rethinking Africa

I cannot get all the news I need from the weather report.  It is false prophecy, unable the decipher the scattered bones of clouds and the riddles of storms and sun.  95% of the time it is entirely incorrect, and everything is the opposite of what one would expect.  I am told to expect wind and drizzle, and the sun rips off my hat and fleece.  I am told to expect blue skies, and cloud after cold grey cloud lazily rolls down the sidewalk of our campus carved in the mountain.

The news tells us to expect many things.  It constructs our definition of places and people, to fear or trust in them, to go or to stay.  When I say the word, "Africa," what do you think of?  Images of acacia trees, starving black babies with flies in their eyes, AIDS, elephants, AK-47s, huts with thatched roofs, unbearable heat, Mt. Kilimanjaro?  Who or what has constructed these symbols of Africa for you?  Because it has been done for you, whether consciously or unconsciously on the part of yourself and whoever is marketing the concept of "Africa," whether it be by George W. Bush calling for more aid in Africa to save the people who cannot save themselves, or the Travel Channel drawing you to Kruger to take pictures of lions to prove that you've roughed it, you've seen "Africa."

How much of this news is false prophecy?  I find myself walking through Cape Town and marking this slum as evidence I am in Africa, this red earth, this black woman with a baby tied to her back, this cardboard box filled with guava.  But the hills quilted with vineyards, the cafe with the pink espresso machine, the surfers in the turquoise bay, these are all equally a part of this place.  Africa morphs second to second and is vast in experience and history, and we must begin to rethink the way we label Africa in our minds.  95% of the time it does not fit snug into our stereotypes, our expectations.  It is not one place, it is not a victim, and it is not uncivilized (whatever the hell that word means).  Cape Town especially is a kaleidoscope of cultures, colors, caricatures, and we do not know what to anticipate until the rain comes or the sun burns through.

There is a Swahili saying, Asifuye mvuwa imemnyea, roughly translating as, He who praises rain has been rained on.  If you never experience the rain, feel the warm patter on your face, see it soak into the earth, or see it drain in rivulets and floods into the road, you never will know the power it possesses.