I listen to Norteñas as we fly from Lagos to Calabar, close to the Cameroon border. I'm so tired that the line between dreams and thoughts has become blurry. The music takes me to Sinaloa and images of man wearing Texan boots and cowboy sombreros get mixed with storylines of hunters and gorillas in the forest. We just spent two weeks in Sierra Leone working with partners to develop the initial story for a drama on chimpanzee conservation; tomorrow we'll sit down with scriptwriters from Nigeria and Cameroon to agree on the story for gorilla conservation in the border between both countries. I sometimes wonder how I ended up working in all these parts of the world, a question that probably many people wouldn't - or can't afford to - ask themselves. I'm lucky. Life has provided me with enough content to write a book, which makes me feel a sense of guilt for not even trying. Dream and reality remains blurry until the stewardess hands me a plate with chicken and yam. Next to me a Nigerian 20-something man plays with his iPad impatiently; he is returning home for the May 1st holidays. The cheap pink toilet paper in the restroom reminds me that this airline not only tries to cut any possible costs, but that is not really reliable. I rather go back to the dreamy state I was before. As we prepare to land, the Norteño playlist is coming to an end and for a moment I wish I was landing in Mexico. Why I did decide to leave in the first place?