Seems I read somewhere that the first thing you notice when you arrive in Africa is the flies and the smell. What kind of smell? (Honest question)
Human waste is probably the the most prevalent smell with jungle rot second depending on where you are.
Hopefully, just garbage and sewage.
Back in the day I did a lot of traveling to several African countries, and I have to say that I don’t remember a lot of repulsive odors at airports. In the cities, however, that’s another story. Lagos, Nigeria, was the worst by far. Salisbury, Rhodesia, was the most like the U.S. ((I use the old names. Mugabe has ruined what was once a wonderful country.))
In Egypt two smells: dust and poverty. I smelled that same smell of poverty all over the world, starting in Mexico.
In Kenya, the cities were poor, black and miserable. The Brits settled a lot of Kenya so the game parks were fabulous. All very manicured and clean. The game parks are the SOURCE of Kenya's money so they make SURE that they are BEAUTIFULLY kept.
There were no flies in the sun ANYWHERE there as it was way too hot for them. In the shade, many flies. But we all wore the most bodacious bug repellent we could and the flies did NOT like it so we were good to go.
The filthiest country we ever visited was China. I had THOUGHT that Mexico was the filthiest until we went to the middle east.
Then I thought that the middle east was the worst until we went to India. HORRIBLE.
I thought India was the VERY worst until we went to China. CHINA won the filthy award HANDS DOWN. I kind of believed all the Chinese P.R. about how advanced they were getting...until we went there. Lord have mercy.