Solving Africa began as Jr Kanu’s journey visiting seven African countries. The idea for this trip around Africa was born over dinner with friends in a restaurant in Vienna. It was a long night – one of those nights you talk so much and believe in each word rolling off your tongue wholeheartedly. Of course you don’t think it’s empty talk while you’re saying it. It’s not like they’d had anything to drink, either. In fact, vitamin water was as adventurous as any of them had been that night. They were intoxicated, though: filled with visions of what home would be like if things had turned out differently. Inebriated with desire to take back a history that had gone quite wrong.
At the time, he was in a journalism master’s program at NYU. School was on Christmas break and the scholarship office had continued paying stipends. With this extra bit of cash, he’d decided to travel around Europe for five weeks in the winter between 2007 and 2008. It should have been fun. He’d get to see the places he’d heard so much about. These were places he’d even sung and read about in nursery rhymes and novels growing up. But the more he recognized yet another famous European landmark, the more he became conscious of the fact that he knew more about Europe than about his own home and began questioning why Europe, and not Africa, was his first instinct for travel when he got the chance. Right there, he resolved not to visit another continent for pleasure until he’d traveled around Africa the way he’d just traveled around Europe.
That night, his eyes drank in a vision of Africa the way she could be. And when it was time to wake up, his eyes wouldn’t open. On the spur of the moment and with low expectations, he created the site, www.solvingafrica.com, and asked friends to fund his trip to Tunisia, Ethiopia, Kenya, South Africa, Senegal, Ghana and Nigeria. Within a week, the donations started pouring in and the journey began before he had a chance to change his mind. But that’s the danger with words. Sometimes, they have a way of taking on a life of their own.
