Binyavanga Wainaina writes that one of the circumstances that we live with is that all of the news about the continent of Africa is the reporting of "crisis."

This habit--of trying to turn the second-largest continent in the world, which has 53 countries and nearly a billion people of every variety and situation, into one giant crisis --is now one of the biggest problems in Kenya, South Africa, Tanzania, and Ghana face.

We have learned to ignore the shrill screams coming from the peddlers of hopelessness. We motor on faith and enterprise, with small steps. On hope, and without hysteria.