Nowhere in Africa

Yesterday I spent part of my day watching a movie called "Nowhere in Africa." It was about this Jewish couple that moved to Kenya during WWII. The movie itself was fairly interesting, but more importantly it got me thinking about Africa again. Although I hated the professors because they were not nice people, I really did enjoy my time in African Studies at Emory. I really learned so much. I am so much more aware of that continent and currently of all the troubles that are there.
I have been keeping up with various websites that report on the condition of the various places and it's just so much that we don't hear about in our papers. It frustrates me that these millions of people can be living without something so simple as iodized salt for their children or that they can be in the middle of a war zone and yet our press finds ONE C.A.R.E. worker being held captive in Iraq more newsworthy. I get so angry at the hypocrisy of our governments "foreign policy" and our "free press's" ability to cover ONLY the political agenda of the current administration.
I was looking at another movie on TV last night and a commercial came on for the Christian Children's Fund came on. I have serious problems with organizations like that. I know that their intentions are probably very good, often their agenda is often more than feeding and immunizing the community. Other organizations that deal with refugees, while not prosthelitizing, still have major issues with corruption and inability to distribute the goods in a timely manner. It's such a difficult problem, and again we are so oblivious to it because no one tells us. As for me sponsoring someone this is the route I go. I have a dear friend in Uganda right now who actually sponsors a child every year personally from the community she lives in. She pays for the school tuition and helps with books, etc. Every year she asks her friends to pitch in to help. Because of my connections with Emory and UCT I know a couple of people that take books to the library in one of the Cape Town townships. Last year I donated a number of Geoffrey and Bronte's books and pitched in a couple new ones.
Anyway, this is where the movie led me. I think that Africa will always be an interest to me. Cape Town felt too much like home for me not to go back. I didn't get to see it all or feel and taste it all. Africa is such a big place with so many governments and so much constant change. The political, economic, environmental and social structures are too much too keep track of even in just one region, but at the same time it's worth trying to know. While we are up in arms about the minutia of the middle east there are people and things in Africa that deserve that outrage, as well.