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BBC Correspondent Karen Allen: Reflections on Africa
[BBC] Africa is not a country. It is a continent that feels like it has come of age. Despite the very real problems of poverty, corruption and the sense you sometimes get in some quarters, that no-one is held to account, business types hail Africa as the "final frontier". After nearly 12 years reporting this region, for me it feels like a place where one grows up.I have met priests and politicians, warlords and entrepreneurs, gangsters and teachers. Ordinary mums and dads. Each of them has helped to shape my impressions and many have become firm friends. One of the first lessons I learnt in Kenya was survival. There is no safety net here when times get tough. In the early days on a visit to the slum known as Kibera, an elderly lady called me over as she stirred her supper in a thick black cast iron pot. "Hey sister, where are you from?" she asked. "London," I replied. "Yes, but where in London?" I was rather puzzled as she pressed me further. "I know London," she nodded, sagely. "In fact, I know Paris and Berlin, too." It emerged that this friendly stranger had once been a glamorous stewardess for a international airline. She had drunk the best champagne and visited the fanciest European hotels but when times got hard in the 1980s and the airline folded, she lost her job. Posted by: Besoeker 2017-01-01 |
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