Africa 2006

My Africa blog is getting fancier! You will see a nice photo above you now. It’s courtesy of Mieke Rietveld and is of children in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. Mieke and her husband sponsor a school there which I will visit on my trip.

The photo was cropped to the right size by Rakel Guðnadóttir, graphic designer extraordinaire and my brother-in-law’s wife.

And the whole thing - header, photo, and entire blog site - was posted and set up by Björn Helgason, who has far greater technical skills than I could ever aspire to.

Basically the only thing I am contributing to this site are the words.

One week to go and the final preparations are underway. On the weekend I bought a new digital camera and even a battery-operated MP3 player, finally putting my 10-year old cassette Walkman and two mix tapes to rest.

This is me at 2pm this afternoon in the Icelandic sunshine:

Notice the striking resemblance to Cindy Crawford? (Hint: It’s the mole above my mouth, plus full mane of chestnut brown locks).

I got tired of being confused with Cindy all the time. And so, this is me at 6pm this afternoon, when the sun was fading:

Now less Cindy Crawford-like and much more prepared for travelling around Africa, where I can enjoy life without a hairbrush and with only occasional shampoo.

Next Monday is the big day. If anyone finds him or herself at the relaxing Terminal 2 at Heathrow, please don’t hesitate to meet me for coffee during my five hour layover en route to Dakar (via Milan!!).

PS: For those particularly interested in the saga of my hair, see my column for the week on Iceland Review’s website. Or click here for the link.

Boy, am I ever getting fancy now. It seems that blogging fever is taking over my life - two posts in two days.

If you look to the right of this post, you should see a little area where you can enter your email address and be on the mailing list for this site. Theoretically, that means that you’ll get an email every time a new post is entered. The function doesn’t seem to be working at full capacity just yet, but I can also send emails to newsletter members and will do this when I post new entries so it is still worthwhile to register! (You will also get an email asking you to confirm the registration).

Welcome to my blog on my trip to West Africa.

This first entry is being written during one of Reykjavík’s most beautiful days of the year: windows are open, pools are packed, and T-shirts have been dug out of closet corners. But this sunny 18C (well, maybe 20C) is positively chilly compared to what I will enjoy in less than one month’s time.

Here are the basics:

Dates: Monday 2 October to Monday 20 November. Exactly seven weeks.

Countries: Senegal; Gambia; Mali; Burkina Faso; Benin; Togo; Ghana. (What are these places like? Visit www.fco.gov.uk to get advice by country. Swallow with salt.) I trust you can find an atlas to locate the countries.

Shots acquired: Yellow fever; Hepatitis A&B; Meningitis; Typhoid; Polio; Diptheria; Tetatus; Cholera (only because it also protects against e.coli which apparently causes over 50% of the diarrhoea in Africa); Malaria tablets

So far all I have is an open ticket with Al Italia to whisk me to Dakar, Senegal (via Milan) and ship me home from Accra, Ghana (via Milan). I have no other visas or tickets, but I do have one kind offer of accommodation for when I first arrive in Senegal.

Why am I going? Mostly because I have always wanted to visit this region. Also, now that I have one commission under my belt for publishing a series of articles about the trip, I think there are some tax breaks. But the more commissions the better, so any leads appreciated. And it will be more exciting that watching the darkness of an Icelandic winter creep in.

Please feel free to post comments (only encouraging and complimentary ones, obviously) or questions and then I’ll feel that entering the world of the blog has been worthwhile.

I’m looking into prettying up the look of this site with some exciting Africa motif. Stay tuned.

Eliza