It happens sometimes when you travel across time zones that you take a while to settle into the time change. That can mean waking or sleeping at times not usual to you and in turn hearing or seeing things that you would normally not experience. I woke sometime during the night and lay listening to the African night sounds. The fiery necked night jar calling his distinctive “Good-Lord-deliver-us!” and an owl with his mournful hoot. Somewhere a disturbed cockerel begins calling for the sun but it’s still too early for that. We drift back to sleep only to wake again in the pearly light of dawn and lie quietly talking about the journey we have come.
With a jolt I remember how dramatic the sunrise is in Africa and we jump out of bed to fully open the drapes. A rosy hue touches the tops of the trees and suddenly the glowing orange orb of the rising sun pushes its way into view over the horizon. We watch fascinated as pale pastel light rapidly changes to bright colorful vibrancy. It lights up the room, the garden and beyond in a matter of minutes. It’s almost as if some giant Hand reaches down and plucks the sun up and then hangs it in the sky. Time will seem to move slowly for the rest of the day – until the sun once more approaches the horizon when suddenly it will drop and darkness will fall almost instantly.
There is nothing stealthy or subtle about sunrise or sunset here in the African tropics. The beginning and ending of every day is a dramatic enactment of life – a moment or two to pause and rejoice, a moment or two to pause and consider. Each takes your breath away and it is a comment I hear often while traveling in this incredible continent “why is it that the sunrise/sunset here is so much more beautiful than anywhere else?” I don’t know the answer to that – but I have to agree!
