I am an African and proud of it

Dear friends, there are only a few things in life a person can’t fake, and your true identity tops such list. When it comes to revealing who you really are, you may succeed in fooling some of the people all the time, or fooling all the people some of the time - but you can’t probably fool all the people all of the time. I, for one, could not have wished to be anything else than being an African. Oh, I love Africa and her people. You see, my friends, in Africa the price on the tag on a product is a mere indication of the range that you should be prepared to negotiate from, and you end up paying anything between N$100 and N$1 000 more or N$1 000 less depending on the strength of your negotiation skills. I am told Europeans would not really mind if you greet them or not before asking for directions. Aikona! Not in Africa. If you miss a greeting, you most certainly are going to camp in the jungle for the night! In Namibia for instance, you can lead a 20 minute conversation with a certain ethnic group starting with “Walelepo…!” and keep it going by replying “eeeeeehh…eeeeeh…eeeeeeh” in numerous different tone-levels for the next half an hour. Amazingly, the other person exactly understands what you are saying. I am told that such greeting is never complete without enquiring about the state of health of everyone and everything at home – including the livestock and garden implements. Anything short of that is half-cooked and would be ruled out as mere pretence. This, my dear friends, is the continent where every toothpaste is Colgate, every soap Surf and every soft drink is Coca-Cola or Fanta. You see, here we believe that choices, or rather the availability thereof tends to corrupt - so, the less choices you have, the better for you, your family and the entire human race. You may laugh now, but it is true; that is why I never settle for the first item I see on the street market. I look around for an hour or so before returning to pay for it. Come to think of it, isn’t it funny that I always come back for it anyway? Only in Africa would you pass by someone’s house and you know what they will be having for dinner from the smell that emanates from their house. You see, here you know well never to question what you’re eating (even if it tastes like cooking oil) because sometimes you just don’t want to know! Oh, I love Africa. Here, celebrities are not movie-makers or those who would set the lights of Hollywood alive, but soccer players. You see, everyone in Africa plays soccer - from the tiniest infant to a bent-back oldie across the street. Did you ever had to sit-in on a conversation among five men or more, each one claiming to be the best analyst of the last match between Chelsea and Manchester United? Or listen to them predicting, with innate accuracy, the coming weekend’s game between Liverpool and Manchester City? Our economist and mathematicians might not be winning international prizes, or acclaimed for the one or other project, but we are naturals when it comes to counting. Oh yeah, we may use a different approach but we get there anyway. How on earth do you think the old shepherd from your village, who cannot count to save his life, tells when a goat is missing from the herd? In Africa, you arrive at work on time as usual and your boss - making her rounds, peeks in and remarks with surprise, "Oh, you're here!" If you come late the next day, you will be told “You are always late…” After a staff meeting, your boss would suggest, "you need to work at making others more comfortable with you...why don't you smile more often?" That will, of course, be followed by the conversation on how many facial muscles you use when smiling as opposed to frowning. Only in Africa where after returning from a trip, a white co-worker would run to you on Monday morning and extend their arms to touch yours and say, "Hey I'm darker than you".

Until then…

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