I love Africa as much as the next guy, in fact I would venture to say, probably more. I have been going to Kenya since 1984 and chose to live there between '87 and '93. I consider my time in Africa some of the happiest and most fulfilling I ever spent. It changed my life in ways that are still becoming clear to me and was an incredible experience that I truly cherish. As I lived in Kenya, I feel that I know that country best, but I have traveled all over Africa, many, many times. I know this country.

So, what is it about Africa that casts such a spell over its visitors? Is it as beautiful as everyone says? Even more so. Is there really this kind of magic in the air? Absolutely. Do almost all visitors feel inexplicably connected to the land and to their heritage? Yes. Maybe it is being so close to the animals. Or perhaps it is just the very ancient rightness of Nature. Richard Leaky espouses the "genetic memory" theory. He holds that all our deepest roots are buried there and the minute we set foot on African soil, all our little DNA helices just start to sing out loud. That may be the case; I don't know. All I know is that almost everyone feels the power and primal meaning of the place.

But there comes a point in all this Africa worship where I take exception to an overly romantic view of 'Mother Africa.' Africa that fills your spirit. Africa the beautiful. Africa the source. Africans the noble and beautiful people. It's a nice idea and certainly politically correct, at least in the USA, but it is far from the whole picture.

Africa, and I will stick with Kenya here, possesses all those magical qualities, in spades, but there are also places that have not progressed beyond the 16th century. There may indeed be a nobility and a beauty to the people, and we are seeing the Samburu, a particularly beautiful people. But these tribesmen live in a very remote area. They are, for better and for worse, all but untouched by modern civilization and all the good and the bad that goes with that.

The Samburu, among others, spend their whole lives the way these 16 Americans are struggling with. (Except for the fact that there are no 'rewards' of canned goods handed out to relieve the situation.) This "game" and its imposed regulations and physical hardships are how those people live. Every day. And they aren't going to win one million bucks for making it through 6 weeks of this self imposed torture, either.

Watching from the comfort of our homes, it is fun to observe the contestants stumble about out there "in the bush." We can comment on their foibles and wonder at what a bunch of sissies they are. How can they be so stupid as to dump the water? How can they lie around and complain about having to work for their food? Why don't they get it?

Because they, like most of us, grew up in a country that provides those things. Because this is the 21st century and, in America, we no longer have to haul our water from a dung infested water hole and boil it before we can drink it. We have moved beyond that. The people up at Shaba, the Samburu people, however, have not.

How can it all still be so primitive?

If you visit Kenya as a tourist you will most likely be steered clear of the less charming aspects of the country. Like most of the infrastructure. There are barely any roads worth driving on in Kenya, and the phones hardly work, if you can even get one installed. The mail services are rudimentary at best and the electrical power and the city water supplies, if you have those, are turned on and off with no warning or apparent reason. On a regular basis.

The hospitals are something you would only see in documentary films. And I am talking about Jomo Kenyatta National Hospital, the main health facility in the capital of Nairobi, to say nothing of some tiny clinic up near Samburu. There is little or no medicine to treat people, should they be fortunate enough to be admitted, and the doctors, what few there are, are leaving the country in droves because they can't practice decent medicine. Nor can they make a living.

Then there are the schools. When I would tell the people who worked for me in Kenya that we had free public education in America, they could not believe it. Everyone has to pay for their schooling in Kenya. It is not alot of money, by our standards, but it a huge sum for the majority of the population there. And as they cannot afford to send their children to school, they don't. A very basic, say fourth grade education, is the norm, while graduating from high school is a milestone. This leaves a large section of the population just a cut above illiteracy. The schools, such that they are, are more often than not a cement block building, without running water or electricity with a few rooms, serving 20 or more children of probably a five year age span in each class. The more rural areas are lucky to have a one room, cement block building for all the children. The more common occurrence is a grass and mud hut. School lunches? Well trained or well paid teachers? After school programs? Books? Blackboards? Pencils? Paper? Those are luxuries.

There are no income taxes in Kenya to pay for these things. And even if there were such a tax, there are so many people out of work that no one could pay it. The population is expanding at a frightening level with the majority of the populous currently below the age of 20. And there are no jobs. More recently, AIDS has ravaged the sexually active, anyone from the age of 13 to 40, leaving the very young, the very old, and the very undesirable. And hundreds of thousands of orphans.

In the face of all this the political leaders, the "elected officials," continue to do what they have been doing for years, namely lining their own pockets while their people starve to death or die of preventable diseases. Simple diarrhea is the largest killer of children in Sub Saharan Africa. (When a recent anthrax laced letter was mailed to Kenya, it did not cause much of a stir. Anthrax is already endemic there.)

What of the population problem? Abortion is illegal and President Moi imported the Pope to tour the country and attend mass rallies encouraging people to have more children and to not practice birth control. Faced with an AIDS epidemic of monstrous proportions that threatens to wipe his country (and his current source of income) off the map, Mr. Moi suggested that everyone just stop having sex for a few years until all this calms down.

Africa is, in all likelihood, the mother country. All evidence points to the fact that we did originate there, regardless of our current skin color. But to put an overly glossy shine on all that natural beauty, without looking at the reality of what it means to actually live there is simply being blind to what the Garden of Eden has become.

If anyone wants to drop down on their knees and thank the Gods and Goddesses for something, I suggest that they thank them for the fact that they were born, educated, live, receive medical treatment, and are raising their children in the United States of America.

It may very well be Mother Africa, but, having spent alot of time there, I will take Uncle Sam any old day.