"Authentic Africa"

Erin and I just returned from a splendid trip to Tanzania with our good friends Sutter and Anna. The word “safari” literally means “journey” in Swahili. We toured around the unparalleled national parks of northern Tanzania as well as the pristine beaches of Zanzibar. We saw giraffes, elephants, zebras, baboons, gazelles, impala, hippos, lions, leopards, hyenas, rhinos, a herd of probably 100,000 wildebeest, a cheetah, and so on. Sutter’s journey was a little more exciting than he had hoped. The volcano that blanketed Europe in ash held his trip up by four days, but amazingly he caught up with us at the Rhotia Valley Tented Lodge in the middle of Tanzania.

The brochure for this lodge reads…“Quietly tucked away on top of a hill in authentic rural Africa and at the same time located in the very heart of the Northern Tanzanian safari circuit, Rhotia Valley Tented Lodge breathes the atmosphere of the true Africa.”It left me asking myself, what is authentic Africa?

My initial thought upon seeing the first giraffe on the first day was, “now this is Africa” – indeed, it was the Africa I had always envisioned, that of the animal-filled savannah. But the continent encompasses so much that the term Africa is merely a geographic designation. To me, there is no “authentic Africa.” To me, Africa is… Kilimanjaro, the Sahara desert, the Ethiopian highlands, the Great Rift Valley, the cradle of mankind, the epicenter of an AIDS epidemic, the hub of world poverty, government corruption, civil war, hopelessness, sun, tropical weather, dirt roads, sustenance farming, substandard health care, aid money, culture, spirit, languages, diversity, simplicity, soccer, lions, elephants, monkeys, giraffes, gorillas, East Africa, West Africa, the Horn of Africa, North Africa, the Nile River, Lake Victoria, community, love, hardship, death, patience, tranquility, mud, sunsets, mountains, valleys, plains, plateaus, rivers, deserts, lakes, Madagascar, acceptance, desperation, pain, pleasure, structural violence, tuberculosis, malaria, measles, malnutrition, starving children, intestinal parasites, dirty water, bare feet, quaint houses, various religions, landlocked countries without good trade opportunities, poverty traps, high birth rates, high mortality rates, tragedies, coping mechanisms, children, hope, and future. I hope you have the opportunity to experience it some day.