a history of my love affair with africa

I was 12 when I first fell in love with Africa. I was in between Harry Potter books and needed something to fill the addiction gap in my heart. I found the historical detective novels of Elizabeth Peters based around British Egyptologists in the late 1800s. My stepmom, Jeni, and I read through the series one summer and into my 7th grade year and Egypt came alive for me. More than just the ancient history, Egypt was a mysterious place even for the characters that lived and worked there. I got lost in the Cairo streets and actually cried when I found out that they don't actually let tourists climb the Great Pyramids anymore. I was ravenous for more. I knew all the dynasties by heart, the methods of mummification, the various forms of the Egyptian language and quite a lot of the hieroglyphics. I even began teaching myself Arabic and at one point before 8th grade could actually read aloud the curling letters, although I did not know much of what I was reading.

I imagined myself as first an Egyptologist and then as an anthropologist, studying not only the ancient cultures, but that of the people living there today. I definitely had an academic perspective about the whole thing, although a lot of my perceptions were flawed, based on fiction books set over a century ago. I'd like to think that I never patronized the hypothetical people of my future studies, but I don't really think there's any middle schooler out there that really grasps the idea of white privilege and true development work.

My concept of Africa was heavily influenced by Egypt until I was 15 and my concept of the future replaced from the removed analysis of the social scientist to the directly impacting physician. I saw Dr. Carter on ER when I was in 9th grade and his visits to the Congo transformed my assumptions and broadened my interests exponentially. I first attached onto medicine and decided that it was ethically irresponsible to study people and not help them when I had the possibility to aid them. Soon after I exhausted my initial drive for information about medicine in general, I gravitated back to Africa. I studied the philosophies of the people and read about dictators and the history of the oppression of apartheid. I read about the Rwanda genocides and tried to educate myself as best as I could about the continent and the challenges that have been consistently faced by the people there. I was, and still am, continuously shocked that a place of such rich history, the birthplace of humanity, is so often blatantly disregarded by the international community. I have essentially decided that it is racism, pure and simple.

Throughout my college career I have developed my academic passions for development work and development economics. My interest in both medicine and economics are intimately tied to Africa. I have pursued academic literature on agricultural practices in Subsaharan Africa as well as environmental economic ties to population growth, GNP, and politics. I have learned extensively about justice issues in women's health as applied to international cases and issues. The only thing I have not done is formally major or minor in Africana studies. I chose a more indirect route by selecting biology and econ, but in my spare time have voraciously read Jeffrey Sachs and Amartya Sen. All this academic work has only strengthened my passion for the continent, my belief that the most vulnerable people are the ones most ignored by those with the most power, and the fact that I am not content to study and analyze. I must do something. I must use my hands. I have to hold a child or build a latrine. I cannot keep Africa as an abstract concept for me anymore; I am compelled to do.

I've worried for some time that this instant gratification streak of mine is somehow anti-intellectual, that after all my time at one of the top liberal arts colleges in the world all I want to do is weigh babies and sleep under the African sky. Shouldn't I leave the down and dirty for those less privileged to my education? Well, no. And I'll tell you why. And it's definitely not white, liberal guilt.

In my framework of justice, guilt has no place. Justice to me is not about getting what people are due in this world. That view is antiquated and doesn't meet most ethical standpoints these days. To me, and others who chose such epistemological pursuits, justice means seeing one another rightly, using love to view those most vulnerable, and ascribing dignity and equal value to all persons at birth. Justice means not treating people as embodiments of stereotypes and respecting each person's inherent autonomy. In my opinion, activism is simply making sure the world knows about this framework of justice. I am compelled, no, obligated, to act on the principles that I have learned about in theory if I judge them to be true. And I do. I believe with a near religious fervor in the ideas of loving rightly and transforming my intellectual study of development into action. In fact, because I am privileged to be white in this racist world, I have a pretty big obligation to educate myself and to give back. Guilt does not play into it, only fact.

Africa has been screwed over and romanticized for hundreds of years. I've been talking about how fucked up that is since I was 12 years old and it's about damn time that I actually got my ass over there and gained something more than theoretical backing to my claims.

So come on placement office, I've been waiting for this since 1999.

Elaina