Africa

It seems like in the past two weeks the topic of Africa has come up just about every other day. In Time Magazine last week, in a few documentaries I watched and in my wandering about on the internet, I found a wealth of information on one of the less popular continents.

All around we hear stories about the suffering in places like Darfur and Rwanda, and the epidemics spread across the continent. It seems that Africa is in a strange place, unlike developing countries and yet a blind eye seems to be cast upon the country by the so-called "first worlders". Not to mention the civil unrest and potential for war everywhere south of the Sahara.

It struck me as odd when I learned the population of Africa - over three times the population of the US. Almost a billion people living in such vastly different conditions and environments. It is striking to think that for every one person in the US there are three African counterparts. It pains me to see the images on the internet of these places. We have time, we have resources, we have money... so why do we allow this type of tragedy to exist?