Wandering/Wondering

Author: CBT

  • Why does Kigali have so much undeveloped land?

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    CBT
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    One of Kigali’s most pleasant features puzzled me. The city’s most prominent charm was the abundant greenery, and not just from the prominent tropical flowers that lined the streets, but also the frequent swathes of grass and trees dotted around its hills. These weren’t parks, they were simply patches of land without buildings. Gaping holes…

  • Rwanda

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    Day 1 It’s not an auspicious start when I struggle to find my way out of the airport. Thankfully, a helpful man with an assault rifle has pointed me in the right direction, so now I’m walking into Kigali. It strikes me, through the fog of travel-exhaustion, as I look out across the terracotta roofs…

  • How does racialisation work in Panama?

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    CBT
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    The concept of race is a strange thing. It has long been debunked as a pseudoscience, but has proven to have a long afterlife, with “racial identity” being a hot topic even in countries that don’t classify their citizens by “race” (the UK census notes people’s “ethnicity”, not “race”). Half of this is because the…

  • Why do cloud forests have more flowers than jungles?

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    CBT
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    A curious thing about the cloud forest of Valle de Cocora was that it, somehow, looked even more like a jungle than actual jungles. It had a similar tangle of vegetation to the rainforest in Soberanía, but whereas Soberanía was mostly a uniform green and brown, Valle de Cocora had near-constant bursts of colour from…

  • Colombia & Panama

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    CBT
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    Day 1 The hotel is small and basic. There are few amenities. The lock on the door keeps getting jammed. Showers are shared, and are some distance from my room. The local neighbourhood does not seem friendly. Yet, I could not be more glad to be here. My entire body feels weird from going without…