The policeman sitting behind the desk in the St Julien police station looks too young to have graduated high school. His senior co-workers, clustered in a semi-circle behind him to oversee his report-writing, seem to think the same: good-humouredly teasing him about his pretty eyes and winking to me as they explain that he’s single.…
My upper thighs were aching. We were over an hour in riding on camels, and after smacking my chapped lips, it was clear I was in desperate need of some hydration. Strapped in by harnesses along the side of Wirira, I knew my 1-litre Sidi Ali bottles were not going to be able to quench…
“You are not drunk!”
It’s two in the morning and I’m shouting at a mountain – I’m definitely drunk.
A weekend trip that replaced Tokyo’s highrise buildings with grand mountains was a much-needed breath of fresh air. I was in Japan to encourage my identity as a writer and add some fresh work to my…
My housemates buy overpriced drinks and sit down at the window seats inside the Starbucks across from us, camera phones at the ready.
I nervously wait with two Swedish guys I met last week outside the west gate of Ikebukuro station. It’s already dark and the humidity is off the charts. Japan is sweltering in…
2020: global travel bans, entire fleets of commercial airlines grounded, borders shut, entire cities in lockdown worldwide. Not exactly a great year to be planning a big trip. Everyone reading this will have had to cancel some sort of plans this year, and as difficult it is for perennial travellers to stay put, you will…
Buenaventura Bravo’s main job during the Spanish Civil War was getting his goats out of the village and into the mountains. This was no top-secret mission, entrusted upon young ’Ventura by the besieged Republican government in Madrid, just something that had to be done; this was the day-to-day life that continued to unfold regardless of…
I have no other choice. Since the war ended, my life has been miserable. The communists have confiscated our house, our money, our belongings, everything. The 10 of us live in what used to be our kitchen, which is now our only space. Every time any of us leave the house, we’re body searched in…
There is a kind of sexual urgency in the air since human touch became a scarcity. The prospect of a complete lockdown will see single people cooped up with nothing but Netflix and toys purchased from the kind of store you wouldn’t window shop with your grandparents. I can feel it. A glance at the…
Before the Coronavirus pandemic came along and fucked up everyone’s lives, I was living a pretty normal one. I had a full-time job that took up most of my time, I shopped at my local Woolies for groceries every week, and often, my friends and I made plans to hang out, get dinner and catch…
Last night, we heard screaming. Tucked away in our apartment during quarantine, we wondered what people were doing outside clapping and yelling. Upon looking out the window, we could hear our neighbours across the alley – they were sitting on window ledges, hollering and cheering. Shouts from blocks away could be heard echoing through the…
I read an article once, by a man whose name I cannot remember, which attributed the differences between occidental and oriental cultures to the incidence of communicable disease. Asia, he argued, has historically been prone to outbreaks of diverse and deadly communicable diseases. As a result, foreigners were treated with suspicion, since foreigner people often…