Utopia verses Dystopia

My life changed forever when I visited Haiti. After just a one and a half hour flight I had landed on very foreign terrain, a poor country, a rich culture, a devastated economy, happy people. It only took a week and a half for my eyes to be plastered open by the Haitians resilience in the face of unreasonable poverty. Upon my return home to my spacious home, food filled fridge and warm bed my mind was filled with questions about these peoples barely sustainable lives.
In Haiti we visited an underfunded and decrepit health clinic in Cap Haitian where one specific encounter with a severely malnourished and sick girl was seared into my memory. Despite it being the most difficult experience I have ever had, I often revisit the depressing confrontation to make sure I never forget her.
I wandered somewhat cautiously over to her crib; she was so small; her arms and legs were impossibly skinny, coffee-brown sticks. Her face, a hollowed out bone structure was made beautiful by her deep brown eyes; staring into them I was lost. She didn’t respond to my false cheery voice; she didn’t bat an eye when I rubbed her arms and legs. I think that this little girl, whose name I never learned is the reason why I study development, and why I am going to continue to go visit and learn about the abused parts of the world. When I met her I felt like I was staring directly into the face of poverty, starvation and illness, but more importantly, I was looking at a forgotten child’s face. This sick baby girl was abandoned by her family, left alone to fight for her life, and looking into the glossy abyss of her eyes, I could see the fight in her slowly dying. Who could blame her? I would feel the same way if I were stuck in a crib all day, too weak to lift an arm. Stuck in a place where the only companions you have are the flies that swarm your eye lids, I might give up also.
When I returned home from Haiti I could not put my experience into words without becoming emotional when I encountered misconceptions about poverty. I started this blog so that I can share my experience in Africa, every step of the way. To bypass the confusion we have to experience the truth about the injustices of poverty and possible solutions together. Share this blog with as many people as possible. I believe that the human will is great and when eyes are opened, idealists are born. The media doesn’t often represent the developing portion of the world, so we need to open our own eyes and get the answers ourselves. It is not fair that 26,000 children die every single day from preventable diseases and malnutrition. 1.2 billion people live in absolute poverty, that is one out of every five humans. 2,500,000,000 people do not have access to toilets, and 1.1 billion do not have access to safe water. Our collective failure to talk about and confront these issues in the most practical way is allowing environmental and human degradation to spiral further out of control. It is unacceptable that the US government spends over 600 billion dollars a year waging war and only 12 billion waging peace. Our ignorance allows our representatives to put off the most pertinent issues of our time claiming a ‘lack of political will.’


Ask Africa is our online, crash course on international environment and development in Ghana, Africa. Before you start blurting out your questions, reflect on your perception of Africa. Personally, my first impressions of Africa were constructed as a result of the media that begins to manipulate and mold our perceptions from a young age. When I think of Africa I imagine two different clashing worlds, national geographic meets malnutrition commercials. One of them is pristine: a natural paradise of tall yellow grass, exotic trees, elephants, lions, tigers and the odd giraffe cluster. The clashing world has been shown to me through pictures and video clips of the small African babies with their rusty red hair and swollen bellies - obviously badly malnourished. Two years ago I visited Morocco, and found that the massive continent of Africa is clearly more complex than the media images ever allowed me to imagine. There are countless different cultures and ways of life in Africa made up of many religions, ethnicities and languages. The spectrum of information that we are exposed to is very narrow, which is why I am very excited to delve a bit deeper into Africa, and start asking questions and providing answers.
If you don’t know where to start, relate your life to life in Africa, think primitively and examine your everyday routine as a human being, mother, teacher, lawyer, artist, student or writer – what problems do you have to overcome? What makes you happy? What tasks do you commit your time to? How does your culture affect your everyday life? Pose questions so that we can find out what it is actually like to live in Africa, and leave our tainted perceptions about the continent behind.