Is Africa the New Accessory?

Just yesterday I was baking cookies with my youth leader, Kim, and we got on the topic of how so many celebrities are working the whole "African aid" thing right now, when she asked the question "Is Africa the new accessory?" The past few days it's really been on my mind, and at the forefront of media with Madonna apparently being the next best thing since sliced bread. Not sure how many of you have heard, but Madonna has recently adopted a 13 month old boy from Malawi. It doesn't say much in that article, but I was reading about it in my Mom's People magazine. Getting through the article was hard enough as it idolized Madonna for such a caring and compassionate deed, but when it mentioned the fact the baby's father had no idea who Madonna was it was as though they were making the statement seem sad. I'm not going to go on and on about this because you guys could probably google it or check out a number of magazines, and you will find her face along with her precious new child.
Please don't think I'm playing down the idea of adapting a child who's less fortunate when you have the resources and the love to share. Madonna may have a very genuine and caring heart in this adaption process of her new boy. Perhaps we can blame media, once again, for the issue. Sometimes though I look at these stars, and with the exception of Bono, I constantly question their motives in joining these aid organizations and taking these treks over to the third world countries. To a point it enrages me, in the sense that if you're doing this for the good of the children, why is your entourage of photographers on your heels?
Maybe Africa is the latest accessory in the celebrity world. No matter how they act or what they do, have them say a word in some African tribal language, throw their face next to some starving orphans, and they become the world's favorite person. Think what you want on the matter, but I'd like some people to understand there's so much more to the picture than the adaption of a child, or some huge "forgive the debt" party. There's faces, people, and lives scattered in the background of each of those celebrity's glamour-for-good shots. They're the true celebrities in my opinion.
Toooooo conclude my angry post, I will leave you with a poem I wrote this summer. I was at the beach one day floating on the water when it hit me - this water I was using to waste some time and have some fun in was the same water that people half a world away will spend half a day walking for, to maybe get a bucket of it.

The splash of fredom hits my face
With a new offering.
A slide show of poverty and breaking hearts wash across my mind
As I recall the days of the past.
While I drink up
Little of what's left of
This world's vain hopes
I realize my innumerable blessings.
To walk through AIDS
And kiss the orphan
And to now float upon clean water
Seems so contradicting.
As I sit with my family
For another plentiful meal,
I know they sit with who is left
Hoping for something
Substantial.
The same sun I bask under
Is the one they suffer under.
God's looking through this all
Begging for some common sense
To maybe give a little.
So after two lives
Bonded as one
I can see why.
Because the orphan's cry gets lost in our talk shows
And the starving woman's plea isn't heard at the drive-thru.
Walk with true suffering And then maybe we'll see
The grief, anger, guilt,
Selfishness
That's carried us out to this sea.
This sea we call our life
And as they like to say
"My Dream"



.Malawi without Madonna.
(taken when i was there last January)