Misconceptions about Africa

Sometimes we think of Africa as indeed the dark continent. As Westerners we immediately think: severe poverty, horrific droughts, huge refugee camps, conflicts that escate into war, disease of catastrophic proportions, oppression and generations of lack. All of which is true. Spending time this last week in Nairobi, I feel it’s remiss not to bring the other extremes we’ve seen and experienced while here.

For example, the neighborhoods in Nairobi. There are multiple HIGH end neighborhoods with beautiful huge homes on enormous beautifully manicured compounds. Nearby there are exclusive, expensive shopping malls, sports clubs and golf club. Families have multiple cars, expensive clothes, and their children go to costly private schools. Diplomats, ex-pats and wealthy Kenyans live here.

For the middle class there are several neighborhood options closer to the City Center. Here ex-pats and middle class Kenyans live. There are options for good private schools, shopping malls, cinemas and easy public transportation. Apartments with security guards are plentiful as well as green, quiet neighborhoods, all situated on their own compound with a security guard. Everyone has a washer, probably not a dryer, multiple tv’s, the latest cell phone, computers, and perhaps a car. People have jobs as business executives, bankers, lawyers, realtors, teachers, doctors, etc. They have busy lives and come and go, living life much as we do: go to work, manage a busy schedule with family and work, eat out, go to the movies, buy new clothes, their kids probably go to private school (as Kenyan education is severely lacking and outdated). There’s a huge community of Indians who own many commercial businesses and also foreigners who work for NGO’s or have started very profitable businesses, etc. House help is very cheap, so most homes also have a “house girl” who helps with cooking, cleaning and caring for the kids.

However, there is, what we would actually expect: one of the largest slums in the world, Kibera, where life is the exact opposite. Numbers are around 1,000,000 living there and the surrounding slums, making up 60% of Nairobi’s population. Here people earn less than $1 per day. Typically, eight people live in a shack 12’x12’, which cost $6 per month to rent with no electricity, no water and no sewage. Home brew is common, as is abortion, cheap drugs, unemployment and AIDS.

Africa is complex. The layers of chaos, confusion, deception and corruption are deep. Perhaps our ideas of Africa are indeed accurate, but for this post, I wanted to bring the other side as well. Africans are proud, brilliantly creative, articulate, hospitable, warm, highly intellectual and informed citizens of the world at large. To think of them as less is nothing but ignorance. To think of them as equals or greater is an honor. To think of them as partners is a delight and a privilege. To be here is our greatest joy.