Jasiel Joy G. Mape                                                                                             Midterm Project

BSEd 2 – N                    Task: Read an African or Asian literary piece and write an essay about it. Make it personal.

Your Pain Is My Pain

Some people say you can never feel someone’s agony if you haven’t experienced it. Others claim that you won’t understand someone’s grief if you’ve never been into his/her position. But sometimes, though we haven’t been in the core of someone’s heartache nor experienced his/her sorrow, our tears still fall – we feel pity, we sympathize or somehow, empathize, that we say, “Your pain is my pain”. Imagine yourself telling this without hypocrisy not just to a person nor to a community but to the whole country, the whole continent.

I recently read a poem by Ayanle Isak entitled “Africa’s pain is my pain”. I researched about the author, but the only detail I got is that he’s the author of this literary piece. So I assumed that he is not a well–known one. However, he should be. He wrote a poem that I guess others would just notice its naiveté.  But for me, behind its simplicity is its sophistication. I believe Isak wrote this poem not only using his mind but also letting his tears flow and his heart beat for every word that he writes. This poem highlights the sufferings and the struggles of the African people. It is a poignant piece that shows the reality of life in Africa. Isak used the repetition of the phrase “Africa dear Africa” to illustrate that Africa is the parent of the people. He somehow acted as a tattletale in this poem, telling Mother Africa its children’s conditions – “Your children are lonely and depressed”, “Your children are at war with each other”, “Your children are killing each other”, and “Your children are starving”. I believe Isak isn’t only tattling these things to Africa but to the whole world. He’s one of those writers who wants the whole human race to know the true picture of Africa. The scene that in every 3.6 seconds, one person dies due to starvation and every year, 10.9 million children die. That part when more than 12 million are orphaned by AIDS and 1.5 million die of HIV/AIDS each year. All I know before, foreigners are their only aggressors. But this poem opened my eyes to the realization that Africans themselves kill each other and they are at war with each other. No wonder they are described to be lonely and depressed.

These things won’t make me look at them with contempt but with sympathy and compassion. If before I imprisoned myself in the world of indifference, now, I know I don’t belong into that world anymore. I am free! I’ve learned how to love, care and show compassion to others because I realized that true existence isn’t only living for your own self but for others as well – giving a portion of your life, creating a mark in someone’s life and illuminating their dark world. I watched a video in youtube.com entitled “Light in Africa – An Amazing Life Changing Story”. It is about an old woman from England, named Mama Lynn, who chose to give up her worldly possessions to help, share God’s Word and be the light in Tanzania. She is known to be the “Angel of Kilimanjaro”. I believe Mama Lynn wasn’t born having AIDS yet she wept and prayed for that 10–year old boy who was born with the AIDS virus and almost lost his life. She felt their agony though she never experienced it. She understood their grief though she had never been into their position. I know I can, too, feel the pain of Africa.

Isak and Mama Lynn, an African and a European, separated by race but united by their love and compassion to Africa. For it is neither about having an African blood nor skin that one can feel Africa’s pain, but it is about the affinity – placing Africa inside one’s heart.

If now, at an early age, I cannot accomplish what Mama Lynn did in Africa, I’ll just be like Isak, in his last line in the poem, “Africa dear Africa, your pain is my pain, so I sit here crying”. But I know that someday I will go to that place, being a light in Africa and I myself would tell them, “Your pain is my pain”.