It's truly an unreal place. First time I was in Sudan/Darfur on a peace deployment, and of course, we connected through Egypt, but I didn't get the full experience in Egypt at the time. Whole different purpose for a visit, very hard to gauge anything, and I never went back.
Later went to Cote/Ghana. Very different than Sudan. Mozambique and South Africa as well. South Africa isn't much of a culture shock, if you're used to traveling. You adapt quick IMO. Cape Town was ok. That's the best major in SA. Johannesburg isn't for me, real trashy place. I wouldn't want to live in South Africa, even though as mixed person with a mixed brown skinned wife(half canadian euro mutt, half armenian), we would likely blend in more there than most of the US. But we don't want to live there for the rest of out lives. Mozambique is still mostly a guide-recommended place for Americans, which is nice on one hand, but so limiting. No matter where we went, same deal. Universal languages only, food, sleep, shit, even Maputo. Great place though, just hard to explore.
If I move out of the country, I'm going somewhere that we can legally own a good chunk of land outright, fee simple and full mineral, and don't need to get $30,000 worth of permits and $3000 worth of inspections for a $50k material/labor building like any non-cheapo pre-planned home like here in Illinois. My friend was able to build his home in a few months, high end craftsmanship, fully inspected, no problems at all, still some layers of bureaucracy, but not like the bulk of the US. Of course, with that kind of savings he built a passive home. Living in Africa, no heat, no AC. Never needed because the home is actually built by people who look at R-Values first, sustainable materials, and building to match the geology of the plot, not the 'county', which was my biggest fight when I built my rammed earth home ~15 years ago. So yep, west coast is pretty much the only place we would consider in Africa.
