Modern Africa

I Am Modern Africa and I Am Misunderstood
The Dark Continent breeds a lot of misleading thoughts. Those not from the birthplace of the human race have this misconstrued perception that all that’s found in Africa is jungles, famine, disease, poverty and war. I have lost track of the number of people who’ve honestly asked me whether I reside in a jungle. I have gotten to the point whereby I tend to just agree with them and tell them that yes, I leave in a tree house, we dress in animal skin and walk around with bows and arrows. This, I have come to find, is much simpler than   trying, mostly unsuccessfully, to explain that life in Africa is not that much different from here in the United States. I know you are probably taking this with a pinch of salt but give me a minute to explain myself, maybe this time I will be successful in convincing just one person.
I was born and raised in Kenya, for the many of you who don’t know where that is, Kenya is a small East African country. We are mostly known for producing a long line of long distance runners and most recently for being the home of president Obama’s father. For those of us who have traveled overseas, we are constantly asked about how Africa is. Recently a stranger asked if Africa is as bad as the media makes it out to be.   I honestly did not blame her for asking this because most of the news and outlooks from Africa and about Africa are negative at best.
Being from an average African country in pretty much the same predicament as any other country from Africa, I will try and clear the misconception that Africa is just full of problems. Firstly, let me clear up the issue that all of Africa is in a state of war. Apart from some parts of Darfur most of Africa is peaceful. It is very true that Africa is the poorest continent on earth. This poverty causes a domino effect onto other sectors of the continent. Issues such as robbery are prevalent in many African countries and so are issues such as famine and luck of...