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Africa is the continent that the rest of the world prefers not to think about.

If people in this country think of Africa as a place with kids and flies swarming around their heads, then they won't understand that these people are you and you are them.

Americans' perceptions of Africa remain rooted in troubling stereotypes of helplessness and perpetual crisis.

In my view, Africa's real problems are cultural.

There's a rising tide of concern among activists, economists, and artists about Africa. Theres a temptation to think of it as a monolith as opposed to all these different countries with different problems.

With the kinds of progress we're seeing in Africa, we have people who have a very high expectation, and often people think that, you know, things would happen overnight. But I want people to understand that sometimes it even gets worse before it gets better.

I don't think anyone who has been to Africa comes away untouched by the place. You see a lot of beauty and optimism, but you also come away with an awareness of the huge gulf between what most of us have and what most of them have to make do with. Then, every now and then, a famine or a war makes everything a hundred times worse.

There seems to be this sense among even well-meaning Americans that Africa is this black hole of murder and mutilation that can never be fixed, no matter what aid is brought in.

Africa has been troubled for a long time - well, the world has been troubled ever since I was born.

When people said Africa would change me, I didn't understand what they meant. To see the poverty in the townships, for instance, is overwhelming. I found it heart-wrenching to see young children walking barefoot and hungry in the dirt. I'm the kind of person who wants to change the world right here and now, so I got frustrated.