Mal d'Afrique

Doctors that go to Africa, with groups such as Médecins Sans Frontières (<= click for link to official website), often come back saying they have got "mal d'Afrique" and can't wait to return.
It is a continent with such variety and  spaces so immense , from the Sahara desert, to the French alpine villages in Morocco, the jungle, the savannah, right down to the Cape of Good Hope.
The film about Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom (<= click for YouTube, official trailer), is out now, anyone going to see it, will be made more aware of what Mandela achieved for South Africa.
This vast continent holds so much that is still unknown.
There is no more gentle way to learn about the suffering of a people than through their music.
Listening to the beautiful melody of Imany singing that Africa has the Shape of a Broken Heart (<=click for YouTube video), you can close your eyes and only try to imagine that vast continent., and what it is like. Imany is of French-African origin. Her name is Nadia Mladjao, but she changed it to Imany, after the princess in the Eddie Murphy film Coming to America (<= click for YouTube trailer). Imani means faith or belief in Swahili.

Africa has the shape of a broken heart
And the heart of a broken land
Fell from heaven
Straight to hell.

She ends the song saying:-

Tell me how
I can accept the things
that I can't change.

We often hear that quotation:-

Please help me to change the things I can,
accept the things I can't,
and the wisdom to know the difference.

(adapted from the Serenity Prayer by Reinhold Niebuhr - incorrectly attributed to Thomas More, among many others).

In the song though, it sounds much more heart-wrenching and more poignantly meaningful, than anything a trite saying can convey.

Dee Dee Bridgwater sings about her Mali routes. She has a Malian project. She brings her people to life on the stage, you can picture the men and women, children, the hot African sun, the desert, as she sings. Her music is warm and vibrant, her voice strong and powerful, like her message.

The gospel song This little light of mine is supposedly a hidden code for slaves planning to escape. They weren't allowed to speak in their own language and so used their songs - sang in English - as secret messages.
Bruce Springsteen opened up his concerts in Belfast and Dublin (click for YouTube video => This little light of mine, live in Dublin, November 2006), with a rock version of the song. He said about the unifying power of Rock and Roll.

 (This little light of mine, Bruce Springsteen - 2013-07-20 Belfast)

My Mum used to sing us  haunting songs called "Poor old Joe", and "Way down upon the Swanee River", that went straight to the heart.

There is a film coming out this year called "12 years a slave". The trailer (<= link for YouTube, official trailer) promises a powerful film.