Today I shared a beer with a young Frenchman who grew up in Tunisia.
Sipping on our Stellas, in the shadow of De Hoorn where these famous beers were first brewed, he made a remark about him being from the most northern country in Africa — and me — from the most southern.
When he said that, I instantly thought of Agulhas. The small town with its iconic lighthouse that sweeps its beam out over the divide between the Indian and Atlantic Oceans at night. And the town’s string of small shops and businesses — all proclaiming to be the most southern so-and-so in Africa.
I asked him if Tunisia had an Agulhas — a most northern town of Africa. I was hoping he’d say yes. And that he would confirm to me that there were a lighthouse and a most northern butchery and a most northern chemist and a most northern baker in all of Africa. But no, not to his knowledge.
We sipped more beer and that was the end of our talk about Africa.
Tunisia and South Africa are such different countries and places, they might be on different planets. Yet, they’re bound together by a single sheet of rock that curves over 30 million km² of the Earth. A wild and wonderful patchwork of the most breathtaking natural beauty, warmth of spirit, humanity, brotherhood, corruption, sadness and tragedy in the world.
