My earliest introduction to Africa was through books. In high school, subjects such as History, Geography, Social Studies, and Religion covered key topics about the continent. These were not just academic subjects; they were the lenses through which I first encountered the story of Africa. The Africa I came to know through these subjects and my teachers was one I admired deeply. It was not just a place on the map; it was a living story, vibrant and filled with meaning.
I learned about a people with a rich and unique culture. I read about communities humble enough to welcome strangers—strangers who would later colonize and rule them. I learned about their suffering, born from generosity and openness. I discovered a people courageous enough to resist, to demand, and to fight for their freedom. In every lesson, every textbook, and every classroom discussion, Africa appeared not only as a landmass but as a soul—dignified, human, and inspiring.
This was a beautiful Africa.
Though materially poor, this Africa was rich in kindness. Villages raised children collectively, and everyone was considered a brother or sister. Generosity was not transactional; it was a way of life. There was no loneliness in this Africa. A child was never truly orphaned, a stranger was never truly alone. I saw an Africa where people, despite having little, shared abundantly. Kindness was woven into the social fabric.
But then came the age of modern media, and it changed everything. It shook the foundations of what I thought I knew.
The books faded, and screens lit up. I began to watch documentaries on television—slick productions, narrated with heavy voices that seemed to speak over Africa rather than to it. I watched stories about brutal dictatorships in some African countries. I saw footage of coup d’états, scenes of chaos and lawlessness that played on repeat. I saw famine, a slow, haunting disaster that claimed the lives of women and children. I saw images of children with swollen bellies, flies on their faces, staring blankly into cameras that seemed to harvest their pain for someone else’s moral awakening.
This was a chaotic Africa.
As I grew older, I had more opportunities to read widely. I turned to books that sought to explain Africa to the world. These were often written by journalists(most of them foreign) social workers, and expatriates. The picture painted was largely consistent: Africa as tragedy. These writers documented what Chinua Achebe once called “Africa’s tortured history.” No matter the subject—politics, economics, or society—the themes remained dark. Misrule. Desperation. Hopelessness.
These narratives had a rhythm. The rise of a tyrant. The looting of state coffers. The eruption of ethnic violence. The eruption of disease. The fall of a dream. Of course, there were exceptions—books and articles that tried to show complexity, nuance, and even optimism—but these were rare, almost drowned out by the dominant melody of despair.
Television followed the same script. Feature stories on major cable networks, often aired during prime time for Western audiences, showed us poverty porn with high production value. Images of suffering children accompanied by somber piano music. Headlines about Africa as a breeding ground for disease or extremism. Once in a while, there would be a story of hope: a Western doctor building a clinic, a foreign charity feeding school children—but even these were framed as acts of rescue, not solidarity.
Economically, I came to know an Africa that struggles to feed its people, where many live on less than a dollar a day. The statistics were staggering, almost dehumanizing. Poverty rates. Hunger indexes. Maternal mortality. I read stories of children suckling from dead mothers, their fates sealed not by nature but by a global indifference. The Africa of the headlines was not just poor, it was portrayed as incapable of ever not being poor.
Politically, I encountered an Africa where tribalism was not just a social challenge but the very structure of political life. Elections were ethnic censuses. Power rotated through patronage and fear. The assumption was that corruption was the default, and that the people were too uninformed, too blinded by tribal loyalty, to demand better. Africa, in this frame, could not govern itself. It needed guidance, intervention, and supervision.
Socially, I saw Africa reduced to a single story. Despite being a continent of 54 countries, thousands of languages, and immense cultural and ecological diversity, Africa was often spoken of as if it were one nation—a homogenous bloc of failure and dependency. Even well-educated writers and journalists, who should know better, repeated this error. “In Africa,” they would write, as if Kenya and Lesotho shared the same language, history, and problems. This flattening of identity was not just lazy—it was dangerous.
This is a tortured Africa.
But there is another Africa—one that my heart knows and understands. I call it Mother Africa. It is the Africa I was born into, and perhaps the Africa I will one day die in. It is an Africa of many peoples and cultures, united by resilience. These are people who face daily struggles with quiet dignity, who never give up. They plant gardens, build homes, raise children, fall in love, write poetry, make music, dream big, and hope even when the world ignores them.
This Africa is not the one you see on the breaking news. It’s the Africa you see when you sit under a tree with elders telling stories. It’s the Africa of market women who wake before dawn to feed a nation. It’s the Africa of students who study under streetlights, of neighbors who share water when the taps run dry, of children who dance barefoot at dusk. It is an Africa with stories yet to be told—stories of joy, innovation, and everyday brilliance.
Reading books, watching television, and flipping through magazines like National Geographic once introduced me to a strange, imagined Africa—an Africa that felt alien, distorted. For a time, I felt like running away from this “tortured” Africa, never to return. I felt burdened by the constant deficit gaze. The Africa in the media was always waiting to be saved, always behind, always broken.
But then I grew up.
I learned that not everything we read or watch is true. I began to question whose voice is amplified, whose lens is prioritized. I began searching for my Africa—the Africa I knew as a boy growing up in rural Kenya. And I found it again.
I remembered the hills where we herded goats, the rivers where we fetched water, the fields where we planted maize. I remembered the smell of wet soil after rain, the sound of women ululating during ceremonies, the sight of stars so bright they lit up the night like lanterns. I remembered stories told around fires, laughter that echoed across homesteads, and the deep sense of community that shaped my childhood.
This is the beautiful Africa.
Not because of its wildlife—though that is certainly part of it—but because of its people. People who build, who love, who rise each morning with hope in their hearts. People who carry history and possibility in equal measure. People who are not waiting for rescue, but who are charting their own paths—often quietly, often unrecognized, but always moving forward.
This is the Africa I know.
It is an Africa of paradoxes—beautiful and broken, joyful and grieving, ancient and new. It is not perfect. It struggles. It suffers. But it also grows, heals, and dreams. It is an Africa that deserves better than one-dimensional portrayals. It is an Africa that demands more honest storytelling—storytelling that sees not only the shadows but also the light.
I do not deny the challenges Africa faces. They are real, and they are serious. But they do not define us. Our poverty is not our identity. Our past is not our prison. Our mistakes are not our destiny. We are not merely recipients of aid or subjects of pity—we are creators, thinkers, and doers. We are storytellers of our own lives.
So I write this as an invitation: to look again. To look beyond the headlines. To read between the lines. To listen, not just report. To witness, not just observe. Africa is not what you think. It is not what you were told. It is not what you saw in that one documentary. It is not the frame chosen for you by an outsider.
Africa is a continent. A plural. A complexity. A rhythm that cannot be captured in a single beat.
This is the Africa I know. And I am proud to know her.
