#africanlives

[michaelmaryblog]

Visit Senegal

As a plane slides to land in Senegal, the most exceptional component is the African Renaissance landmark that remains at 49 meters. A gigantic show-stopper sits on Mamelles Hill and gives guests an all-encompassing perspective on both Dakar and the sea. The sculpture is intended to address, in the expressions of previous President Wade, "Africa's latent capacity, resurrection, and freedom for quite a long time of obliviousness, narrow mindedness and prejudice". In spite of the fact that there was a lot of discussions encompassing it during its development, today it the home of a few art stores, displays, and gallery spaces holding mementos of African and African diaspora history, and the best perspectives on Dakar and the encompassing sea. A 30-kilometer drive from Dakar will prompt Lake Retba or Lac Rose, which as the French name recommends, is pink in shading. On bright days because of a specific sort of green growth called Dunaliella salina, this saline lake mirrors a pink tone yet on overcast days it seems dim. Along the shores of the lake are various small-scale salt slopes by the Senegalese salt harvesters who utilize conventional salt gathering methods to make their day-by-day bread. In the event that guests center they are free to swim or kayak in the lake. A plunge in the saltwater is restorative for one's skin.

[shootswithlucy]

Tavish - Dying (Official Lyric Video) out now! Check it out to learn more about the Cameroon Anglophone Crisis! 

[taraincameroon-blog]

The Value of a Life

In the past week, I've come to realize that the life of a non-Muslim, white, western person is much more valuable that the life of anyone who is Muslim, not white, and not from the western world.  I know that's a bold statement, and it’s not at all what I believe, but based on media in the past week, it unfortunately seems to be a pretty accurate one. 

It was a week ago when I was sitting at the Peace Corps office, reading articles on BBC and trying to stay caught up on what’s going on in the rest of the world, when I read two horrific articles.  One was about a shooting in Paris that killed 12 people.  One was about a terrorist organization in Nigeria burning and killing and entire town.  Both involve the murder of innocent people. But one caught the attention of the entire world, and the other one seems to go almost unnoticed. 

Again, in my desperate attempts to actually know what’s going on in the world, I have an email subscription to the Washington Post that send a morning and evening updates and news alerts.  That way, even if I have access to the internet for a short period of time, I can open a bunch of articles and read them at home later.  In the past week, ­­I've received 10 emails where the featured headline was about the Paris shooting, yet not a single email with a featured headline about Boko Haram in Nigeria.  Last Saturday, they finally included Nigeria as the 8th story in their list of articles. Important stories like “You can now play nearly 2,400 MS-DOS video games in your browser” and “A social network for dudes with beards is kinda, sorta, accidentally revolutionizing online dating” came before the story about Nigeria.  Clearly, someone has their priorities straight. 

Last Wednesday, Boko Haram attacked and destroyed the town of Baga, in the North East of Nigeria.  After this attack, there were three suicide bombing, adding to the death toll.  These attacks occurred last Saturday and Sunday, killing an additional 23 people, and were carried out by girls as young as ten years old.  Following the initial shooting in Paris, also on Wednesday, five additional people were killed in the following two days, bringing the total death toll up to 17.  After the deaths in Paris and, the deaths in Nigeria continued, but the world focused on debates about free speech and religion.  I’m not saying these aren’t important debates to have, in fact, I think some very important to address the anti-Muslim sentiments that have followed the shooting (my two cents: how ignorant do you have to be to blame an entire religion for the acts of three people?).  But while celebrities were in tweeting wars and people gathered in outrage, Boko Haram was committing its largest attack since the group’s formation in 2009, killing around 2000 people and displacing thousands more.  Where is the outrage for this act of terror?  Maybe it’s just that most people in the western world feel a stronger connection to something occurring in the western world, and maybe I just feel strongly about these attacks because I currently live in the neighboring country.  Still, in the past week, two events have caused the loss of around 2017 innocent lives?  The 17 lives in Paris deserve to be mourned and remembered, but so do the 2000 lives lost in Nigeria.