Frank in Africa ‘08

So here I am, back home, sitting on my bed, writing another blog post…

We all arrived back home safely with all our luggage, the flight itself was ok, I slept most of the time, the only complaint I have is that it was pretty cold, even with the little blanket they gave me.

Its still a little early to tell you what Ive learned and what has been the most memorable moment of the trip, but there are also some things I’m starting to notice about Holland that I’m not so sure about. I guess the Africa trip changed me as a person, but I’ve yet to figure out in what way.

Being back home also has its advantages though, some much needed peace and quiet, a good shower, my own room, fast internet etc.

for now all I wanna do is rest… so that’s what I’ll do…

I guess there will be 1 more blog post coming before that end has been reached.

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hey hey nice people who read my blog,

sooo It’s been a while since my update, but this will be a good and long post, lets start with some good news, I’ve been feeling a lot better, my stomach still hurts at times, but not nearly as much as before, I’m now suspecting the bottled water we’re drinking, it has 20mg of Chloride in it per liter, and well, that’s not good for you. I didn’t end up going to the hospital, and I’m still taking my malaria pills (only 8 of them to go!!)) do not worry =).

Yesterday we had a day off, and so we decided to go to the Malawi Lake! basically the entire east side of the country is a giant fresh water lake. but it was a 3 hour drive to a nice spot according to some local rapper… 

I got up at 5:30 in the morning, we were leaving early so we’d have a full day at the lake, I was tired but excited. After waiting for the taxi for 30 minutes or so, and witnessing the african wake up ritual (women carrying baskets of water on top of their heads, and men running around arranging stuff, the taxi arrived… the trip was amazing, lots of nature, Mountains/Hills (which looked extra cool because of the low hanging clouds), Baobab trees, Birds, Monkeys etc. after about 3 hours we had to stop because the bridge was broken and they were repairing it, we had to go back to the nearest town and take a different road, this ended up being a small dirt road, which was amazing, I saw a lot of little huts where people lived, lots of excited kids waving at the car, and a lot of women protecting their harvest (corn) by guarding the fields. after 6 hours we finally arrived at or destination… big monkey lodge if I remember the name correctly. It was right at the lake and owned by a british guy, the food was good but expensive, the view was amazing.

After having some lunch (I had a vegetable curry with rice, and a coke in case you’re wondering) it was time to swim, the water was crystal clear, there were little fishes swimming, and the sand was almost fully made out of crystals, but all small pieces turned into smooth round pebbles by the water. so I swam, and took a walk down the beach, the locals actually lived there, it wasn’t some tourist place with just white people, there were a lot of children doing the dishes or getting soaped up by their mothers, all the kids were excited to see us, and after saying “hello” “fine” “and you” about 1000 times I swam some more… after that I just relaxed, enjoyed the view and just relaxed…

at 5 we had dinner because we had to be on our way again before dark, luckily the bridge had been fixed and it took us 5 hours to get back to the lodge we’re staying at. The place was pretty empty when we got there, which was strange since the place is filled with dirty old white people and young black girls each night, guess on sunday they all take the day off…

It was a great way to spend one of our last days, and I really needed it.

Malawi has been great, the nature is stunning and the people are really friendly, its strange to see that people who have so little are so happy, that might also be a problem though, to be honest, the people here simply aren’t efficient enough to turn this place into a strong economy, too many people are doing the same things and non of them seem to really care about it, thats why everything is going so slow… but hey, thats just me thinking with my crazy western standards…

now it’s time for me to go pack my bag, I finished my book about Namibia and I can’t wait to go…

check out the pics: http://www.simplygiz.com/files/Afrika/25feb/

Frank

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hey hey,

today I spend most of the day trying to fix my laptop, Blaxtar finally got his bag yesterday, it got lost somehow, and it took them 7 days or so to find it…I got my 100GB Hard Drive and some DVDs from college with software, a wrongly burned leopard DVD sorta spoiled it all, right now I’m copying beers hard drive onto my computer, which will take another 6 hours before I’ll find out if it works.

I’ve been a little sick the last 2 days, my stomach hurts really bad after I take the malaria pill or eat a meal, last night I had a fever and I was shaking a little, today I’m feeling much better but Jelle knows people here who own a hospital and I might go there for a malaria test on sunday…scary stuff…

today we moved to a different lodge, this one has internet so it’s a lot better for us, easy to upload stuff etc etc… the place is nicer 2, more peaceful, fruit trees and weird wooden statues in the bushes…

I’ll post some pictures soon, I promise…

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hey hey peoples…

how are you all doing?! great! I’m ok too, even though Im stressed out a little and ready to go to another country…

yesterday we filmed a vieoclip at a school, which was….chaos… they were really excited, but certain shots we took just seemed wrong to me… I became friends with the lil boy who lives next to the guesthouse we’re staying at, “friends” might be a big word, he likes my legs, my shoes and my hair, and he has a lot of energy, check the pic I took of him…

http://www.simplygiz.com/files/Afrika/9feb/jochie.jpg

Today prinz Pi left and signed my laptop before he left… its not with a water proof maker but some sort of graffiti paint marker, which means it’ll start to come off soon…

http://www.simplygiz.com/files/Afrika/9feb/junglebook.jpg

not much else has been going on, lots of work on the site, image galleries and webisodes…keep checking the virus free site… and sign the damn petition! thanks!

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so after writing my last post Beer and I spend most of the day at the internet cafe trying to upload things to the virusfreegeneration hiphop tour site, we uploaded a 5mb video which took 10 minutes, and after that wasted about an hour on trying to upload 20kb (2 small thumbnails).

I decided it was a good day to wear my official tour t-shirt today, but its really thich fabric and the print on it doesnt let any air go through, so I have a wet spot between my boobs, sexy I know, more sexy stuff I forgot to mention, last night I got rid of a lot of my hair, it was just too hot for long hair, the usual routine, using 2 hair elastics and cutting in between them removing the pony tail completely in one go.

not much else happened today, im tired after 2 sleepless nights, but I can’t really seem to relax. I talked to an african person from music mayday today after the electricity went down, and the first thing she said was “don’t worry about it just relax, and after a while they’ll find a way to fix it” so that’s what I’ve been doing, no website updates without laptops, and those run on electricity, since my battery has 3 more minutes on it, it’s time to start living the african way, walk slowly, relax, have a drink, and don’t worry man…

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