Visiting Africa always makes me question how I live

Visiting Africa always makes me question how I live 

I’ve strolled around this continent enough to feel comfortable in its shoes, yet I am still amazed at the simplicity of those who live in the villages. I am ashamed at all the possessions I need to survive my life. Travel teaches you more about yourself than anything else. Being in another culture provides a yardstick with which you can measure your own traditions, society, and life.

When I visit a village, I keep fumbling with the same questions. Like rosary beads; over and over I ask how is it that despite the reality of a hard life, people smile more than I do. And, as I look at the simple life here I wonder, do I own things or do they own me? Not really profound stuff, frankly. I’m embarrassed to even admit to such seemingly pedestrian reflections. But simple things make you ask deep questions in Africa.

Yesterday, I watched as a rambunctious three-year-old dragged a three-meter-long stick in the chalky dust as he ran gleefully back and forth. This is his only toy. Our children sit on a mountain of toys and it rarely seems enough.

To be honest, these are not really questions at all. They are exhortations that I should remember what is truly important in life. I pose them as inquiries to myself because I think it’s easier to ask questions than to deal with the answers. The truth seems to bore our society. The truth is that most of the world has very little and I have much, and I have consumptivitis —the need to consume. We put our faith in materialism, but where has it led us? The secret my village friends seem to understand is that life does not consist of being happy with what you have, but being satisfied with what you don’t have.

Wide love of Africans

It would be very easy to jump to the other extreme. We could go live in a mud hut. But the paradox is that this is neither simple nor realistic. The village life is as complex as any other. While the sense of community may be great, I don’t hear anybody speaking glowingly about the two-hour walk for water or sleeping on a hard mat. So I am numbed by the contradictions; the seeming complexity of a simple life here confounds me. One feels a bit out of balance by it all, like trying to swim while wearing rubber boots.

In this blog I could have written about the harsh reality for people suffering the worst drought in a long time. I could have told stories about the misery and hardship that children deal with. It would easily make you weep, and frankly, if it motivates people to help, there is a place for that.

But I’d like to help readers see these folks as people just like us. Yes, people live and die needlessly throughout Africa. But they are more than numbers, famine victims or children looking out at us from an appeal. They are just like you and me -- honest, dishonest, good and bad. They have complicated village politics, thoughts about the future and a well-deserved pride in their various countries.

Volleyball in the village. A popular sport. 

These are not starving masses. They are people with names. I have met them and come to deeply respect them for their capacity to make good out of the harshest situations. I love them for their ability to live no matter what drought-stricken waterless expanse lies before them, or what kind of political madness holds them down.

A long time ago my navel-gazing led me to try to make a difference in these places. A difference that is frankly much smaller than I’d hoped. But I keep trying, and I keep remembering Mother Teresa who said, “If you can't feed a hundred people, then feed just one.” That is one thing that I can do.


See you around.