Heart of Darkness', Joseph Conrad wrote about Africa and the Congo as a desolate, uncivilized place back in the 1900's. Somehow, 100 years later Africa is still getting the same bad rep. A friend traveled this summer, with the school, to Tanzania for two weeks and had an extraordinary experience-the best of her life. When she got back I was talking to her and a friend who was asking about her living accommodations. The friend assumed she had been sleeping in huts, didn't have fresh water or food, access to phones or the Internet. In reality she was sleeping in a hotel, did have fresh food and water that the Tanzanians prepared for the group themselves and did have phones. However, some of the locals did not have these luxuries. She said "I went to Tanzania which is on the lower part of the "food chain" of Africa countries so to speak. It's true that we saw traditional tribes that didn't have anything except for huts and food and then we went to parts that had grocery stores and electricity and nice hotels." There are two completely different parts of Africa but when thought about we only assume the lower locations exist due to our own preconceived notions placed at our doorsteps by the media.
I like how you touched on Africa as still being a heart of darkness. It really hasn't changed in the views of people outside the continent for the last hundred years. We don't look a the good or positive in these countries. We only look at the negative, and we make our judgments based on those negatives
ReplyDeleteI like how you touched on Africa as still being a heart of darkness. It really hasn't changed in the views of people outside the continent for the last hundred years. We don't look a the good or positive in these countries. We only look at the negative, and we make our judgments based on those negatives
ReplyDelete