Africa is no less on my mind than when I was there waking up every day. I think about it nonstop, actually. I think about going back, think about what capacity I could go, should go. It's hard to explain to anyone "why Africa." It always has been, like how my eyes are almost blue or how I will always be scared of scary movies and refuse to watch them.
Right now I'm watching "The Constant Gardener." Lots of images that remind me of Tanzania even though the film is set in Kenya. The language is the same - kiSwahili - the bicycles, mix of Muslim and Christian churches dotting the background. Children in school uniforms, bright colored congas. The movie is about corruption, about a fictional pharmaceutical company that is basically testing its tuberculosis drug (which also doesn't actually exist) on Africans. A woman is murdered trying to internationally expose the company, and her husband slowly learns more about why it happened - the company paint her as an adulterer murdered by a jealous African lover.
Well I'm drawn to it, at any rate, I feel like I learned more there, that they gave me more than I could have dreamed of giving them. Too many people take advantage of them. It's like anywhere, there are good and bad people, and I'm not a saint or an angel, but there are good people dying every day with no one to help them.
I'm thinking about joining the Peace Corps after graduation, if they would send me to Africa. I could do field work for a couple years and learn more. I could be a better policymaker. I could learn a lot from the people and just focus on myself for a while.
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