Foreigners have two mental images of Africa - Madonna with an emaciated orphan on one arm and a Birkin crocodile handbag on the other - or of a small propeller driven plane landing in a swanky game reserve dumping guests wearing Ralph Lauren casual amidst a pile of Louis Vuitton luggage.
But there is more. We live with genocide, droughts, crippling hunger and AIDS - and the occasional band of lions escaping the Kruger National Park causing havoc amongst the rural communities - who then get compensated by the government for the odd village cow having been eaten.
We know despots like Idi Amin who had an unmatched charisma, and an appetite for human flesh. (Although to his credit he admit that he was a 'reluctant' cannibal because for him, human flesh was too salty.
There was Bokassa who crowned himself Emperor of Central Africa in a gaudy display of Austrian carriages, a gold throne and a crown with an 80ct diamond. His guests drank an entire vintage of Château Pétrus and thousands of bottles of vintage Dom Perignon during a 3 day coronation orgy in the middle of nowhere.
There are claims of 'Fillet of Opposition Leader' served at banquets and fridges of cadavers found when he fled into exile.
The King of Kleptocrasy, Mobutu Sese-Seko built a pink marble 'Versailles in the Jungle' with a specially lengthened runway to accommodate the Concorde he leased from Air France to take him to his Paris dentist. He looted the copper and cobalt mines and let the country's infrastructure physically be taken back by undergrowth. Roads, railways were nonexistent and the cost of air travel prohibitively expensive. When medicine ran out and soldiers ran amok, Mobutu stood on his veranda looking at the peacocks strutting in the spray of a magnificent marble fountain. In the end when he fled into exile, the commotion was so great that half of his luggage remained left behind in the mêlée on the runway.
Of the 90 something year old Robert Gabriel Mugabe of Zimbabwe I don't have to say too much - but I shall devote a post to him and Grace Mugabe - the receptionist in State House who became the Imelda Marcos of Africa.
In Uganda today, people who are just like me - well maybe they dress with more style or maybe they physically look better - but people who are just like me are beaten, tortured and executed for being gay. In South Africa black lesbians are gang raped to 'straighten them out' they often die during the ordeal if they are not murdered for fun afterwards.
School children are abducted daily for either prostitution rings or for their body parts to be used in traditional medicine.
The list of atrocities are endless. Canned hunting. Killing of albino people because they are considered bewitched, the Pygmy people being hunted and eaten like animals. Blood diamonds...
But on a continent where money has always been a god, these unpleasantries are swept under the carpet and instead Beautiful Cape Town and the vineyards, the glamorous game farms, the exotic animals and the starry nights are showcased like a dazzling tray of Cartier diamonds.
The beauty is there, and the game ranches are magnificent. But spare a thought for the flipside and the gays in Uganda too please.
Thank you for your time spent reading this.
Baby giraffe with parents on a farm in South Africa.
