In Darkest Africa

Remote, isolated, they are living relics of
a long distant past on the very continent where
the homo erectus developed in the timeless
mists of the earliest ages of species' development.
Self-sustaining, oblivious of the presence of
any geography outside their savannas
providing them with all the existential
sustenance to maintain themselves they live
as did their ancestors with no thought or
curiosity of whatever might exist elsewhere
for to this finite group of tribes there is no
elsewhere since they are themselves everyone
and all that surrounds them is everything.
Their lives parallel those of modernity where
young girls are taught to walk gracefully
though ballet is not the tool, but water jugs
balanced perfectly on neat little heads whose
faces have been skilfully decorated with tribal
scarification since beauty is a recognized grace.
Their shelter is portable though their lifestyle
is not, huts of sticks and grass as roofs, haven
from the tempests of the seasons. Adorned in
beaded necklaces women grind sorghum on
stone while men sit in groups with much to
discuss. Naked children disport themselves
on the banks of rivers, dipping where crocodiles
also gather. Other tribes adjacent their own 
reflect similar village occupations with their 
own ceremonial traditions, young men with
ochre-painted faces, young women dancing 
provocatively, switches liberally lashing 
bare backs while blood runs freely and then 
the piece de resistance; the boys initiated to
manhood by effortlessly leaping onto a row
of bulls' spines, leaping one to another beast
never faltering as colobus monkeys watch and
shriek from above. Their lives unmarred by an
influx of modern technology, what need do
they have of it? While young men tend cattle 
others stand guard on hilltops, over their
shoulders spears discarded in favour of a
peculiar contraption recognizable as AK-47s.