Gahe. This is an abridged version of the episode that you can hear in full by signing up at

Uncomfortableconversations.substack.com slash subscribe. Enjoy the freebie. Gnay, humans. So I am in

West Africa, as you do, as you do, of an April. Every April, I'll have come to West Africa, soaking up the sun.

That's not true. West Africa is funny. Well, I mean, where do you even begin in describing this

trip so far? I'm sitting in a hotel room in. It's the first time I've had a cold, air-conditioned

room with Wi-Fi. So now I have the opportunity to share some of my

first observations with you. We've been here almost a week. And this is a part of Africa that is

not, this is not South Africa. You know, this is not the Africa that has an infrastructure for

tourism and has things for you to see.

This is the Africa that's just going about its own damn business and doesn't give a shit whether you come or not at this point in time yet.

I haven't seen a single McDonald's or 7-Eleven or something,

which might sound obvious, but if you've traveled much through the developing world

in places like Thailand and India, then you're familiar with a sort of developing world country

that kind of rhymes a bit with what we're familiar with. And I imagine not having been that

places, are there other countries

in Africa, which are more like that, which are more amenable to openness towards the outside

world, kind of understand what travelers want and need, know how to do an Airbnb, have some

level of credit card provisions, have various air-conditioned convenience stores

with the sorts of things that middle-class people like. Not that here. None of that here.

And it's fantastic. It was absolutely incredible. It's one of the first times in my life,

since I guess I was backpacking around Southeast Asia in my late teens and early 20s, which is, let's face it, going back two decades now, that I've had the experience of being in places.

And back then, even back then, you had to really stretch.

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