What About Africa?

I drink my wine while they eat sand
How hard they try to live with dying every day
Rwanda lost one million souls
Now in my mind the dead I see call out to me
For Africa
What about Africa
What will it take for us to take a stand
For Africa, what about Africa

I see their eyes, the eyes of AIDS
Eyes of starvation fill my head I don't know why
I watch the news, but I don't move
So many people struggling, lying down to die
For Africa
What about Africa
What will it take for us to take a stand
For Africa, what about Africa

I smell the smoke, I watch the sky
Everywhere I go I always know someone will die
Evening descends to tuck me in
I can't escape the waiting faces in my dreams
For Africa
What about Africa
What will it take for us to take a stand
For Africa, what about Africa

I see white milk in a river wash
Big fat babies laughing, tummies full of cream
I see new rice, a mother's feet
Ankle-deep in mud to harvest family life
For Africa
What about Africa
What will it take for us to take a stand
For Africa, what about Africa

I see bright cloth turn into skirts
Tied 'round the hips of young girls dancing in the dirt
I see the men, shine in the sun
Tending animals their hands full, no more guns
For Africa
What about Africa
What will it take for us to take a stand
For Africa, what about Africa

Copyright 2006 Hattie Wilcox

If you want to help feed and educate the children of Africa, invisiblechildren.com. If you want to help with efforts to update President Kennedy's foreign assistance act of the 1960s, visit globaldevelopmentmatters.org.