Africa!

There were three African speakers today on the TED stage who I thought carried the most touching, moving, and important stories to Oxford. Emmanuel Jal (pictured above) was a Sudanese soldier from age six to thirteen before being smuggled across the border into Kenya by an English aid worker, essentially saving his life. He then found music and began unraveling the deceit and rage of his childhood. His spoken word about the atrocities he witnessed struck a deep nerve with the crowd. Then he got up and danced — along with the entire auditorium. 

Emanuel is on a mission to build a school in Sudan and to do this he's eating one meal a day (dinner) and "donating" his breakfast and lunch to the cause. So far, he's on day 222 (or thereabouts), and will continue to do this until enough funds are raised for the school. "Most people only eat one meal a day in my country anyway," he said in his lilting African accent, "so it's normal." (After lunch, TED announced that one of this year's sponsors had already donated 10,000 Euros to the school, and various TED attendees had pledged everything from on the ground organization to furniture for the school).

Earlier, a young 22-year-old named William Kamkwamba told us his story of hope and innovation. Having told his story in TED Africa last year, he was invited back again this year because, as he said today, he was so nervous that he forgot how to speak English at the end of his talk. He's from Malawi and in 2001 the entire country suffered such a severe drought that he and his family were only allowed "three swallows" of corn cakes a day. When his father, a farmer, lost his income, they couldn't pay the $80 annual fee for William to go to school so for five years he checked books out of the local library and taught himself how to make a windmill to power an electricity generator in the family house. After he built the windmill, the village would line up at his house to power their cell phones. The press got wind of the story (pardon the pun), and so did the TED Africa organizer, Emeka Okafor, and there he was in Oxford today, telling the packed, teary eyed house "for anyone out there who thinks they are too poor or too hopeless to find value in life, I can tell you there is a way out."

And finally tonight we heard from Nigerian novelist Chimamanda Adichie, who talked to us about stories, and how the stories in Africa are not only ones of suffering and famine and war. That there are happy stories as well. Stories of small business success and love. Stories of rich family life and laughter. She was talking about perception — as so many have done this year at TED — and how we ought not to think of all African stories the same. Her example was that if we read an African story of trouble (which unfortunately are mostly what the global media writes about) and we automatically think all Africans are that way, it would be like thinking that all Americans are young serial killers after reading American Psycho. "Stories are important," she said. It may have been the best talk yet.

— Sam Martin