Mother Africa

She is not just images of starving children with bellies bloated with air She is not just dry faces and tattered clothes with flies circling her hair She is not just voodoo priestesses drinking the blood of a fowl She is not just heartless warmongers who shoot the innocent down She is not just an impoverished land consumed by HIV and AIDS She is not just a late night TV ad requesting 15 cents a day She is not just bare breasted mothers carrying infants across her back She is not just corrupted dictators and genocidal maniacs She is not just elongated necks adorned with rings She is not just lip plates and other "unnatural things" She is not just steamy jungles overrun with apes She is not just shabby huts all in disarray She is not just Sarafina or the miniseries Roots She is not just hotel Rwanda or Shaka Zulu What she is, and will always be, is the mother of civilization, creator of humanity.