Unfortunately, I write this final section nearly six months after our travels. We developed over 800 photographs after our expedition, with most turning out far better than expected and leading us to notice even more than we thought we'd seen and experienced. We have never tired of telling the same stories to different people at home in different areas of life, and urging them to experiment more with both their choice of holidays, and their lives as a whole. As we left the Kenyan airports (a gruesome experience, security wise), our travelling friends excitedly informed us that they had become engaged elsewhere in Mombasa. This was wonderful news - even with the limited time we had spent together, they had already confided the near-death experiences they'd been through together, and the possibility that this holiday may never have happened: not for financial, but for existence reasons.
There were those less happy; the design of the package-holiday guarantees some friction between people sharing minibuses, and although it may be that the nature (i.e. price) of the holiday corresponds correctly (see http://www.responsibletravel.com for the folks who really care), we should always recognise how lucky we are to be able to travel on this great journey at all. Cheap flights or not, it is about societal evolution and individual/national wealth that we can absorb some of the great progresses in the world and re-apply them to ourselves. 'Take only photos, leave only footprints', is not enough here. We need to share more. Whether it is individually or collectively, we are the same people, we are the same race, and we need one another. The real media aspect of Africa is not poverty; it is knowledge, and we have so much to gain.
We have written around 30,000 words about the experience, now published but more as a cathartic experiment, to allow us to really engage with our memories and re-enliven our experience. We have tried very hard to remember our emotions and describe them adequately.
But at times it does not work. We had a glorious period for a few months after, where we believed - and were - the luckiest people on earth. Some of that, although only a small amount, has faded from me, in that I have become too connected with the Western ideologies of business and of productivity. While I have never sought to reject these concepts, it is disappointing personally not to have the stamina to retain the changes. I, personally, feel ever happier inside because of our visit, but I often do not act and behave that way, and I am nowhere near like that which I hope to emulate. But that's OK. Because although for a long time I felt there was no hope in achievement, in achieving perfection, in understanding the world as it really is, in dealing with the stagnant contentment, in being excited about the simple things once moreā¦ I have found it exists. It is in Africa.