Beautiful Africa

Ever since my last trip to Africa eight years ago I had wanted to one day visiting Ngorongoro Crater, which I had not been able to visit on the previous trip. Throughout this stay in Tanzania I had been looking forward to spending several days on safari to cap off the adventure before heading home. Truly the landscape and wildlife in East Africa are awesome, and Serengeti National Park and Ngorongoro Crater did not disappoint. It is quite spectacular to see the sleek form of a cheetah blended into the surrounding grassland as it rests in the cool of the morning.


There is something soothing and yet terrifying about watching a group of hippos lazily floating in a mirky pond and being reminded that this creature is responsible for more human deaths each year than any other African mammal (except perhaps the Cape Buffalo).



But as incredible as the wildlife is and as beautiful as the a sunset over a grove of acacia trees can be, when my hard drive crashed just before heading back home I found myself worrying more than anything that I may have lost some or all of the most beautiful aspects of Tanzania that I had been able to get on film: its people. We in the West hear only of the conflicts and turmoil in Africa through the media. We read about the civil wars and the corruption and international power struggles and because those are the only things we hear and read about Africa remains in our minds "the heart of darkness" populated by savages and run by power-hungry despots. What we don't read about are the millions of powerless and voiceless people who live a daily struggle to survive and do it with dignity and grace. We don't see the women who juggle several small kids and the responsibility of preparing meals and the crops that need to be tended to and still are able to somehow enjoy the simple moments in life that people with more material distractions would fail to notice altogether.




It is true, however, that a life of constant struggle takes its toll on many. Many faces become wrinkled and weathered far before their time in Africa. There is a fatalistic attitude that affects many in the older generation because they have come to realize that no one seems to be for them in their struggles- often times not even their own leaders. The fact that in only several weeks in the Bugando ICU I saw several people admitted in critical condition from suicide attempts is testimony of the fact that the struggles in life for the average person seem at times insurmountable.



Some adults have been beaten down so much that they seem to have lost the zeal for life. But one need not search far to find where that zeal found a place to dwell: Africa's children. To hear the high-pitched laugh and see the beautiful smiling face of a child playing tag in front of the simple mud hut in which he lives is to learn an invaluable lesson: if you can learn to be content with nothing but the most basic necessities in life there is nothing that can defeat you. There is in the eyes of these children a simple joy... and if one looks deep enough he can catch a glimpse of hope that a generation will rise that will not fall into the fatalistic mindset that seems to come with continual trials, that will break the cycle of corruption in leadership, that will have access to education and resources that will help them figure out their own answers (with the global community's help) as to how to overcome the obstacles that keep their people entrenched in poverty and hostage to disease and famine. These are the beautiful eyes of Africa.