“Really I don’t think anything can be done for Africa.” David lived on the island of Jersey, off the coast of France, and had a job finding tax breaks on British real-estate for Brazilian soccer stars and Russian oil-magnates. “It’s pathetic really,” he went on between bites of pizza. “In fact, I think AIDS is the best thing that ever happened to Africa.”

It was our last dinner together; fifteen of us at a long table overlooking the Indian Ocean, drinking tonics in a tourist front restaurant owned by rich Italian investors. I stared blankly, away from the others, and watched as a thin mangy kitten whined pathetically as it made its way between the tables.

That morning I had taken a walk away from the water, into a town of dry roads and brick storefronts. Tall men leaned against shaded walls that housed sundries, t-shirts and colorful swaths of batik cloth. An eerie emptiness pervaded the place. There were no food-stalls, water pumps, goats or children. Everywhere in Africa you hear the bright cries of children rising behind you, waving their hands.

Once I reached the shore I found them: a bevy of children surrounded a giant leatherback, breaching itself in the opal surf. Their dark bodies ran up against the tide, arms flailing and overlapping into triangles, crosses, boxes collapsing across the white sand.

—

Eugenia Hepworth Petty’s poems and photographs have appeared in literary journals in Asia, North America and Europe. A chapbook of her prose poetry (Pamyat Celo/Memory Village) was published in 2007. You may find more of her work by clicking here.