FORTUNATE TRAVELLER
Welcome to the travel theatre/ where transition is key. — Dami Ajayi, 'On Airports I'
Pisa It was necessary to escape from the heat to the Ligurian seaso I got back on the train, the Tuscan countrysideunscrolling before me, in time for a quick lunch in Pisa,with the old joke of holding up the tower for a photo.I walked down a side street just off the Piazza del Duomoand ducked into a place where mostly locals were eating.At the end of a very simple but…
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I conquered five American cities in five days: Janesville, Milwaukee, Washington DC, Madison and more of Chicago. Janesville was a stranger to me. So was Milwaukee. I barely knew about Madison, save for the University of Wisconsin, which occupies a sizable portion of its beautiful landscape. I had not been to Washington but it was not entirely strange to me. I had read about them in books, seen them in…
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Hello Opemipo and Toluwanimi, my beloved children, let me begin in an environment you are more familiar with – America – because you have lived here for some years. At the time I made my first trip to America, you were still in Nigeria and even now that you live here, you have not had the advantage of going around the country as I have. So, I would like to…
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We’d spent the weekend in Westerway, Tasmania, a town whose population could fit on a large bus. He was waiting on the main street, one bulging pack strapped to his front, another to his back, seemingly unbothered by the load. He was tall and strong with generic good looks. I took one look at him and I knew his story. I knew the second pack belonged to his girlfriend –…
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Kay Ugwuede’s illuminating travel chapbook, A Substance of Things Unseen, begins in the city of Enugu, at the top of a hill. This she translates into the Igbo language as Enu ugwu: a linguistic performance garbed by seemingly measured emphasis. And this presents a sort of manual to the reader’s eventual understanding of this city, Enugu, that the author tells us, means ‘somewhere, home’ to her – a lexical crossroad…
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Leaving is self-abnegation; something always wants you elsewhere. Once, when I was fifteen, I spent a week away from home. My Mum clutched me tight the afternoon I returned. I’d suffered where I went – starved, wandered, and begged. She knew; I knew; everybody knew. At night, I lay my head on her lap as she popped my pimples. ‘My child has suffered,’ she told my brothers, with her small…
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For Benjamin I Walk Talk Walking We had an idea to take a walk, gowalking, not a stroll and not a hike, justa walk, going for a walk, knowing youcan stop, feeling the elements: the earth beneath your feet, the rain waiting, the airmoving, the fire waiting. The walkingworld doesn’t pass you by, it comes with you.You’re not driven and if you’re on the rightbearing, you can always rest. Any placecan…
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When he’s not breaking through security to shake hands with Nikita Khrushchev, he is crashing his scooter through a border between Jordan and Israel in the then partitioned Jerusalem, amidst a hail of gunfire, escaping an assassination attempt in Jordan, or dodging the bullets of eager security agents around the Duke of Edinburgh in Sydney. When he’s not trying ‘African ju-ju’ on pretty Russian girls, he’s enjoying a tense audience…
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Since the past months, Nigerians online – especially on Twitter – have been quite taken by Kunle Adeyanju, a 44-year-old biker who embarked on a brave, adventurous journey riding from London to Lagos as part of the Rotary International’s “End Polio” campaign. A widely celebrated feat, he has garnered a large fanbase and praise, including one from the Microsoft co-founder who described him as ‘incredible‘. He was also conferred with…
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The camera opens on our guide as he introduces himself and the city he is set to take us through. His name is Doug Bernard and the city is Tunis. Filmed mostly on selfie mode – personalizing the narrative and experience, what you can call the first-person narrative – the video starts right in the centre of Tunis, a few walks away from the Catholic Cathedrale Saint-Vincent-de-Paul de Tunis right…
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