Africa is already burdened by plague and pestilence, but Clay Aiken?

To the uninitiated, Africa is a messy mélange of malaria and meerkats. But you don't have to read the Economist or Thomas Friedman to get up to speed on the exotic continent. Your best source for African info these days just might be Us Weekly.

Since the start of the new millennium, celebrities have descended on Africa like Danny DeVito on open-bar limoncello shots. For Hollywood, the pilgrimage has become as obligatory as a New Hampshire campaign stop for presidential candidates. The year is less than a month old and has already seen hot-celebrity-on-Africa action, with Oprah Winfrey opening her school for girls in South Africa, as guests Sidney Poitier, Spike Lee, Mariah Carey, Chris Tucker, Tina Turner, and Mary J. Blige looked on.

While the majority of these luminaries have nothing but the best of intentions, others are cashing in on the powerful allure of the Third-World-as-accessory trend. But most of us ugly Americans don't know our Djibouti from our Angola. To gain some socio-geographical insight, we tracked celebrity migratory patterns over the past decade or so, tabulating everything from goodwill ambassador visits (Jessica Simpson in Kenya! Clay Aiken in Uganda!) to films shot in and about Africa (Brad in Babel, Leonardo in Blood Diamond) to the celebrity baby abductions adoptions. It's a starfari! You may come across poisonous insects, rhinos, or Geri Halliwell, so make sure to get your shots.