Media Coverage of Africa is Strange

Senegal is a French-speaking country in West Africa. It is a dream of mine to visit, but for some reason it costs the same to fly to Dakar, the capital, from Johannesburg, South Africa as it costs to fly from Joburg to NEW YORK CITY. But I will save the rant about the cost to fly between African countries for another post.

I want to visit Senegal very badly.

There have been some pretty bad floods in Senegal recently. But on the bright side, something fantastic (and history-related!) came of it--the discovery of pieces of jewelry, pottery, and iron tools from thousands of years ago!! A local academic stumbled upon them in a construction site after the floods washed away the sand. Tests will determine the exact dates of the artifacts, which could be as far back as 2,000-7,000 B.C.

AFP, the artifacts

Now, all of that is well and good. In fact, most of that info I gleaned from a BBC article, here (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-19474531). The ridiculous thing about this article, however, is the last line. The entire article is about these artifacts, quoting the man who found them and his colleague at the university, etc. I enjoyed it especially because it was a positive story about Africa! Finally! But my excitement was premature. Here is the end of the article (feel free to skim to the last line):

What.

Random Kate Thought: As nice as it is that big news channels cover Africa and not all of the news is bad news... could we just have a separate article?? Please?? All of my hopes and dreams were crushed in that last line. Thousands of people homeless eclipses some pieces of clay that might have been dropped there by the neighbor's daughter on her way home from getting the family's water.

Sometimes, news coverage of Africa makes me sad.