#equatoria

Corto Maltese, Equatoria

What are you searching for? The best thing about Corto Maltese's quests is that they usually end up in a fantasy.

Here's the truly amazing Cavafy's poem Ithaca, in which the poet advises us to enjoy the road, as the destination is only the excuse for the journey of life:

As you set out for Ithaka

hope your road is a long one,

full of adventure, full of discovery.

Laistrygonians, Cyclops,

angry Poseidon—don’t be afraid of them:

you’ll never find things like that on your way

as long as you keep your thoughts raised high,

as long as a rare excitement

stirs your spirit and your body.

Laistrygonians, Cyclops,

wild Poseidon—you won’t encounter them

unless you bring them along inside your soul,

unless your soul sets them up in front of you.

Hope your road is a long one.

May there be many summer mornings when,

with what pleasure, what joy,

you enter harbors you’re seeing for the first time;

may you stop at Phoenician trading stations

to buy fine things,

mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,

sensual perfume of every kind—

as many sensual perfumes as you can;

and may you visit many Egyptian cities

to learn and go on learning from their scholars.

Keep Ithaka always in your mind.

Arriving there is what you’re destined for.

But don’t hurry the journey at all.

Better if it lasts for years,

so you’re old by the time you reach the island,

wealthy with all you’ve gained on the way,

not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.

Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey.

Without her you wouldn't have set out.

She has nothing left to give you now.

And if you find her poor, Ithaka won’t have fooled you.

Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,

you’ll have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.

Translation by www.poetryfoundation.org

It worths to listen it by the breathtaking recitation of Sean Connery:

Corto Maltese, Equatoria

When Corto Maltese met his friend, and real life, Greek poet, Konstantinos Cavafis.

Box 1: Alexandria, one day later:

You said: "I'll go to another country, go to another shore, find another city better than this one.

Box 2: Whatever I try to do is fated to turn out wrong and my heart -like something dead- lies buried.

Box 3: Wherever I turn, wherever I look, I see the black ruins of my life, here, where I've spent so many years, wasted them, destroyed them totally."

]Box 4: You won't find a new country, won't find another shore

Box 5: This city will always pursue you. You'll walk the same streets, grow old in the same neighbourhoods, turn grey in these same houses.

Box 6: You'll always end up in this city. Don't hope for things elsewhere: there's no ship for you, there's no road.

Box 7: Now that you've wasted your life here, in this small corner, you've destroyed it everywhere in the world.

C. P. Cavafis, "The City"

Humanity is Nature's masterpiece. The band of cruel liars.

The United Nations says it has given two million dollars to South Sudan to support critical Ebola virus disease preparedness activities in the country to protect nearly half a million people in high-risk areas, mostly in Equatoria, which borders the Ebola-hit DR Congo. #AfricanNewsNetwork

The United Nations says it has given two million dollars to South Sudan to support critical Ebola virus disease preparedness activities in the country to protect nearly half a million people in high-risk areas, mostly in Equatoria, which borders the Ebola-hit DR Congo.

UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in its weekly briefs, the money will help to strengthen…