Arusha is a small town in northern Tanzania. From here go all safaris that go to Lake Manyara, Serengeti, Ngorongoro and Tarangire Park including, the paradise of tsetse flies. A couple of them chopped to Bethlehem and, coincidentally or not, passed all day sleeping. Also from Arusha can easily cross the border to Kenya. $ 35. That is the price of luxury bus leaves you in 7 hours in Nairobi. Although luxury that only the price. And all four are white. For the rest up cluttering the bus should cost half or less.
But we do not complain because at least here everyone has their seat, while some will sit in the hallway and unsupported. We, as usual, we're lucky. We found a hole in the back row, next to an Indian marriage with a couple of kids sleeping in his lap, but after 5 minutes so do in ours. Front travels a man chocolate business that is constantly talking on the phone when it does not bother their neighbors, a couple of Muslims who are hiding behind sunglasses type fly. At the other bank, a pair of black buzzing and further a bold with braided hair so we have a headache just looking at her. In the midst of a huge guy with a small cap, stuffed into a robe and Russian Denis in his prime.
Africa has many skins and all colors. For some of them, in other centuries, came to pay a fortune, but were usually of exotic animals. Of blacks, why fool, was very cheap. The chronicles of a businessman sixteenth-century Genoese, its price in Africa was 50 escudos. Add in 150 per head to bring them to America and gives you a total of 200. Taking into account that a third died on the way, the final cost for every slave who came alive in the New World was 300 escudos. If you were lucky you could get 400 on the market, so the yield was 33% in just a couple of months. There was nothing wrong.
In the twentieth century, things got much better and even more independence. Then the skin of people had no money. So little value that only a few decades, millions and millions of Africans died. Hunger, AIDS, malaria or crushed by other diseases, enslaved by whites or by their own neighbors, because they belong to a political party or a different tribe, protesting or just to talk, tortured, beaten, shot with machetes or slashes. In the Congo, Nigeria, Rhodesia, South Africa, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Algeria, in many places and so many ways that we would need an entire blog to explain it.
But do not think that this is all water under the bridge. Just last week, just to get out of Zimbabwe, President Mugabe with 80 tacos in tow returned to win elections to govern 40 consecutive years. His closest rival had to quit the presidential race a few days. He had a good reason. In a fortnight 90 members of his party had been killed and his deputy arrested and charged with treason, a crime for which he may put to death. Now we are in Kenya, where five months ago, after a disputed election, unleashed a wave of violence that left 1500 dead in the gutter. Strangely, the leaders of both parties among them hunted, now share the cake. One is the President and one Prime Minister. And we could continue talking about Nigeria and the exploitation of people living near oil wells, Somaliland and their cry for help to gain independence from Somalia, Eritrea and its attack on a port to master Dubjoi Key in the Red Sea, Sudan and precarious peace agreement between the Muslim north and Christian south with its president accused and condemned by the international tribunal to carry out genocide in Darfur, etc, etc, etc.
In Africa there are still many examples of exploitation and violation that few would give a penny for your skin. We, however, admire her more than ever. First it has to be very hard to endure all this and still be so alive. And second because they say here, about the paths that are crossing to the bus, somewhere between Tanzania and Kenya, a monkey first walked upright to stop being human. So do not bother me if one day we cease to be a few animals, we can not now and forever rid of these beasts.
But we do not complain because at least here everyone has their seat, while some will sit in the hallway and unsupported. We, as usual, we're lucky. We found a hole in the back row, next to an Indian marriage with a couple of kids sleeping in his lap, but after 5 minutes so do in ours. Front travels a man chocolate business that is constantly talking on the phone when it does not bother their neighbors, a couple of Muslims who are hiding behind sunglasses type fly. At the other bank, a pair of black buzzing and further a bold with braided hair so we have a headache just looking at her. In the midst of a huge guy with a small cap, stuffed into a robe and Russian Denis in his prime.
Africa has many skins and all colors. For some of them, in other centuries, came to pay a fortune, but were usually of exotic animals. Of blacks, why fool, was very cheap. The chronicles of a businessman sixteenth-century Genoese, its price in Africa was 50 escudos. Add in 150 per head to bring them to America and gives you a total of 200. Taking into account that a third died on the way, the final cost for every slave who came alive in the New World was 300 escudos. If you were lucky you could get 400 on the market, so the yield was 33% in just a couple of months. There was nothing wrong.
In the twentieth century, things got much better and even more independence. Then the skin of people had no money. So little value that only a few decades, millions and millions of Africans died. Hunger, AIDS, malaria or crushed by other diseases, enslaved by whites or by their own neighbors, because they belong to a political party or a different tribe, protesting or just to talk, tortured, beaten, shot with machetes or slashes. In the Congo, Nigeria, Rhodesia, South Africa, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Algeria, in many places and so many ways that we would need an entire blog to explain it.
But do not think that this is all water under the bridge. Just last week, just to get out of Zimbabwe, President Mugabe with 80 tacos in tow returned to win elections to govern 40 consecutive years. His closest rival had to quit the presidential race a few days. He had a good reason. In a fortnight 90 members of his party had been killed and his deputy arrested and charged with treason, a crime for which he may put to death. Now we are in Kenya, where five months ago, after a disputed election, unleashed a wave of violence that left 1500 dead in the gutter. Strangely, the leaders of both parties among them hunted, now share the cake. One is the President and one Prime Minister. And we could continue talking about Nigeria and the exploitation of people living near oil wells, Somaliland and their cry for help to gain independence from Somalia, Eritrea and its attack on a port to master Dubjoi Key in the Red Sea, Sudan and precarious peace agreement between the Muslim north and Christian south with its president accused and condemned by the international tribunal to carry out genocide in Darfur, etc, etc, etc.
In Africa there are still many examples of exploitation and violation that few would give a penny for your skin. We, however, admire her more than ever. First it has to be very hard to endure all this and still be so alive. And second because they say here, about the paths that are crossing to the bus, somewhere between Tanzania and Kenya, a monkey first walked upright to stop being human. So do not bother me if one day we cease to be a few animals, we can not now and forever rid of these beasts.
