Tragedy tourists demand refund over happy Africans.

Western world media paints a pretty grim picture of Sub-Saharan Africans.   If you have never set foot on the continent you could be forgiven for thinking that all Africans are poor, desperate and powerless.  Just like someone that has never visited America could be forgiven for thinking that all Americans are fat, loud, and greedy.   Of course, both are brutal stereotypes that grossly distort reality.   But while America has gotten pretty good at rebranding its image in the world, Africa is still overwhelmingly typecast in the one-dimensional role of helpless victim.  It's what Nigerian novelist Chimamanda Adichie calls "the danger of a single story."   Which is not to say that all the horrifying stories of hunger, disease, poverty, violence, and corruption aren't true.  It's just that they're not the whole truth. 

Too many westerners, myself included, seek out tragedy to help fulfill our idea of an authentic African experience.  We gather stories of unspeakable horrors to share alongside our photos of sun soaked safaris.  The tragedies of Africa have become so ingrained in our imagination and understanding of the continent that poverty and suffering have become bona fide tourist attractions. Wide-eyed westerns are frequently spotted solemnly walking the hospital wards here in Eldoret. Slum tourism is taking off in Kibera.  I understand the impulse.  People want to see how "real people" live in Africa.  And it certainly doesn't get any more real than a public hospital or the largest slum in Sub-Saharan Africa.  But most of these tragedy tourists spend far too little time in these places to see anything more than a single story.  They are, perhaps unknowingly, looking for a glimpse of Africa that mirrors that which they saw on the nightly news, on that one episode of ER, or in any number of Hollywood movies.   But like both news and entertainment media, these visitors fail to shed the inherent relativity of their western perspective.  All they can see is suffering and despair.  But if they were to look a bit longer, if they were to look past the bias of their background, they would see that there's a humanity in Africa that the rest of the world has lost touch with.  

In a survey commissioned by The Nation, Kenya's largest newspaper, a full 86 percent of Kenyans claimed to be happy.  That's over 30 million happy people living in a country that is devastated by drought and famine,  paralyzed by post-election violence, and struggling to come to terms with environmental degradation. That's more than 4 out of 5 people happily living in a nation with nearly 50% unemployment, 1.4 million people living with HIV/AIDS, and half its people living without access to safe drinking water.  I suspect most readers of this post are familiar with at least a few of these stories of suffering in Kenya.  But I doubt that many, if any, think of Kenya as a country full of happy people. Yet it most certainly is.  Kenyans, it seems, don't think of themselves nearly as desperate as those in the West make them out to be.

You would be surprised by the number of Kenyans I meet that have no interest in leaving their country.  I am.  If life were truly as bad as the way we imagine it to be you would think everyone is desperate for a one way ticket out of Africa.  But they're not.  Just yesterday I met a women who wouldn't even think about trading in her humble house of mud here in Kenya for the one bedroom house her sister rents in Michigan.  "My house may be made of mud, but at least it's mine," she said.  My friend Dianna made her first trip to America this past August, to New York City no less.  I expected her to return with stars in her eyes.  But she was thoroughly unimpressed.  "There's no ugali," she lamented.  "And it kind of smells."   Both of these women are HIV positive.  Both of them came from poverty.  But neither of them aspire to find a life beyond Kenya.  They are happy just where they are.

This is not to say that there isn't vast room for improvement in Kenya.  But rather to highlight Kenyans remarkable ability to appreciate what they have.  Especially in comparison to Westerners.  In fact, the Swahili word for white person - mzungu - stems from a contraction of words meaning "one who moves around."  In other words, the defining characteristic of Westerners is not the color of our skin.  It's our inability to stay put, appreciate what we have, and not go out in search of more.  Westerners may have more worldly adventures than most Kenyans, but in many respects Kenyans lead a more enriched life.

Life is filled with hardships in Kenya.  But it isn't filled with unhappiness.  Indeed, Kenyans have a far greater grasp of happiness than most wazungu (plural - white people).  Yet this story is seldom told.  The only story we hear of Africa is that of a people that need to be saved.  This single story doesn't only rob Africans of their dignity.  It robs all of us of the opportunity to be saved by the humanity still thriving in Africa that the rest of the world is desperately trying to recover.

Comments

[Ashley Heath]

SO well written, Chris - this piece really touched me. Thank you for your posts.

[avin]

very well said good sir. ameesha had similar stories after a few stints in nigeria as well. it is pretty amazing that even globe trotting westerners often know very little about the reality most of the world lives in. just our own carefully crafted story of that reality.

hope you and your better half are doing well.

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[Alexa]

Finally...an article that tells some true facts about life in Africa. I've been to Kenya last year also and I really do agree with what you say. Our population is fed with the idea that Africa is a needful territory and that's all...It is a little true but why can't nobody see beyond this fact, as an example those Kenyans...

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