I’m back and *hopefully* Ebola free.

Jeez.  Life doesn’t wait for anyone.  She just carries on, oblivious to anything that might require a time-out.  No degree of heartache, joy, anxiety or celebration slows her down.  You just need to take whatever she gives you and deal with it.  At your own time, for she’s not one to show sympathy or empathy just because you’re having a bad day.  Or a good one for that matter.

One might expect that she would have a little consideration for trauma and allow for a slow and painless transition into normal existence.  One might expect that surviving the reality of travelling in West Africa would allow you some sort of break.  A moment to catch your breath.  I was, after all, dealing with lethal disease, flying in shady planes, standing in overlong queues and waiting forever on people who seems to have patience as a superpower.

Nonetheless, travelling around dark Africa has given me an immeasurable appreciation for my own country, or like the people in Accra refers to it, African Europe.  I’ve been back for three days, but there hasn’t even been time to celebrate me being back; life did not provide me with the easy transition I was hoping for.

I attended a Ghananean wedding

That’s a lie.  I actually did not.  My beer accomplice and I was killing time, waiting to get to the airport and expose my fragile mind to the boarding procedures of a plane to Senegal.  As if Ghana wasn’t exciting enough.  The wedding in question took place at the hotel where I stayed, right next to the pool area, in full view of all the foreigners who was lounging around amidst certain health scares of the region.

Wedding guests arrived, erratically.  It was impossible to guess when the actual ceremony was suppose to start. Citizens of Ghana are not notorious for excellent time management.  At first I thought they moved the Oscar ceremony to Accra.  For I’ve never seen that much sequins and sparkle on that many bodies since…well ever.  I’m a guy so I don’t keep track.  I do know that the red carpet at the Academy Awards should just bow out in shame.  As for Joan Rivers, well she would have an orgasm, if she was able to comment on the things I saw.

Like any wedding reception you would have the usual suspects.  The lady who wore the flying saucer on her head and the guy who look like the love child of a penguin and a pirate captain due to a seriously ill-fitting tux.

The poor male mosquito

Image borrowed from that propaganda website, http://www.nationalgeographic.com

When travelling to West Africa you are very aware of a lot of things that can kill you.  Falling planes, erratic cab drivers, Ebola and Mosquitoes.

For most people this miniscule flying missiles are a simple annoyance when you sleep, but here they are assassins.  They have dipped their spears in a  vile of deadly Malaria.

When one sits and enjoy a light cocktail, or a pint of beer outside in the humid air of Accra, and you hear one of those insects zoom past you, you are vigilant. A ninja.  You cautiously place your beer on the table, stop conversation, listen intently and wait for the ambush.  And then you swap like a crazed lunatic, trying your best to kill the little fuc..creature.  Most probably only ending up looking like your waving frantically to the prostitute at the bar whilst the blood-sucking pest still lazily zooms around your head.  But you will try your best.  Every time.  You’ll try to kill it.  Before it kills you.  It’s just survival of the fittest, or the fastest or the biggest.

Ebola is much more lethal if you’re a dog.

As a start, I need to put it out there that I’m not trying to down play the severity of this lethal disease.  Lethal by definition, as it has a 90% strike rate, like a kamikaze pilot.  I have a lot of sympathy for the families who are grieving for their passed brethren.  But let’s get some perspective, shall we.

The colour purple has a very different meaning here.

964 people has lost their lives to the disease.  There are in excess of 7 billion people on earth, which looks like 7,182,000,000,000 in numbers.  Considering that there was 219,000,000 cases of Malaria reported in 2010 of which approximately 1,200,000 resulted in deaths, maybe the WHO is losing the plot a little.  And Malaria HAS a cure.

My post is based on the fact that I’m travelling to West Africa next week, more specifically Ghana and Senegal.  For West Africa, is unlike South Africa, not a country but a whole region.  Everyone and anyone who has an opinion about my well being are deeply concerned with the fact that I might contract this fatal disease.