Comment by grecy | Hacker News Reader

Comment by grecy | Hacker News Reader

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I feel the need to make a top level comment here.

I am in West Africa right now, have been to 15 countries in 12 months, and will visit another ~22 over the next 12-18.

CNN, Fox, the whole western media are not telling you the truth about life here. They are showing you the sensational stuff that makes headlines, nothing more. Because of that, anyone that has never been has very little information about the realities.

The comments in this thread are so far from the truth they are a disgrace. People are commenting here that clearly have no actual experience, and are just parroting what the media said about africa in the 1980s. It is not the 1980s now.

Comments about constant war, "most African countries already have huge problems to provide even basic needs to already existing population", etc. just show how ignorant about the realities here people in the developed world are.

There is a massive, massive amount of development here, and hundreds of millions of extremely happy, friendly and kind people pulling themselves up into the middle class and beyond.

If you "think" otherwise I challenge you to come here and see for yourself. You will be utterly shocked (I was, after years and years of research and talking to >50 people who have done what I am doing now)

The thing is, Africa is also a huge continent. So, if something bad happens in Somalia people in the west assume that all Africa is in big trouble. In the west we have no sense of how big Africa is and work under insufficient information, e.g. I know someone who has a travel company in Uganda and when ebola broke out in West Africa, people canceled their trips and business plunged. There were no ebola cases in Uganda. The US or Europe were effected more by the ebola outbreak than Uganda [1]. The vast majority of people in western countries, don't understand Africa.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_African_Ebola_virus_epide...

> The thing is, Africa is also a huge continent. The vast majority of people in western countries, don't understand Africa.

I agree 100%.

Said in another way, the Western Media is doing a terrible job of informing people in Western countries about Africa.

Having been here a year, I now go so far as to say the Media are doing a negligent job. It's disgusting and is causing real harm (as you illustrate).

> the Western Media is doing a terrible job of informing people in Western countries...

Here there is a sobering view of its size:

https://twitter.com/calestous/status/550661933096247297

I completely agree that they are misinformed. A huge number of them think Africa is one big country.

And that the wars they read or see on the news is happening all across Africa. It really upsets me.

Am from Zambia and we have never experienced any war (yes not even civil war) its a beautiful, peaceful country. The only thing westerns know about Zambia is the Victoria Falls, because it was named after Queen Victoria. The rest is not important.

And FYI am the Co-founder of www.cognifly.com

A search engine for Zambian web searches.

So as one of the afformentioned ignorant people, where would you recommend in Africa? You're right, I know almost nothing about Africa but I would like to visit one day.

Edit: typo.

I have only been to the West Coast so far, which is very difficult for travel. I believe (but have no experience) Namibia, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda are all spectacular are easy (er) for travel

I'm writing from Nigeria! After talking to a bunch of tech people, and a great conversation with a different trying to start a restaurant chain, a common theme is onerous investment terms. Sounds like you can't get a investment unless you've been operations for a year or two already, and are already profitable. There is some amount of tech start up finding, but it's actually miniscule in the scheme of things.

You don't see many chains/franchises here: takes capital to start and expand them, which people can't get access to. So most businesses are one-offs. There's a lot of space for innovation here; living in Kenya, I used to say you couldn't walk down the street without literally tripping over a market inefficiency. Just gotta get the investment to come in and get to the right people...

(There's a direct flight from Atlanta to Lagos these days if anyone is interested in checking it out, by the way.)

Where in Nigeria are you? I'm currently in Abuja but I live in Lagos. Let me know if you need any pointers in getting around the startup scene.

My details are in my profile.

Leaving Abuja back to laps in a few hours, unfortunately. Sorry to miss you!

Would be great to meetup if you're in Lagos

I think most westerners would be surprised if you told them China had a 600 million middle class with better living standards than most Americans. We still have this image of a third world, but the truth is, that outside war torn areas, things have been improving for decades.

Hell, the now 14 year old African girl my daughters class sponsors, who is from one of the poorer areas, recently build a water filtration system and hooked it up to their solar panels and a raspberry piish device that I don't even know what is.

>...and are just parroting what the media said... Now apply that further and you get an idea of how the we are conditioned to think and feel about almost every issue.

I'm not African but I have been there and do business with people in several African countries and I also agree 100%.

Thank you.

I was in Africa last year for 2 months after 16 years in the US. I share your feelings 100%.

Where have you been? Where would you recommend the most for a first time visitor and why? Genuinely curious about visiting Africa in the near future.

How do they view the chinese?

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