How a Trip to the African Continent Affected Me

How a Trip to the African Continent Affected Me
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How a Trip to the African Continent Affected Me
Every summer is for holidays in our family. My parents have made it a norm to have a family vacation in various places during the summer holidays when every family member is around. So far, we have visited various attractive places within the US and Europe. In 2019 just before COVID-19 broke out, we visited Africa on what became our last vacation trip until now because of the pandemic. In Africa, we visited three countries, Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa. The experience I got on that trip overhauled my perception of African people and other inhabitants of the continent.
Before our trip, I always knew that people living in Africa were poor and could hardly afford basic needs or luxurious lifestyles. Although the continent is poor, it was not to the level of my perception and what I consumed in the media. We started our vacation in Nigeria, a West African country. The country is highly populated, and most people live in rural areas. They till their lands and farm crops like yams and sorghum. The rural areas are not developed, and roads are mostly marram roads. These roads have potholes which make travelling on smaller vehicles challenging. I later learned that the situation on the roads is because heavy vehicles use them to collect farm produce to transport to the industries and refineries, which are often located in the urban centres. Evidently, these are not poor people because they earn a great fortune from the farm produce.
The situation was similar in Kenya and South Africa, although the latter’s infrastructure is more developed than in Nigeria and Kenya. Most of their rural roads are made, or marram and vehicles get stuck during rainy seasons. However, the road situation is caused by heavy tracks transporting sugar cane, coffee, tea and cotton for processing. Although this cannot be compared with America and Europe, the people living in Africa cannot be said to be poor the way the media portrays them.
The urban centres in the African continent are developed with modern infrastructure and houses, the opposite of my earlier perception. I was opposed to the idea of visiting Africa when my father proposed it because I knew we would u...