People often ask me, "Why Africa? Why do you want to keep returning there?" My response, if I give it, is that I feel like I am going home.
Returning again yesterday, I was anxious to know if my reaction would be the same. It was. If anything, with each return visit, the feeling intensifies.
It is hard to describe without sounding overly dramatic but when I step off the plane and out into the moment, my body is bombarded with a sensory overload whose impact, it seems, serves to awaken my DNA. Latent chromosomes lying deep within each cell are triggered awake by the scent of woodsmoke, the heat of the sun's rays and the buzz of bird song. My retinas are stimulated by a delicious array of colour and images. Flowers, green plants, symbolic shapes and motifs, activate optic nerves that have long waited to transfer these same impulses to the nerves of my brain.
In summary, the combined effect of all of these stimuli serve to awaken in me a consciousness that has been dormant for the many months or years since my last visit. The feeling is like walking across the threshold of your family home after having been away for far too long. Like walking across the threshold and into the welcoming arms of your mom. It feels like, "ahh, I am home!"
Many people reading this will question my sanity. Nancy is being melodramatic, they will say. A few people though, will get it. Those few have felt the same sensation when returning to their own part of the world.
This part, this place, is mine!
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