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I am a fan of Africa. I find it fascinating and the people seem great. I have been a couple times, but only to West Africa (Ghana and Gambia) but wish to go to East Africa (Tanzania and Kenya or Southern Africa (Botswana and Namibia) and live.
I constantly dream about this, but I know how difficult it is to do. Some people think I am crazy for wishing to do this due to having it easy here in England. I enjoy my life here in England also, but I dunno, I would love to experience Africa. Maybe I just think the way of life is simple and utopian, probably my naiveity.
Do you think it's weird for a white guy to obsess about moving and living in Africa?
I am a fan of Africa. I find it fascinating and the people seem great. I have been a couple times, but only to West Africa (Ghana and Gambia) but wish to go to East Africa (Tanzania and Kenya or Southern Africa (Botswana and Namibia) and live.
I constantly dream about this, but I know how difficult it is to do. Some people think I am crazy for wishing to do this due to having it easy here in England. I enjoy my life here in England also, but I dunno, I would love to experience Africa. Maybe I just think the way of life is simple and utopian, probably my naiveity.
Do you think it's weird for a white guy to obsess about moving and living in Africa?
It doesn't sound weird but it sounds like you have idealized the continent of Africa perhaps you think you will find there something you feel is missing where you're at currently in England. This is pretty common but most people don't think of Africa as their utopian fantasy.
It doesn't sound weird but it sounds like you have idealized the continent of Africa perhaps you think you will find there something you feel is missing where you're at currently in England. This is pretty common but most people don't think of Africa as their utopian fantasy.
I guess so. I saw a programme on TV the other day. A couple, a British guy and his Californian wife. They were living in the African bush in Tanzania. It looked like something I would love to do. They sold up and run a safari tour there. However, they had a small lodge type home they had built right on the edge of a lake. They would go for a dip in the lake, then up the river a couple hundred feet would be a Hippo on the bank and a crocodile gliding through the water.
The wildlife fascinates me. The people and culture fascinate me. The way of life seems simpler and less stressful. Here in the west we are so tied to our work that it gets tiresome and hard to keep it up. It would be great to sell up, go buy a small accommodation in the bush in Africa and surrounded by beautiful wildlife, villages nearby with tribespeople with beautiful culture. I just find it fascinating, but maybe you're right, I am looking at it from a utopian POV.
In my church there is an American couple who lived in Africa for 15 years for the husband's job. They lived in Senegal. The husband knows Wolof. The wife gave a testimony one evening how after 15 years, when they came back to the U.S., they didn't feel like they belonged anywhere. They didn't feel American, but they didn't feel African either. In her testimony, she said she found the solution/resolution to the issue in God... after coming to the realization (with conviction) that nowhere on earth could she (or her family) be separated from the Love that is God. This Love is in operation (doing Its business) in Senegal, the U.S., England... everywhere, all the time, without distinction of person, culture, etcetera.
You will always be an outsider, but that is true for any non-caucasian land, not just Africa. When I lived in Jordan for two years, I had mostly Jordanian friends, but most of them were among the few people who gravitated toward western expat society and had lots of foreign friends. The great majority of people will be closed, and not inclined to be comfortable with outsiders.
In many African countries, the mercantile, NGO and intellectual classes will be composed largely of non-Africans, and will be cliquish, and it is up to you whether to be a part of them, but it can be a lonely existence if you are not.
Expats in Africa have told me that Africans will exercise every opportunity to steal from you, and it won't even do any good try to hire trusted security guards, they will steal from you, too. Just resign yourself to it as a way your wealth gets redistributed, like giving to beggars or hiring casual help.
Considering thousands, if not millions, of Europeans have moved to various parts of Africa throughout the centuries, do you think you're a unique case? If so, Charlize Theron would like a word.
I guess so. I saw a programme on TV the other day. A couple, a British guy and his Californian wife. They were living in the African bush in Tanzania. It looked like something I would love to do. They sold up and run a safari tour there. However, they had a small lodge type home they had built right on the edge of a lake. They would go for a dip in the lake, then up the river a couple hundred feet would be a Hippo on the bank and a crocodile gliding through the water.
The wildlife fascinates me. The people and culture fascinate me. The way of life seems simpler and less stressful. Here in the west we are so tied to our work that it gets tiresome and hard to keep it up. It would be great to sell up, go buy a small accommodation in the bush in Africa and surrounded by beautiful wildlife, villages nearby with tribespeople with beautiful culture. I just find it fascinating, but maybe you're right, I am looking at it from a utopian POV.
Yep, you are going to have problems.
1) You think a TV show shows the reality...there are many shows of expats buying property or doing some business and only showing the happy part of 'doing it'....none show the majority part of the work involved, the red tape, and the high likelihood of losing it.
2) Going for 'a dip' along the crocodiles and hippos? Sounds like a Disney cartoon.
3) 'Way of Life seems simpler and less stressful' - It'll be way more complicated and stressful. It isn't a disney cartoon where you just buy land and swim all day. Running a business is already 24-7 work, and doing it in a land that isn't your own and the red tape involved with be beyond stress taxing you to the limit.
Anyway....it's not weird that you are constantly thinking about Africa...it's just that you are seeing yourself as buying your way 'out of the reality of Africa' and assuming some vacation-like existence that never ends.
Have you thought of just taking a safari for a couple weeks instead?
White people are in Africa living vacationing on beautiful beaches and in cities. You're not the first believe me there's millions all over. Enjoy the motherland no place like it great culture landscape people and the beaches are crazy. Easier lifestyle that's 100 times less depressing than living in the states
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