2016 - Insideotherplaces

2016

Annoying travel personalities. No.1 The Presumptuous Opportunist

The first in a hopefully short series about the annoying bastards I encounter travelling This first character, the Presumptuous Opportunist is most prevalent on the African continent and will always be the kind of friendly, chatty guy that normally is a pleasure to encounter in the street, as they can offer an insight into people’s lives. Their true nature will only become apparent when it’s time to pay the bill, when it’s evident that they never had any intention of…

In the shadow of Thomas Sankara

Why Burkina Faso’s revolutionary president still matters Under the full moon glow in the warm Ouagadougou night, to the thud of ominous beats, the Congolese rapper strode onto the stage, declaring, “I may be from Congo Brazzaville but tonight, on the anniversary of the death of Thomas Sankara we are all Burkinabe”. For the first time in the night the previously subdued crowd roared in appreciation, from then on he could do no wrong. But why, twenty-nine years after he…

The shop art of Jongo, Burkina Faso

More hand painted African shop art Given that my post on the hand painted shop art of Somaliland seemed relatively popular with some of you, it seemed sensible to give you something to compare it to and put it into perspective. Of course, the term relatively popular here is no actual indication of actual popularity, which could more accurately be described as woefully unpopular, which puts you, dear readers, in the travel blog reading category of weird deviants, which is…

Back to basics in Burkina Faso

Another taste of slum life in Burkina Faso It’s all very well luxuriating in 5 star hotels but you aint gonna learn much about a country or its people sipping fine wines and chomping on Lobster flown in from some distant sea. Sometimes you’ve just got to get down and dirty. So, I was only too happy to go back to the muddy shacks of Jongo, on the outskirts of Ouagadougou, the shabby capital of Burkina Faso, to see my…

Drinking at the doctors in the Ivory Coast

Booze or medicine It’s a common dilemma for the poor, hard-drinking man: spend your limited funds on medicine or get drunk to disguise the symptoms? However, in West Africa they have found a unique solution – make booze into medicine. In the Ivory Coast it all starts with the basic ingredient of palm wine or Banji as its known. Sap from certain varieties of palm is tapped off every day from the living trees to be delivered to the thirsty, although…

Toilet of the month

A celebration of Ethiopia’s most notable cultural heritage. Once in a while, a piece of toilet architecture stands out head and shoulders above the competition, sometimes enough to make a whole month of dragging yourself around UNESCO World Heritage Sites and unique geological creations somehow worthwhile. This glorious example tucked away in the back-end of Abozo in southern Ethiopia will surely soon be turning this quiet little village into a major tourist hub, as the masses flock to get a…

Nobody runs in Gonzague

A bit of everyday life in the suburbs of Abidjan, Ivory Coast There’s a wonderful lack of urgency on the sandy streets of Gonzague, this ramshackle development stretched out along the pedestrian unfriendly, coastal route to Grand Bassam. Why hurry anywhere, when you can dawdle in the sun and sea breeze, chat to neighbours or a shopkeeper, making a trip to the shop last twice as long as any westerner would? A goodbye to a parting guest might become a…

Fuck you Ethiopia!

Dear Ethiopia Actually, why am I starting with the word dear, when what I really want to say is, “fuck you”! It’s difficult to hold anything dear about a place that has institutionalised the ripping off of visitors and does so with a level of contempt that may well be unique. If it was just me that had similar thoughts, I’d keep my whining to myself and any other embittered travellers for when we’d had a few too many beers,…

The hand painted, shop art of Somaliland

It often takes time to dig up the real cultural differences when you cross borders in Africa but sometimes evidence leaps out at you immediately, such as in Somaliland: neighbouring Ethiopia and nearby Sudan are almost devoid of the brightly painted shop fronts that you see on many streets in Somaliland. Such art can be found elsewhere in Africa but each region has its own take: sometimes modern and stylish but often crude, or what some in the art world…

The Tea Ladies of Sudan

You won’t get very far on a street in Sudan before you run into a sittet shai, a tea lady providing essential hot refreshments to passersby: tea, sometimes laced with cinnamon or mint; coffee, with flavours like ginger, cloves or cardamom; karkadeyh – hibiscus tea. Whatever the choice it will come totally saturated with sugar. Crouched on little chairs behind their paraphernalia and a charcoal burner with a steaming kettle, these ladies are an essential part of everyday life. Over…

Year: 2016

Annoying travel personalities. No.1 The Presumptuous Opportunist

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In the shadow of Thomas Sankara

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The shop art of Jongo, Burkina Faso

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Back to basics in Burkina Faso

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Drinking at the doctors in the Ivory Coast

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Toilet of the month

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Nobody runs in Gonzague

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Fuck you Ethiopia!

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The hand painted, shop art of Somaliland

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The Tea Ladies of Sudan

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