Yes, the level of poverty is high. Yes, the level of corruption is high. Yes, but… the level of opportunity is higher than ever: If we “help them to help themselves,” the opportunities offered to Africans are even greater to enable people in their own unique countries to hold their ground there the long term.

I have been interested in this continent since I was a young man. The indescribable diversity of nature, cultures and people who, in their deepest material need, know and emit one thing: warmth and unimaginable joy in life. “From nothing to the happiness of Olympus.”