Out of Africa! This title is likely to remind any one with a little familiarity with the international film world of the sumptuous scenes on the silver screens in the mid 80s. Sydney Pollack's 1985 multiple-Oscar winner is a movie of unique nature. The story depicted in it may be a very usual one. But the scenes, the sounds and the background of the colonial times in East Africa, speak even today very vividly about what Africa can offer to the rest of the world and what the rest of the world can offer Africa. It can become the homeland for any one who dares to be different. It means: to live a life very different from what one lived until now, to experience a different culture, to speak a different language, to dance to a different music and to have a different approach to life. Daring to be different. It is the challenge as well as the mission for anyone who explores any possibility in Africa.

The annual news bulletin of the Fransalians in Africa bears the same phrase “Out of Africa” as its name not accidentally. It is a reflection of the “Fransalian Presence” in Africa, going beyond the boundaries. It presents in nutshell the experiences of the Fransalians in this part of the world: Experiences both positive and negative, challenges they face, the vision they have and the mission they share with the rest of the world.  It would speak of the attempts of the Fransalians daring to be different. Out of Africa aims at being a link between the Fransalians present in the continent of Africa and in the rest of world. Often our perceptions on Africa are a bundle of apprehensions, anxiety and agony which automatically creates a line of boundary in our actions. Therefore there comes a distance in our general approach to Africa. We feel at ease with this distance, convincing ourselves that it is the result of the geographical distance. But that is not the case.

Historical factors too have contributed to this situation. In the earlier maps we find the African continent named as “Locus Liones” i.e. the place of lions. It was an expression of the unknown, fearsome and something dangerous from which the rest of the world kept a distance and unfortunately still keeping. Besides Mass media in many cases provide us with what they want us to know and in the way they want us to understand, leaving the rest of the world to look at this continent, its functioning its life and style with biased eyes.

It is our sincere wish that Out of Africa would generate better interest for all the confreres and friends in different parts of the world in matters concerning Africa and especially in the various apostolates of the Fransalians in this continent. It is also an expression of the common mission that the Fransalians have in Africa. Although coming from different backgrounds, engaged in diverse forms of apostolate, living in various cultural, social and political milieus, we all share in the one and the same mission of Christ, as visualized by our venerable Founder Fr. Peter Mermier.

Back to OUT OF AFRICA | Vol. I (2004)