How would you describe Africa?

Answer 1

African

Answer 2

Stereotyped and misunderstood.

Unfortunately most main media exposure of Africa (in the western Media) tends to highlight the failings and negative aspects of life in Africa. While these do in fact exist they are NOT symptomatic of the entire continent.

War, famine, flood, disease, poverty, crime, political corruptness. I cannot say they don't exist in Africa because the do; however, they simply don't exist on the scale portrayed of a "backward continent".

Africa is not just big, it is huge. It takes almost 9 hours to fly from north to south and 5 hours to fly east to west over its widest part. Africa is about 30 Million square kilometers in extent! The Geology and topography covers arid sun baked deserts, temperate grasslands, marginal forests, tropical forests, jungles, mountainous highlands, snow covered volcanic peaks, immense river systems, a gigantic rift valley and 26,000km of coastline. The continent is bisected not only by the equator, but also by the Tropics of Capricorn and Cancer. This means that technically while one half of the continent is experiencing winter, the other half is in summer.

It is home to over a billion people, less people in fact than in all of India! It is home to 54 independent countries; many of these have huge variations in culture, Nigeria for example is home to almost 200 individual tribal cultures.

There are between 2100 and 3000 different spoken languages in Africa, some of these of the oldest in existence.

Living arrangements range from single roomed mud houses through tin shantie towns, ordinary and standard suburban areas (as you would find all over the world) to bustling cities, high density urban areas to palatial houses.

We don't all live in mud houses, hunt lions and elephants to eat, fight with spears, cook missionaries or beg for money; Africa is a continent with as much diversity (if not more) than any other continent or "civilized western nation".