Books Books and more books!

I all things Africa and since i can say that my only natural talent is reading i think its only natural that i love reading about Africa i can safely say that two of my favourite books of all time are "A story like the wind" and "A far off place" by Laurence Van Der post (i wasn't so keen on the movie adaption which is a surprise as its Disney and i love all things Disney) other memorable African books are "Half of a yellow sun"-Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and "The other hand"-Chris Cleave... anyway its safe to say I've read some amazing African books in my time... but since we first started planning our Africa trip earlier in the year my reading list has been almost exclusively African from African themed novels ("things fall apart"-Chinua Achebe,"Heart of Darkness"- Joesph Conrad,"white mischief"-James Fox the list goes on and on and on...) to travel writing ("Dark star safari"-Paul Theroux, "Geldof in Africa"-Bob Geldof, "Livingstone's tribe-A journey from Zanzibar to the Cape"- Stephen Taylor again the list goes on and on...)to guide books (lonely Planet-Africa)...i am from all fronts absorbing all things Africa including now watching African themed movies (the constant Gardener,Out of Africa,Gorillas in the mist...and a whole lot more downloaded and on LPs i-pod to watch whilst in Africa...)and listening to African tribal music that LP has down loaded... i have now read all the relevant books that the Truro library has on offer and have branched out to reading about all of Africa Rather then just the countries we are going to i am currently reading "Blood River" by Tim Butcher its all about his journey across the Congo following in the footsteps of H.M Stanley's famous expedition its an amazing book and a real eye opener to how other people live... its sure going to be different from our African Adventure riding in relative luxury compared with the hardships that the vast majority of the Continent endure...

I have also recently finished reading "The map of love"-Ahdaf Soueif in it there is a powerful paragraph (many of you will have already read it in some form its one of those things that circulates in forwards emails...)

"if we could shrink the Earths population to a village of 100 people, with all the existing human ratios staying the same, it would look like this: There would be 57 Asians , 21 Europeans, 14 from the Americas and 8 Africans. 80 would live in Substandard housing. 70 would be unable to read. 50 would suffer from malnutrition. 50 percent of the entire worlds wealth would be in the hands of only 6 people. And all 6 would be citizens of the untied states." -Ahdaf Soueif

of all the things i have read lately this really stuck out to me...It really makes you think...

Bob Geldof uses Malarone

At the moment all my reading seems to have an African theme (surprise surprise) I've just read five travel writing books in a row (well four and a half the last one is about half the size of me so theres no way I'm carting that all the way to work for 20 Min's reading on my lunch break! so at the mo i have an at home book and an away book) after non-stop travel reading I'm now into African themed novels starting with (for no particular reason) white mischief by James fox alot more raunchy then i was expecting how scandalous it all was there in happy valley...... i also have heart of darkness by Joseph Conrad on order from the library and a list as long as both my arms to find somewhere...

Anyway onto the actual point of my post....the giant book I'm still reading is entitled Geldof in Africa and I'm sure you can guess what its about...that's right its about Bob Geldof in Africa! its a whole bunch of his stories ramblings and thoughts from over the years whacked together with some really awesome photographs its a great read! any who yesterday i turned the page to a story called Neet Deet basically its a ranting account of him wanting to be in a nice hotel room (hes in a gross sounding hovel where some unknown bugs are eating another bug alive.... nice!) in this rant he rants about how he forgot his bottled water so has to make spit to take his Malarone (anti-malaria meds)which gets me to here.... Bob Geldof uses Malarone lucky him...Malarone is the "best'" anti-malaria medication currently on offer with the least side effects and can be taken whilst on other medication but for a whopping £2.50 per tablet (one tablet per day and you need to take them a few days before you go and a week after you get back) they are way out of our price range the anti-malarial that looks the best to us cost wise is a once a week pill side effects....vivid dreams...not to bad i already have crazy whacked out dreams wouldn't be anything new another possible side effect is.....phychocis.....emmmm.... wonderful....I'm not really sure i want to go loopy and murderous whilst in the African countryside there are more options but like I've pointed out with these two each has lovely pros and cons it would seem we either go crazy due to bankrupting ourselves or crazy due to drugs oh dear.....