HOPE

I need to see again the updated documentary on the Ethiopian famine of 1985. For the third time I think I've missed the point. Maybe I will never get it. One young woman who returned form the brink of death by starvation is celebrated as a symbol of hope. Meanwhile hundreds of thousands died. Maybe it was millions. I'm sorry, I can't keep up with the numbers.

Isn't that just like us. We look for and focus on the one tree left standing and ignore the clearcut. But then, interviewing the survivor is far easier for everyone than trying to discover what those who didn't survive think of their situation. A 20 minute documentary of silence, while far more graphic and easier to make, would be pretty unsettling for those watching.

No. It is better to have hope. If one young girl can survive then perhaps another of the three children who die every 3 seconds  in Africa alone, will survive too. Let's hope.  (see poem)