packing packing before we left

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Watched the latest Avengers, it was okay, will probably like it better with good picture and sound quality

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Airplane food isn’t actually that bad I think, at least not after having eaten in school for 13 years. I think it’s good even, maybe even more because I’m usually quite hungry on planes, for whatever reason.

Gonna try to sleep, so bye, will write more when I get there!

Zambia Travel Diary – Intro

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2015.09.22 I’m writing this on an airplane that has just entered Swedish airspace on my way home from Zambia, Africa, where I’ve spent the past three weeks without any internet or TV. What does one do  on those evenings in a land where the sun consistently sets between 18-19 and you can’t walk out by yourself in the darkness? Not a question my generation is great at answering (though still can answer better than many people freakin’ think). So I read a lot and as a natural consequence wrote a lot and it turned into some sort of travel diary, and during the next month or so I’ll be publishing it here, every now and then. You’ll be able to find it under the tag Zambia travel diary (if you were to lose it) and I really hope you enjoy!

Sneak peek:

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