Once Africa's colonial masters, whites have yielded power to blacks across the continent. Whites who remain live well but most worry about the future. Here are three who were interviewed by Associated Press correspondents:
The doctor
By Angus Shaw
HARARE, Zimbabwe - Optometrists are few and badly needed in Zimbabwe. Gary Layard is among the youngest of about 40 eye doctors, most of them white, in a nation of 10.4 million people.
Layard, 31, treated President Robert Mugabe before Mugabe's niece qualified as an eye specialist in Britain. She joined a handful of black optometrists in the southern African nation.
"Our main problem is we have no training available here," said Layard, who earned his degree in South Africa.
Few blacks can afford five years or more of study abroad in optometry or ophthalmology. Some businesses have sponsored students in neighboring South Africa, "but there's always a risk they'll be poached sooner or later," Layard said.
The shortage of eye specialists, and the retirement or death of older ones, means eye care will remain a luxury to the black population, unless foreign donations and expertise can plug the gap.
Layard said glaucoma and cataracts, as well as unhygienic tribal cures for minor eye infections and African superstition that shuns simple cornea transplants have left tens of thousands of people needlessly blind.
Optometry is not Zimbabwe's only endangered profession. The country has only 120 registered dentists, just over half of them white and many over 60 years old. Most blacks simply have to do without dental care.
In nonhealth fields, there is just one elderly white camera repair craftsman and a single white piano tuner who is teaching his son to take over. Only one small, white family firm has the expertise to repair binoculars and other optical equipment.
The farmer
By Susan Linnee
NAVAISHA, Kenya - Not much has changed in the life of Francis Erskine since Kenyan independence 33 years ago. He farms and plays polo, just as he did before.
Encouraged by the nation's first president, Jomo Kenyatta, to stay in the land where they were born, Erskine and some 60 other white Kenyan farmers remain the core of the East African nation's agribusiness sector.
Erskine raises prize Friesian dairy cattle on his farm 90 minutes by road from Nairobi, the capital. In his leisure time, he revels in his true passion - polo.
Ten years ago, Erskine built the Manyatta Polo Club on flat land left behind as Lake Navaisha receded. He recently played host to the 10th annual Zambia-Kenya match, and the rough-hewn clubhouse overlooking the field was full of white neighbors, black guests and white Zambian visitors.
"We're all like a family here," Erskine said of the mostly white polo-playing fraternity.
Life in the beautiful Rift Valley and central highlands of Kenya has been easier for whites than in other parts of the continent. Because of the altitude, the days are warm and the nights are cool. Tropical fevers and diseases don't plague the "white highlands."
At the end of World War I, young Britons were encouraged to "go out" to Kenya and settle. Thousands did, including the father of Francis Erskine and his sister, Petal Erskine Allen.
Derek Erskine started a fruit and vegetable shop and was later knighted for his efforts to foster a nonracial society in Kenya. He was one of the first whites to apply for Kenyan citizenship at independence.
"My father loved everything about this country, and he worked very hard to make it a place where all could live together," said Petal Erskine Allen, 70.
The entrepreneur
By Tina Susman
MONROVIA, Liberia - Tony Hage typifies the hard-driving, money-making spirit of the Lebanese who have survived West Africa's toughest blows.
Nearly 30 years ago, at age 15, Hage left Beirut to join his father in Liberia, where a family business had thrived since the 1930s. Today he's one of a few hundred Lebanese still in the country, down from 16,000 in the 1980s before civil war broke out.
His electronics shop in downtown Monrovia has been looted and wrecked twice in the past three years, most recently last spring when rival factions destroyed downtown, killed hundreds and drove out virtually all foreign businessmen.
Hage estimates he lost about $1 million worth of stereo equipment, televisions, air conditioners, washing machines and other goods stolen from his showroom and warehouses.
That doesn't include the damage to his property, which includes several houses leased to foreigners, or the costs of diverting stock until Monrovia became safe again.
Nevertheless, Hage came back to the crumbling, seaside capital in June and today is selling appliances to aid agencies, diplomats and other businessmen looking to replace their own looted goods.
"If you want to make big money, you have to take the risks," he said, sitting in a starkly furnished office above the showroom, barred windows looking out on the rubble of central Monrovia.
Hage attributes his determination to the hardships of life back home in his own war-battered country.
"The Lebanese will make money anywhere you put them," he said with a laugh.
In Monrovia, he's surrounded by the close-knit Lebanese community.
"I love this country," Hage said. "I grew up here. I have most of my memories here."
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ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
White population in African countries
Some African countries and their white populations at independence and today:
ZAIRE - Independent from Belgium in 1960. White population was 115,000 then, about 18,000 now. Whites barred from holding citizenship.
KENYA - Independent from Britain in 1963. White population was 60,000 then, 40,000 now. About 10 percent are citizens.
ZIMBABWE - White minority rule ended in 1980. White population was 270,000 then, about 100,000 now. About 80 percent are citizens.
SOUTH AFRICA - White minority rule ended in 1994. White population of about 5 million has remained stable, though emigration has increased slightly this year. Almost all are citizens.