Ubuntu - "I Am Because We Are"

I picked this up from Neeti's newsfeed on Facebook. The piece goes as follows:

An anthropologist proposed a game to the kids in an African tribe. He put a basket full of fruit near a tree and told the kids that who ever got there first won the sweet fruits. 

When he told them to run they all took each others hands and ran together, then sat together enjoying their treats. 

When he asked them why they had run like that as one could have had all the fruits for himself they said: ''Ubuntu, how can one of us be happy if all the other ones are sad?'' ('Ubuntu' in the Xhosa culture means: "I Am Because We Are")

This is so true, "I" is defined by the people around me, my surroundings and my environment. Ironically, there would be no "I" without them.

An interesting fact is that Nelson Mandela belongs to the Xhosa tribe. Perhaps it was this Ubuntu spirit that has laid the foundation of the post-Apartheid South Africa!

Such is the spirit of my homeland, Africa!