The Colours of Africa

It never changes. Everytime I jump on a plane to make a long distance trip these things are always true.
They serve you dinner an hour after making altitude no matter what god forsaken time it is
They never, ever,  serve you enough wine
You wake up wishing you had forked out an extra grand or two to sit up front and not next to a complete stranger who is dribbling on your arm

Which brings me to Africa. South Africa to be presice, but Africa none the less. A nation trying so hard to put away the past, move forward, be more like Europe or the States in so many ways that it will eventually lose complete touch of what it started out as.  Take our new local airport as an example. They moved a perfectly good, well functioning, well postioned airport to a location that promised to deliver so much more and be so much more efficient.

In the past when I flew into Durban International Aiport, which technically had not received international flights from around 1999 but that's besides the point,  I used to to know I was Home. We flew down the mountain path and along the seaside and then we would step off the plane directly onto the tarmac and walk across into arrivals within nano-minutes.

Now, at the new improved spanky panky airport you fly over a bunch of green hills which are perfectly nice but quite uninspiring, and directly into a tunnel attachment that leads you into a massive building with not much in it. The place is deserted. No more crowds of people waiting to see their loved ones, no more buzz, no more heat steaming up off the tarmac.

I'm not sure how much more efficient this new airport has turned out to be, but I do know that while the trip home remains the same, this unchanged hum drum of long distance travel, the end result of haphazard typical African simplicity has gone forever.

I hope that while this wonderful country strives to be more 1st world every day it breathes another  breath of sunshine, it doesnt lose its colours. Those wonderful coulours of africa. Those little things that aren't perfect but they make us who we are. A patchwork design of some many things unique to us, all sewn together to make a great big colourful nation. Viva Africa!