Angelina of Mercy

You know, I'm still trying to live down the torrent of cyber-hooting that occurred after I jokingly compared myself to Angelina Jolie for doing the work I do.

I had barely pushed the button on that blog post when the sarcastic bile began to spew. People, I am many things, but dangerously delusional is NOT one of them! Other than a set of plumpish lips, Ms. Thang leaves me in the dust on so many levels, it's hard to know where to start. She's about 14 years younger, 40 pounds lighter, has six kids to my zip, and by all accounts, gets OUTRAGEOUSLY jiggy whenever she wants with Brad Pitt.

Really, you viciously fickle readers! The only parallel I was drawing between us is that Ms. Jolie also spends a lot of time thinking about the plight of desperately poor people living in profoundly harsh circumstances, when she really doesn't have to. That's all.

Otherwise, in my mind, she'd be just another Hollywood actress I don't really give a damn about. However, I must admit that the first time I saw her act, in the movie "Gia," I was blown away by her ferocity. I figured having a famous father wouldn't hurt her prospects either, even though their relationship is bizarre and strained. I basically concluded she'd pretty much coast through her career on gilded wings.

Now, I'm not discounting her strenuous effort as an actress. (Except for that Clint Eastwood snoozer). Like I said, for the most part I don't follow her work, but even in fluff like Lara Croft, she seems to exert a lot of energy. But dammit, when you're you're that beautiful and that skinny and that rich in America, you can't help but coast....am I right, or am I RIGHT?????

So when I started hearing about her journeys to Cambodia and Africa, I thought they were just guilt-induced side trips during her luxury vacations. When she adopted Maddox, I figured he'd just be one of her rare and expensive accessories, like a Louis Vuitton bag with lungs or something. When I first heard she was planning to adopt an Ethiopian baby, I suspected she might just be trying to switch up the color scheme a bit. But all these years later, I sense something incredibly sincere about Angelina Jolie's humanitarian journeys. I suspect that even though she might spend 38 million dollars on a French Chalet with 30 bedrooms, she also feels obliged to do things like travel to Dadaab Refugee camp on the Kenya/Somalia border. It's temporary "home" for about 300,000 Somalis who've fled the ongoing war in their country, but it was originally designed for about 90,000 people.

When I read about that trip a few days ago, it reminded me of how I felt the first time I went to Ethiopia for a journalism workshop. I stayed at the Addis Ababa Hilton Hotel, and was shocked by how many white couples, or single white women, were pushing Ethiopian babies in strollers. My gut reaction was utter disdain for these these tourists who came to pick out babies like other people choose puppies or kittens.

By my third trip to Addis, I was applauding each and every white person I saw clutching a brown baby. They were doing something extraordinary...removing a child from epic squalor, disease, exploitation, and early, traumatic death. I wasn't contemplating whether those white people would be able to comb nappy hair, or give those children a sense of their culture and history.

They could give those children a decent life

Now, back to Angelina. When people started criticizing her for adopting Zahara from Addis Ababa, I was mystifed. (Incredibly jealous, too.) I knew that if any of those critics spent 5 minutes in an Addis slum, they'd be nominating her for a Nobel. But after all these years, her generous spirit may be taking a toll. To hear the supermarket rags tell it, Brad is just about to dump her for traveling to dangerous war zones and squalid refugee camps like Dadaab. Apparently, he wants her to stay at home and spend more time with their passel of kids. (If that's the case, maybe Dadaab is their swan song...and Brad will be back on the market soon! That is unless he runs straight back into Jennifer Aniston's arms, a sentiment which leads me to conclude that I read WAAAY too much online Hollywood gossip...) If it's true, I gotta say that the fact that she's willing to risk losing him for these trips is all the proof I need that she's committed. Hell, I'd park my butt in front of a stove wearing an apron, kitten heels, pearls and nothing else if Brad Pitt asked me to.

Instead, I sense that Ms. Jolie has made a conscious decision to use her power and influence to address one of the most potent ongoing humanitarian crises in history: the brutal plight of the refugees from war, political oppression or natural phenomena. Trust me, people, after having visited my share of refugee camps, slums, and rural hovels, I can attest that you don't make a trip like that for a photo op. You don't go there to try and score brownie points or revive a flagging career. You don't go there to just make yourself feel better about what you have, or to hand out a few care packages.

Anyway, you might go once or twice, but you wouldn't KEEP going back. Once is quite enough to witness mind-bending filth and disease and starving babies and toddlers playing on freshly dug graves and rats as big as cats and open sores on stumpy limbs and pools of human waste......all of which I have seen. Multiply those images by a thousand, and that's what Angelina saw in Dadaab.

That's how I know there's something more to this woman. There's something deep and genuine and empathetic. There's something sincerely human and complex. And there HAS to be something incredibly strong, because after 5 years of travelling in African countries, in August 2008 I saw some sights in Kibera that were so disturbing, I haven't been back since. All of a sudden, I had enough, though since then I've seen some sights in Eastland, and Eastleigh, and Mathare, and Maai Mahiu, that are about as bad as Kibera.

So no matter what people may say or think, I have decided that I am Angelina Jolie's Number 1 fan. Not because I've seen every one of her films, or envy her beauty, or wish I had her man. I'm rooting for her because she keeps going back to witness the absolute worst of what humanity can inflict upon itself. And she not only gives her own resources, she knows her trips can result in other people helping.

And I don't even CARE that she and Brad rented an entire Maasai Mara Safari Camp while they were here! After what I know they saw, more power to them.