Many must have forgotten about the brouhaha over the television series ‘Wonders of the African World’ between the late Ali Mazrui on the one hand and Wole Soyinka, Biodun Jeyifo and Henry Louis Gates, the producer of the series on the other hand by now. It took place in the very late 1990s. But that title is what this picture brings to mind, not because the picture and the series speak so much to each other but just the expression, notwithstanding the issue of cultural misrepresentation enveloping it.
The picture is real but it seems impossible to stop wondering why such should be the misfortune of any boy at all anywhere in the world. The VOA which published the picture on April 30th, 2018 captioned it as follows “A boy stands outside his family home, which has been submerged by floods following prolonged heavy rains in Tana Delta, Coastal Kenya, on April 27, 2018. More than 30,000 people in Tana River county have been displaced by floods, which have also killed more than five people”
Can’t think of a better caption than ‘wonders of the African world’ although without prejudice to Haiti or New Orleans years back.
