Blast from the Recent Past: Africa

This is six min­utes of amazing.

The video was intro­duced to me by Fr. Jet Vil­larin in the rec­ol­lec­tion I attended just before my birth­day. The day before, I saw AVATAR in 3D, and was reminded of the movie when I saw this video. I just had to down­load it myself and look for the lyrics of the song.

Africa is the land where it all began. The birth­place of the human race. And like the movie Avatar, the song reminds us that we have lost Africa. We have lost our roots. We have lost the old for­got­ten words and ancient melodies that make us who we are. For us, a tree is just a tree. We have ceased to see the mys­tery that is all around us. We have lost the very thing that con­nects us all together.

And the chal­lenge for us is to “cure what’s deep inside”, because we should be “fright­ened of this thing that we’ve become”. This cure is cru­cial, because the very sur­vival of the earth depends on it. To care for nature is to care for the future–for the gen­er­a­tions that will come after us. If we don’t do it now, we lose our birthright. And gen­er­a­tions after us will look back at our gen­er­a­tion and look with scorn for the bla­tant sin of omission.

And so the world awaits. For what we will do.

Hope­fully we do things right. For the gen­er­a­tions before us and the gen­er­a­tions who will live after us. We plant for our­selves and for the future.

And just hope­fully, we would see the rains down in Africa once again.

Africa
Per­petuum Jazz­ille (Orig­i­nally by Toto)

I hear the drums echo­ing tonight
But she hears only whis­pers of some quiet con­ver­sa­tion
She’s com­ing in 12:30 flight
The moon­lit wings reflect the stars that guide me towards sal­va­tion
I stopped an old man along the way,
Hop­ing to find some old for­got­ten words or ancient melodies
He turned to me as if to say, Hurry boy, It’s wait­ing there for you

CHORUS:
It’s gonna take a lot to take me away from you
There’s noth­ing that a hun­dred men or more could ever do
I bless the rains down in Africa
Gonna take some time to do the things we never have

The wild dogs cry out in the night
As they grow rest­less long­ing for some soli­tary com­pany
I know that I must do what’s right
As sure as Kil­i­man­jaro rises like Olym­pus above the Serengeti
I seek to cure what’s deep inside, fright­ened of this thing that I’ve become

CHORUS

(Instru­men­tal break)

Hurry boy, she’s wait­ing there for you

It’s gonna take a lot to take me away from you
There’s noth­ing that a hun­dred men or more could ever do
I bless the rains down in Africa, I bless the rains down in Africa
I bless the rains down in Africa, I bless the rains down in Africa
I bless the rains down in Africa
Gonna take some time to do the things we never have