Monday, March 5, 2012

The Colors of Africa

Early on in Tanya Shaffer's story, The Girl Who Drank Petrol*, is a rather long descriptive paragraph that tells why she loves Accra, Ghana. She describes the pulse of the city, the diverse buildings, the way the people dress, the women's elaborate hair styles.

What most caught my imagination was this description, buried in the middle of the paragraph:

And the colors! Brilliant shades of orange and red, turquoise and lilac, fuchsia and teal. The African fabrics would make a flamingo look drab. The prohibitions against combining reds and pinks or circles and stripes were absent here. Fabrics of every description lived side by side in delirious dissonance, a dizzying visual feast.

In just four months I'll be able to experience Africa's colors for myself!



*from Best Travel Writing 2007: True Stories from Around the World, p. 103

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