Should all the stars align and everything go according to plan, I will be touching down in my very first sub-Saharan African country at the end of June: Ghana. For ten days, I’ll be soaking up the culture and history of Accra, capital city of a country whose inhabitants, whether they accept it or not, […]
To the East, Fly Brother Read More
Last week, fellow fly brother Greg Gross of I’m Black and I Travel posted about African-Americans, Africa, and why we should be traveling more frequently to the Motherland (read his entire posts here and here). Acknowledging cost, distance, and lack of familiarity with the continent as historical barriers that can and should be overcome, the
Ages ago, when a young, collegiate Fly Brother was interning on Capitol Hill in DC (we’re talking at the turn of the century), I was asked by one of the other interns if I was Cape Verdean. Cape Who? She was from Boston and told me I looked Cape Verdean, and I was like, “Whatever
Shouts to My Cape Verdean Play Brother Read More
Back when I was in Cairo a few months ago, I had taken a taxi into the Old City to catch a free performance of the Whirling Dervishes (in Turkey, which has higher-profile dervishes, they charge admission). As soon as I got out of the cab near the market, a loquacious peddler named Ahmed approached
From the AV Room: Egyptian Papyrus Art Read More
Cairo, in a word: golden. In many words: dusty, chaotic, crowded, teeming, wondrous, exhilarating, wild, urbane, sophisticated, whimsical, modern, historic, pious, hedonistic, tumultuous, sprawling, polluted, noisy, friendly, witty, serious, civilized, golden. The seat of one of earth’s oldest civilizations has survived into the modern era as the largest city in Africa and the Arab World.
Since Flickr is blocked here in the United Arab Emirates (among other sites such as X-Tube), I’ve decided to post another of my “road movies.” This time, watch as I approach the Pyramids at Giza, literally right across the street from a joint Pizza Hut/KFC, via an elevated expressway from Downtown Cairo. No camels were
From the AV Room: Trekking to the Pyramids Read More
With a romantically crumbling 19th-century air, the famous Egyptian port city of Alexandria (dubbed Alex by locals and Cairenes) basks in the Mediterranean sun along a narrow strip of land between the sea and the marshy Nile Delta. The wondrous lighthouse may no longer exist, but the renowned library of old lives on in the
The Truth About Alex Read More
Cape Verde is an archipelago of ten teeny-tiny volcanic islands off the coast of Senegal in the North Atlantic. Yes, most hurricanes that hit the Caribbean and the southeast USA start off over Cape Verde as typical summer rainstorms. The uninhabited islands were discovered and populated by the Portuguese in 1460, who brought over Africans
Where I’ve Been: Cape Verde Read More
