Africa has a number of problems.

Too many tourists is not one of them.

We were sitting around the breakfast table engaging with a highly-qualified German woman working on a stint as a professor at a Moroccan University. Morocco is the only African country she has ever visited. She seemed a little repulsed by the fact that we could be engaged in such hedonist acts as surfing in Africa, while on the same continent people are starving.

She continued… “I also struggle to believe the fact that here in Morocco, busses full of tourists routinely speed past poverty-stricken women working the fields of their modest subsistence farms.”

“So basically what you’re saying is you think Morocco would be better-off as a country with NO tourists?” I asked.

She stumbled.

Stone buys local in Gabon…

It’s no secret that much of Africa survives on less than a dollar a day. Clearly this is not ideal. But what can an ordinary person do to help the situation?

1) If you’re a German professor you can be negative, disparaging about tourism, and pity ‘poor Africa’, or

2) You can donate your time and money to many of the aid organisations that operate in Africa (and just hope that yours is not one of the few that will spend your money on paying the extravagant air-conditioning bill of management’s houses in the suburbs), or

3) Come to Africa yourself and have a great holiday in some beautiful, safe places, with some of the most hospitable people in the world.

Assuming you have the time, we think the best answer may be number 3.

Gastor and Zelo ensured that we had an “always-on” fire going in our Congolese campsite at all times… (see a short film we made about our time with Zelo HERE)

Take this example: In February 2007 Stone earned $5 counting beans at his corporate job in London. In June that same year he found himself in a beautiful village next to the beach in the Congo. He carried his $5 there and exchanged it at the bank for CFA2500. As he was hungry he procured some food from the local shop and a couple of beers to wash it down for CFA1000. That evening he stayed at a locally constructed ‘campsite’ where Zelo collected wood, tended the fire and procured fresh water from a nearby stream for his shower. Stone remunerated Zelo with CFA1500 for his kind services rendered.

The shopkeeper was able to take the CFA1000, use CFA800 of it to replace the stock of food and beer, and split the CFA200 profit between buying food for his family and adding to his savings for shelving materials which he hoped to use to improve his small shop.

Zelo gave CFA1000 of his CFA1500 to his family in the village to buy rice and vegetables for themselves. He used the remaining CFA500 to buy paint for a sign on the road directing future tourists to his campsite.

The money they spent continued to circulate, in a similar manner, through the Congolese economy.

Tim, doing his bit for African development (it’s not as difficult as you thought)…

Here’s a summary of what just happened:

a) Stone had a great experience camping in remarkable surroundings eating local food and drinking beer.

b) The shopkeeper and Zelo were able to feed their families and grow their businesses, and

c) The Congo has money in circulation that it did not have before.

This is called tourism. This is why it helps countries develop.

This is why we can justify surfing in Africa.

* * * * * *

On a related note:

Reportback on ‘mental preparation to leave Africa’ session at AfricanSurfer HQ in Asilah…

After driving through exactly 3 restricted construction sites and one Moroccan military outpost, we finally managed to find ‘Paradise Plage’, a fabled beachbreak in the Asilah area of Morocco. The waves of the day weren’t much to write home about, so instead we’ll write home about 2 other things:

1) The guy washing his dogs down the beach

It seems the guys in these parts are really at the cutting edge of dog-hygiene. AfricanSurfer was lucky to capture these never-been-seen-before techniques of dog bathing.

We’ll call it the ‘chien-fling’, and it kinda worked like this: Pick the poor dog up by it’s hind leg. Hurl it into an oncoming wave. Grab it’s tail while it tries to paddle back to the shore. Let waves crash over it and ‘cleanse it’ nicely…

Surprisingly, the man had about 5 dogs on the beach and they didn’t attempt to run away despite the howls of pain from their friend. Let’s just hope this revolutionary Moroccan dog-bathing technique doesn’t go viral anytime soon!

Moroccan surfing dog about to get ‘flung’…

2) Is this the greatest train station in the world, ever?

For various reasons after the surf yesterday we visited the Gare Asilah to find out about train schedules. I got a little annoyed for a few seconds as the uniformed man behind the glass pottered around while I stood waiting… only to be presented a few seconds later with a steaming cup of fresh mint tea that he had been preparing.

“It’s good for the stomach”, he said. “What can I help you with today?”

Awesome.

The pinnacle of the Moroccan railway station (can you spot the Cruiser?)