The same, but different

There are days when you don't really have travelling plans but you end up somewhere new nevertheless. This weekend was the turn of Matongé and St.Gills. In fact, I was just meant to go for coffee but ended up in a discovery. 

Blessed by the sun, my descent into little Yaoundé took me among not very well kept buildings and small shops selling cheap stuff but everywhere the colours of African dresses and the cheerful atmosphere of the "locals" was overwhelming. For some reason, Africa never makes me feel unsafe. Not even in Europe.

St.Gilles was another game. You go buy fruit at the market, turn right into a small street where a man is loading his olive-green Peugeot 404 and a lady is taking pictures with a Polaroid, walk up to a white party-house for elderly-only use, ending up in a small park where people outside time and space are reading, laying on the (wet) grass, and a girl is sitting on a bench with an iPod in her hears and tap-tap-tapping on a 70s typewriter.

It will be hard, going back to ordinary Brussels, the same, but different.