Afrika's Daughter

She is called Mother Afrika, and we are her children. Afrika experienced the joy of birthing humanity and civilization, and the pain of denied recognition, respect and love. Yet she remains steadfast, reminding us of our humanity and calling us home. More than twenty years ago, I answered. I traveled to Lesotho, a country surrounded by South Afrika, to drill wells with rural communities. Lesotho, though small, is mighty, and appropriately called the Mountain Kingdom.

The kingdom formed, in the early 1800s, under the leadership of King Moshoeshoe I who built a stronghold to fight off enemies. He and his people lived on the top of Thaba Bosiu, Mountain of the Night. Moshoeshoe I and his people used their intelligence, creativity and natural environment to maintain their culture and independence. 200 years later, Thaba Bosiu is still difficult to climb, and the people of Lesotho remain independent.  

I arrived in Lesotho one month after the presidential election of Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela. 

It was impossible to enter or leave Lesotho without driving or flying into South Africa. It was an incredible time to be living with people who embraced a return to the humanity, respect and love that they knew was of Afrika. Ten years later, I moved to South Afrika. 

The diversity of South Afrikan people, cultures and environments was incredible to experience. South Afrika is the history of the Khoikhoi, Zulu, Ndebele and Xhosa people.  

It is the institutionalization of apartheid in the 1950s, resistance to it, and overcoming it in the 1990s. South Afrika’s constitution includes 11 official languages. It is snow in the Drakensberg mountains, penguins on coastal beaches and jacarandas in Pretoria. 

South Afrika is the hustle and bustle of Johannesburg with fashion malls, the legacy of gold mining, and Soweto, the largest township for Black South Afrikans. Soweto, Southwest Township, was established to house Afrikan mine workers away from white citizens, and later became the only place in the world with two Nobel Peace Prize winners on the same block – Archbishop Desmond Tutu and President Nelson Mandela.  

Soweto is also home to Walter Sisulu Square where the Freedom Charter, foundation for South Afrika’s 1996 constitution, was created in 1955 by organizations resistant to apartheid.   

The Freedom Charter, Hector Peterson museum detailing the student uprising of 1976, Robben Island where Mandela and other freedom fighters were imprisoned, Drakensburg escarpment, and Kruger National Park are some of the places Good Journey, the youth organization I founded, took young leaders during a South Afrika educational tour in 2014. 

It is important that young people are culturally aware so that they engage the world from a global perspective. 

In six years I lived in three southern Afrikan countries, and traveled throughout Afrika. 

I have seen 100 year old, 440 pound, turtles in Zanzibar on Changu island, also known as Prison island, where enslaved Afrikans who rebelled were imprisoned. 

I relaxed on beautiful beach islands, toes touching a blue tinted Indian Ocean on Mozambique's coast. 

I drank tea with friends in Morocco and walked along narrow winding streets in Old Town Medina in Fez, joining people doing their daily selling and shopping. 

I road public transportation from Cape Coast to Accra in Ghana with people heading to visit family with live chickens strapped onboard. I shared space in a forest of Madagascar with leaping lemurs. 

I spent my birthday in Dakar, Senegal dancing at a reggae concert while graffiti artists created live art on stage. Because in Senegal, art is life. Leopold Sedar Senghor, the first president of Senegal, was a poet and philosopher. After gaining independence from France in 1960, President Senghor established a system for African art education, creation and exhibition, free from colonial influence. Within Senegalese culture, art was lifted up as a necessary means of expression, an instrument of revolution and symbol of cultural identification and relevance. 

Visiting Senegal, I was surrounded by beautiful women in political, educational, business, community and family roles, attired in dresses with headwraps made from strikingly patterned Afrikan fabric.  

Men stood tall in the market, bank, streets, city municipal offices and homes, donning traditional wear with matching kufi.  

In Saint Louis, Senegal, sister city to St. Louis, Missouri, I stood with children on tiptoes peering over the stadium wall, filled with fans of all ages, watching a national past time, Senegalese wrestling. Senegalese wrestling pairs physical strength with artistry, and is rooted in Afrikan tradition.  

In Senegal’s capital city, Dakar, I visited an artists’ compound, meeting painters, glass artists, woodworkers, pottery makers and metal artists, each with personal studio space. In the last studio in the far right corner of the compound is where I met Fola. 

I immediately connected with Fola Lawson. His paintings, with bold colors and deep illustrations of ancestral stories told to him as a child, spoke to me.  

Friendship was born, continuing through Skype and Facebook. I admired Fola's passion for painting and batik making and he admired my passion for working with youth. Fola suggested we join our passions, with a plan for Fola to visit the USA and teach young people through Good Journey about West Afrikan art and culture. 

Togo born artists, Fola Lawson and friend, Papisco Kudzi, presented their African cultural abstract paintings to the St. Louis community at Exodus Gallery, and taught youth and families the art of batik making. 

I certainly would not have experienced the beauty, diversity, friendship, and love of Afrika without the desire and motivation to travel. Answering the call home to Mother Afrika demonstrates recognition of her greatness, respect for what she birthed and love for what she continues to teach us.   

Sharing her with others in ways that are humane, loving and inspirational is one of the greatest gifts a person can offer her in return. Let’s travel y’all!    

#africa #afrika #travel #ogjttravel #liveandlovethejourney #culture #art