When I told people in Mexico I was going to Africa. I faced the same question that I have asked myself so many times before. Why go so far if I could help the ones closer to me? Is not poverty the same in any part of the world?

Hunger is hunger in any language and at any place, even though you might not be the one suffering it, you can still feel it, and when the needs of the others somehow become your own needs, it’s easier to understand how the main thing is not who you are helping to, just the fact that you are doing it.

Still, you can be wondering, Why Africa? There could be many reasons, but numbers are there; one in two people in Sub Saharan Africa survive on less than one dollar per day (more than 315 million), a child dies every 3 seconds from AIDS and extreme poverty, more than one billion people do not have access to clean water, in a few words, when the rest of the world is hungry, Africa is starving.

The darkest thing about Africa has always been our ignorance of it, George Kimble said it and couldn’t be more right, we keep on trying to understand poverty as we know it, as we’ve seen it, but in Africa poverty is in a different level. The average life expectancy in Africa is 41 years, if that would be our situation, we would never have met our grandparents, and like them so many people would be missing from our lives!

Our problems will always seem more important than the others, because they are directly affecting us, but when we hear, see or live the other´s problems, we might realize we are not so bad, that of course we need to work and solve our own issues, but there are people who needs our help right away, the state of emergency for them, has became the normal status, but we shouldn’t let ourselves get used to it, it’s a matter of choice.

We cannot do everything in Africa, for sure we won’t change the world, but the tiniest effort, could make the difference, and if we are able to help Africa, we will be able to help anyone. So to answer the main question of the article, not, poverty in Africa is not the same than poverty in our home countries, it is not like anything we could imagine, but is there, and is waiting for us! Are we ready to answer that call? Hopefuly we are!

-Mauricio Mancera, Africa Team September 2009 -RVA