The apparent happiness of Africans, against all horror, seems to derive from a sense of connectedness, or as the Zulu put it, "ubunto." This word is often translated to mean community, but one of them gave me what I think is a more accurate definition: "I am because we are; we are because I am."

The southern African concept of Ubuntu – I am because you are, I exist because everything else exists – is becoming a popular metaphor to convey the sense of relationality.