Sea
Global Classroom Creative Writing Anthology 2015
A Visit To Africa
The wooden surface was smooth beneath my fingers. Caressing it, I felt its profound energy seep into me. The age of the wood – of its mother tree – had its own memory;
it held within it faint reverberations from ancient thunderstorms, raspy snarls of predacious beasts, cracking aridity of droughts. The air sat hot, but not humid; it had
already coaxed a glossy sheath over my pale skin. The table was colonial in style; over it was draped a white cotton cloth that swayed to and fro in the smoke-stained
breeze.
I smiled, hearing some distant melodic cries wafting from an adjacent hill. Their voices sailed gloriously into the air – robust projectiles, seemingly propelled from the
very essence of the men’s beings – voices far more visceral than the timid, restrained chirps of us westerners. These were the natives, the San people – endearingly
unrefined locals whom I had regarded with bemusement during my travels.
For this being my first visit to the African continent, I was unnervingly at ease. I was in the isolated Kalahari Desert, on the cusp of an expansive salt pan – a ghostly
crystalline landscape of evaporated lake water: a shatteringly sour crust, the powdered skeleton of the former reservoir. Somehow, I was calmed by the perfect purity
of everything. The tent which comprised my living quarters squatted low among the pale green grasslands, dwarfed by a smattering of brazen palm trees, their throngs
of leaves subtly twitching with almost imperceptible buoyancy in the evening’s breath. The tent itself was colored a muted ferny green and was erected in the classic
circus-like octagonal shape.
The wooden table in front of me (which at this point I was still fondly and absentmindedly caressing) was home to a few drinking glasses of different types: a scintillating
aluminum carafe that I suspected held chilled water; a glass container with a charmingly plump lid holding some beige biscuits; and a silver bowl supporting some
planetary looking peaches – on each fruit was a captivating whirlpool of orange and yellow colors behind the translucent furry skin. There was a slender set of cutlery,
the fork wonderfully hour glassed (it tapered down to an almost nonexistent point in the middle before swelling to a boisterous tip), and the knife was silver-bladed with
a wooden handle. To the right of the peach bowl were two short, thick-bodied glass jugs covered with breathable cheesecloth (keeping out dust); they held orange and
yellow beverages.
My view was down the length of the table; I sat at the head. The tent walls lined either side, upon them were hung framed black and white portraits of my predecessors,
previous visitors to the establishment. At the end, past the table’s foot, the tent was opened, and this is where I acquired my view of the outside.
‘My painting shows a small part of a beach where there are rocks and sand meet the sea. I decided to paint this because it reminds me of my
hometown in Taiwan, which is surrounded by the clean and peaceful sea. I like to remember happy times when I go to the seaside with my
family and have fun swimming in the sea and eating food on the beach.’
Illustration by Selina Wang, Year 8, The British School of Guangzhou
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Breaking the stagnancy, a man emerged from behind a drape to my rear. He held my meal, a tastefully portioned kudu steak with crisp greens.
As he placed the plate down in front of me I smiled at the vast disparity between this life and my life at home. This tent, in the remote African
desert, with all its eccentricities and simplicities, somehow elicited H