This BBC article talks about the early history of Africa focusing mostly on the human inhabitants and their ancestors. It is believed that Africa was the first continent to ever be home to humans. Obviously, this is hard to prove and can be disproven at any given time if further information is ever gained about the human inhabitants of other continents. As of now Africa is the site in which the oldest human fossils have been found, and show many of the key stages of evolution. This conclusion is not only formed from looking at the fossils, but also studies with radiocarbon dating, as well as the analysis of DNA. All three support Africa being the first home to human life.

I found this article very fascinating! I've never really thought much about where human life first began, because it's something that's kind of  difficult to even imagine. Even though this information can be disproven it's kind of cool to have an idea of where it all began. With multiple studies showing this information from a trusted site I believe it is a conclusion that could very possibly be true. It will be interesting to look a little deeper into this subject to see if other's have come to similar conclusions!

 

Here is a picture of an example of some of the  fossils that can be found. This is a fossil of a human ancestor's footprint found approximately 1.5 million years ago in Kenya.

I read a short article on African slavery. It began with a powerful quote from the king of Congo, "They seize numbers of our free or freed black subjects, and even nobles, sons of nobles, and even members of our own family". Over the course of four hundred years millions of people from every area of the African society were forced into slavery, and sent all over. Even though slavery had been practiced for thousands of years this enslavement of Africans was the first time that such a large number had been forcibly  taken to other continents. Exact numbers are hard to come by, but it is estimated that approximately fifteen million Africans were taken to other continents. By the end of the nineteenth century large scale slave trade began to end in Africa. Even though it ended it's never been forgotten.

Even though this was a very short article I found it was packed with very insightful information. Beginning with the quote really caught my attention, because it showed that there really was no formula to how slaves were chosen. It could be anyone! Even powerful Africans had the threat of possible slavery to deal with. Secondly, the fact that Africa was the area where the largest amount of people were forced to leave their homes to become slaves plays a big role in why we so often associate slavery with Africa. There are so many other areas of the world that people were forced, or even taken to other areas to be used as slaves. It's not something we hear about so much, because the African slave trade was so big, which we can see very clearly from the statistics!



This picture shows some of the slave trade routes from Africa during a period of time. It also gives us an approximation as to how many African slaves were taken to select areas.

I came across an interesting article about the concern among Muslim scholars that such a large percentage of Islam followers are converting to Christianity. Islam use to represent Africa's main religion. With the large conversion only about 150 million non Arab Muslims live in Africa, which has an over all population of approximately one billion. Whereas the number of Catholics has increased from one million in 1902 to about 330 million in the year 2000. Every hour 667 Muslims convert, every day 16,000 Muslims convert, and every year 6 million Muslims convert to Christianity. Obviously, these are very large numbers, which would concern someone who is trying to protect their religion. These scholars discuss possible ways to avoid this huge conversion. One idea is that so many wealthy Muslims are quick to build a mosque rather than a school. They believe it is important to build the school before the mosque though, because they need to "build the worshiper before you build the mosque". Another scholar mentions his school where he trains missionaries to speak the native language and customs of the people. This attracts the native people, because the missionary is able to work with the people rather than seem like a foreigner. Lastly, one scholar mentions that he believes Islamic countries must fix themselves first before trying to spread their religion.

While reading the book "Things Fall Apart" it talked about how unsure so many Africans were of natives converting to Christianity when the European missionaries moved in. This is very similar to what is even continuing to happen today as followers of Islam are concerned as an overwhelmingly large amount of Muslims convert. I was so surprised to see how large these numbers were. I think it's a positive thing though that these Muslim scholars were able to discuss possible ways to help bring down these huge numbers of converts in Africa. It really stood out to me when the one scholar said to "build the worshiper before you build the mosque". I would've never thought of it in that way, but he made it seem almost like a no brainer. Educating the students about Islam will later create the need for mosques. Whereas if the mosque was built first there may be no need for it with such a small demand.  I also liked the idea of training the missionaries so they would really be able to fit in with the people. Rather than them coming in as a strange person they are able to instead relate with the natives. This would give them more of an ability to make an impact on the people.




Here is a picture of a Christian missionary visiting Africa.

 

 

I came across an article written by the "New York Times" about Chinua Achebe. It was published in 2013 short after he passed away from a brief illness. It tells about his life, and how he emerged as a popular writer after his first book "Things Fall Apart". It was inspired by his own family who was apart of the Ibo society. It described what life was like before and after the Europeans tried to take power into their own hands. He wrote this book because he wanted to show Africa in a new point of view for people to further understand that the stereotypes created through the writings of Western nations about Africa isn't necessarily correct. Most people were only familiar with the barbaric, terrifying, and miserable place often times portrayed through works such as Conrad's "Heart of Darkness". So obviously this new view point was very eye opening for many people around the world, especially other writers. It continues to go more in depth to explain the process, and thoughts that went into creating his next 4 novels that followed "Things Fall Apart". Here is a picture of Achebe that the New York Times used in their article about him.







I recently finished reading Achebe's first novel "Things Fall Apart"myself, and I really enjoyed it. I didn't realize how much of an impact Achebe had on opening people's eyes to see that Africa might not be as savage as it has been portrayed. I know I learned a lot from it. Not only about Africa, but about how much we truly are influenced by the way our media portrays aspects of the world. It really is a great example of there being at least two sides to every story. Not only was I able to learn a bit more about Achebe and his multiple novels, but also the life he lived. It gave me more of a perspective on how he sees things. One of the things that stuck out to me most was that he had been living in America for quite some time, but he never lost his passion for Africa. It was always a priority of his to defend the place that was often times belittled.

In CNN's Article "On Valentine's Day, speak the language of love with African romance anthology" it talks about some of Africa's best writers collaborating to create an anthology of romantic short stories. As I talked about in an earlier blog post, Africa is an extremely diverse continent when it comes to language. That's why this article allowed people to see what romance is like in different languages, and even move away from the stereotypical idea of romance. They are also able to take away from the stereotypical view of African daily life being miserable.

Obviously, this is a great article seeing as we all just recently got done celebrating Valentine's Day! I think it's awesome that all these very popular artists, such as Binyavanga Wainaina collaborated to make this amazing anthology for not only the people of Africa, but for the world. What I believe is a very cool aspect of this is that it was translated into many of Africa's most widely spoken languages. This made it possible to reach such a large amount of Africa's population. At times it can be difficult for Africans to connect and understand one another, because according to my professor there are 2000 different languages spoken on the continent. That made this a piece most all of them could enjoy!


              Binyavanga Wainaina

Another thing that impressed me was that it was able to draw away from some of the negative aspects of Africa that seem to always be portrayed. In my class we learned about "The Myth of Savage Africa", which describes how Africa came to be viewed less civilized and some what savage as Europe gained power. They had people everywhere seeing things very ethnocentrically through their point of view. This is still the view that many people have today. The collaboration of these very intelligent African writers shows that there is much more to Africa than the stereotype that it's starvation, disease, and uneducated people who make up the population. I think it's been a great way to positively connect and portray the people of Africa!

I came across a very interesting article that included some very helpful maps describing the distribution of languages and races within South Africa. It was written by a woman who had the opportunity to live there for awhile. Coming from the United States it is common for people to only know a single language, whereas here she was encountering people speaking at least two languages. When she looked at the distribution of races throughout the country the maps became very helpful in being a visual to what she described. From a very zoomed out perspective it appears that most race groups tend to largely live in the same general area. Once larger cities are zoomed in  it's obvious that people of the race tend to stick even more so in the same area, as their patches are more defined.

In my African Cultures class we talked about the linguistic families within Africa as a whole. This article broke in down even more for me by looking solely at the languages most commonly spoken in South Africa. That was interesting for me, because this is the area of Africa that can be most similar to the United States. After comparing the  map of South Africa below to the map below of languages most commonly spoke in the United States after English we are able to see Africa's languages are more diversified. South Africa has eleven commonly spoken languages whereas the United States citizen's language is most commonly English. Even though the United States has a very ethnic population Africa is still far more diverse when comparing the languages spoken.

The maps also showed some similarities to the United States. When looking at each country as a whole. One is able to observe the major ethnic groups living in each region. For South Africa one notices that the "black Africans" tend to be most concentrated in the eastern portion whereas the "mixed race people" tend to be in the western portion of the country. This is similar to the United States in ways like we have a high concentration of Mexicans in the southern portion, and in the Midwest we have a high concentration of Caucasians. When taking a closer look in on the more populated areas we can see it like she referred to it as a patchwork quilt. In South Africa these people of the same race and same languages tend to really stick close together. This can be compared to the United States in certain ways. For example, when looking at San Francisco one can see areas such as Little Italy and Chinatown. The people living in these areas tend to fit the description. There are also areas that aren't quite so specific though as they have many races living all together in the same section of the city.

By comparing the similarities and differences from this article to these aspects in the United States I feel like puts it more into perspective. We can compare how it relates as well as doesn't relate to what we are used to in our own life, which I think helps build a better understanding of the information.

I watched a slideshow about the major inequality in our world today. Although it was a short presentation it was packed with a lot of eye opening statistics comparing some of the richest to the poorest nations in the world. Overall, as one might have guessed the living standard for rich countries of the world has increased while those of poorer areas has declined. This is because the rich are getting richer, and the poor are getting poorer. Africa can be found in the poor category. Unfortunately, the number of early childhood deaths as well as education differences between areas of the world directly reflect their wealth. For example, a statistic from the presentation states that the number of deaths among babies under the age of one year dying in Africa is twenty times more than those occurring in the United States and Europe.

This article really caught my eye because I thought it went really well with what my African Cultures class started the semester off with. When asked to describe what we thought of when we heard the word Africa many of us thought of hunger and disease. This slideshow did a really nice job of simply portraying that Africa has many of these disadvantages because of the poverty that continues to grow in many areas of the continent. They just don't currently have the power, or large amounts of money it takes to further develop.

I once heard someone say, "The poorest people in the United States are far richer than many of the people in Africa." That statement really stuck with me. I can see that, just like this slide show stated with the immense differences in wealth that it really does give the people here in the U.S. or even Europe advantages. The poor people here are helped through different forms of welfare, food drives, soup kitchens, etc. that are only available because there are funds to do it with. Many areas in Africa on the other hand don't have that safety net. If they're hungry there aren't as many opportunities to receive this help due to the lack of excess of money.

Picture Source: http://www.newsworks.org/index.php/local/speak-easy/35439-whats-the-right-way-to-meet-the-needs-of-philadelphias-homeless

Picture Source: https://buddhalightbringer.wordpress.com/2014/02/04/feed-africa-give-her-your-old-iphone/