Smells, sights, sounds...

I think everybody should experience Africa once, because it is impossible to really convey what it is like in words or pictures. But I realize that not everybody will get a chance to, so I will try to describe what it is like just coming back from one of the pools here.
I'm standing outside the pool, the sun shinging brightly, but since it is the rainy season the heat is endurable. Trucks line the road, waiting to enter the port. The port is the main economy booster of Togo, so a lot of activity happens around it. I'm waiting for the shuttle of Mercyships to take me back to the ship. The librarian of the ship is also waiting for the shuttle so we chat for awhile. My mind is already thinking about writing this blog, so I look around at all the bizar sights. I mention to the librarian how many interesting sights there are to see, after which he thanks me for pointing it out, because after being here for awhile the African experience has become so common to him. Behind us, some cars are parked in the shade, with an African sleeping on top of one. You can spot them taking naps in the weirdest places. But the positive thing about sleeping outside in Africa is that they won't get cold. Taxis, in diverse shapes and sizes and colors, with varying number of people drive by. Women, wearing colorful African dresses, or jeans, walk past carrying strange concortions on their heads. I have seen several ladies on the market carrying a plate with eggs on their head. My balancing skills are severly poor compared to that. Motorbikes, called zimmy johns here, zigzag in between the cars. Occasionally a car or motorbike honks at us, wondering if we need a ride, but we wave them away. Honking is serious business here in Africa, everybody does it all the time, creating a concert. Finally we see the Mercyships landrover coming towards us. In we get, and off we go. The most creative trafic rules situations I have noticed are a traffic light before the round-a-bout and having to yield to traffic coming into the round-a-bout. Comic situations are when you stop in front of the traffic lights, so the only way you know if it is green is when the person behind you starts honking. Or, when you are not in a hurry, and it is busy on the road, you drive over the walkway because all other possible ways seem absolutely stuck, till you encounter a car coming from the other way also over the walkway, which results in utmost stuckness. Trying to get anywhere on time is not entirely a possibility here, because you would suffer from some major stress symptoms. Anyway, I kind of went off track. We had just gotten into the car, and drove to one other shuttle station, after which we headed back to the port. On the round-a-bout, a policemen is busy whistling to direct traffic, hopelessly. In the port itself, there are the usual amount of people standing around, talking, minding everybodies business, napping, trying to look important, or actually working. The ship comes in view, and once again, we made it safely back "home" :)

Ps. Apparently, the traffic here is childs play compared to the traffic in Sierra Leone.