A minibus that operated in the Ghanaian capital, Accra, in the late 1980s carried the inscription "Travel and see". I did not understand the real meaning of that until I started traveling to other countries from the mid 1990s.
When I left Cameroon 11 months ago I knew very little about China. Yes, I knew it had become an important partner to Cameroon in recent years, that its economy was surging ahead, with growth in the double digits, and that some of its big cities were blighted by air pollution.
To know and understand another country it is better to travel more than 10,000 kilometers than to read 10,000 books.
Africa has become a huge magnet for foreign direct investment as a result of uninterrupted economic growth by big African countries for more than 10 years. In that time, the continent's GDP has grown about 6 percent a year on average.
While other counties in Kenya has raised their taxes to boost revenue, Machakos county, a new county located about an hour and half's drive east of downtown Nairobi, has not changed them. Instead, it has focused on a less conventional idea: attracting foreign direct investment to create a sustainable economy.
Chinese investors and potential investors have long regarded a good China-African relationship as a solid basis on which they can build success. But often when the uninitiated finally step onto African soil they realize how simplistic the term "China-Africa relationship" really is.
Is Kenya ready for foreign direct investment? The answer is a cautious yes, and some background is important in backing up this optimism.
To attract foreign investors and entrepreneurs to Kenya, the country's private sector and the Kenya National Chamber of Commerce and Industry are fully committed to working with the Kenyan government to establish a regulatory system that facilitates a well-functioning market that protects the public interest.
Though the number of Chinese tourists going to Africa has been affected this year by the Ebola outbreak, experts and insiders are all confident that Chinese numbers will continue to rise.
Kenya is eager to welcome more Chinese tourists, but one problem is a lack of communication between tourists and guides because of the language barrier, says one of Kenya's top guides.
Chinese investors are confident about the hospitality and property markets in Africa and plan to keep spending money there despite the decline of international arrivals due to the Ebola outbreak and terrorist attacks in some regions.
Hospitality companies are working with Chinese tour operators to promote their exclusive - albeit expensive - services to big spenders in the Chinese market.
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