Africa for beginners
Deneuve was the first Namibian I spoke with. He was also the last. On the first occasion, he came up to me as I exited the Hosea Kutako International airport, asked if I wanted a taxi, and ushered me...
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Thirteen days in September
In 1978, U.S. president Jimmy Carter brokered a Middle East peace treaty between Israel and Egypt at Camp David. The deal still stands — this is why you don’t hear news about Israel and Egypt fighting...
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August in Bangalore
1. The foreigner My visit to Bangalore is part business-trip part vacation. Traveling with me on business is a German colleague whose eyes reveal a side of the city I usually gloss over. On the...
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Life since last August
Heidelberg Frankfurt Heidelberg Somewhere above Barcelona Heidelberg Somewhere above Dubai Heidelberg Somewhere above Malta Malta Heidelberg Somewhere above (almost) Bangalore Bangalore Somewhere above...
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Drivers
The driver was an elderly man, probably in his seventies. He opened the boot and I hauled the suitcase into it. Sit wherever you like, he said. I chose the passenger seat in front. He used to be a...
View ArticleCargo ship travels
My wife and I recently completed a thirty-day journey on a cargo ship from Singapore to Montevideo. During this period I wrote occasionally on a separate blog: https://cargomanu.travel.blog/ I may...
View ArticleThe Blackbird
“During the last two hundred years the blackbird has abandoned the woods to become a city bird. First in Great Britain at the end of the eighteenth century, then several decades later in Paris and the...
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A Blot in the Sea
The oil spill off the coast of Mauritius has been in the news recently. MV Wakashio, a Japanese oil tanker, ran aground in late July. A week later the stranded vessel started leaking oil. It all...
View ArticleLockdown diary
The house across the street is a two storey building whose roof terrace is in level with our balcony. Every morning I see an elderly man watering the plants along the terrace wall, pruning some...
View ArticleThe moat of self-sufficiency
“Most of the ‘mine’ families lived only a few miles out from the town, but their self-sufficiency surrounded them like a moat. Their offspring could go from the cradle to the grave without having...
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