Africa in Our Souls - Sophie's View

Some days we love Africa, some days we just want to go home.  Either way, there is no doubt that Africa has found its way into our hearts and souls.  Sophie, who celebrated her 11th birthday this week, wrote the following poems about her time here:

I cannot bear the poverty in the air; sifting in and out of my world.
The smell nothing to me but the world to somebody.

_________

I see Africa.
I see Ghana.
I see life at the most happy extent.
Where there are the poorest people come the biggest hearts.
That is the way of Ghana.
That is the way of Africa.

__________________

A lapless ocean;
I stare motionless;
A lapless ocean. 

Tomorrow, I am taking the kids to the Upper East Region, where we are about to implement our mobile phone work.  It is the poorest region in the country and is the "real" Africa.  We will be in Paga, a town just at the Burkina Faso border.  All week, we have a series of "durbars" which are ceremonies where representative from the project go to the village chiefs in each village where we'll be working, brings them gifts and asks for their permission and blessing to do our work there.  He presumably grants us this permission and my understanding is that dancing and music ensues.  We'll see how it goes, but I have no doubt there will be many more deep impressions and processing from this amazing experience.......

Conflict

I've been feeling a sense of unrest, of conflict lately and was having a hard time pinpointing the source.  This piece came to me today and I think it articulates the larger human conflict that Africa so poignantly highlights to us all....

Africa

Teeming with life, flooded with death.

Human ability to face adversity with grace, faith, wisdom, strength and joy, a battle ground of the worst atrocities humans can impart on one another.

Old, wise sages bringing forth the wisdom of the ages, the utter incredulousness of babies being plucked from life for lack of basic resources.

Overflowing with riches, buried in poverty.

The intensity and complexities of human life shown to us all in Technicolor.