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As a lot of you
know I was born in Monrovia, Liberia (located in West Africa), and ever since I
immigrated to the U.S. I constantly get questions about my home country and the
rest of the continent of Africa. I don't mind the questions but it does upset
me when people ask me specific questions that are extremely ignorant. I am
going to share with you the 5 biggest misconceptions/stupid questions that I
get regularly. These aren't in any specific order. This mostly applies to Americans
because people that I've met who are from other countries seem to be well
educated on what things are like in other parts of the world. I'm not trying to
bash all Americans but I just want to clear a few things up. Brace yourselves,
here we go...
5. TERRAIN/WEATHER
THROUGHOUT THE CONTINENT
A lot of people
tend to assume that the whole continent of Africa is one giant blazing hot
jungle. Well guess what? IT'S NOT! The real jungle in Africa is in the central
to southern part of the continent. Yes there is terrain in other parts of the
continent that resemble what people think of as a "jungle" but not it
doesn't engulf the whole continent. As far as weather is concerned yes the top
half of the continent is warm/hot year round but as you go further south there
are spots that have a winter season. South Africa's winter season does actually
get pretty cold. It's not the blistering cold that experienced in the northern
part of the U.S. but it's far from ideal temperatures. Anybody who watched the
2010 FIFA World Cup, which was hosted by South Africa probably, noticed the
cold temperatures during some of the games. That also reminds me, summertime in
America is wintertime in South Africa.
4. ECONOMY
The misconception
about the economies of various African countries is actually not as ignorant as
the others. Yes as a whole the continent does struggle economically, but over
the last decade or so quite a few African countries have made drastic improvements.
Many African countries are finding out what their major resources are and using
either as exports or as a way to attract foreigners and boost their tourism
profits. The North African countries such as Egypt, Morocco, and Tunisia have
become big tourist attractions. Egypt has the Pyramids to compliment the beauty
of their capital city Cairo. Morocco has cities like Casablanca, Tangier, and Rabat,
which is attractive to foreigners for their food, entertainment and nightlife.
Tunisia gets a lot of visitors who are intrigued by its massive sand dunes
along the Sahara desert, and we all know how Central and South Africa brings in
millions of visitors a year to go on safaris in the jungle. The countries that
don't have tourism in their favor find popular resources that can be exported.
Ethiopia is one of the biggest exporters of coffee beans while the West African
countries have become popular for exporting diamonds. Nothing helps validate an
argument more than some statistics so I got some for you guys. Based on 2011
numbers 4 African nations (Egypt, Algeria, South Africa, and Nigeria) rank in
the top 50 for countries with the highest GDP. I know it doesn't sound like a
lot but South Africa and Nigeria were the only ones in that top 50 ten years
ago. Also Africa ties with South America who also has 4 in the top 50 lists and
beats North America, which only has U.S.A. and Mexico on that list. Asia and
Europe are the only continents that beat out Africa on that list. The other
positive is that there are 5 African nations that sit just outside that top 50.
Watch out, the global cash flow is making its way to Africa.
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| Cairo, Egypt |
3. KNOWLEDGE ON
OTHER AFRICANS
Everybody seems to
think that every African knows everything about the rest of the continent.
Africa has 54 "recognized" countries and it is simply impossible to
know everything about everyone of them. Someone once got frustrated with me
because I couldn't answer all the questions they had about Burundi. How am I
suppose to know about Burundi when it is no where near Liberia and not to be
disrespectful but it is not the most significant country on the continent. That
would be like me asking an average American to give me details about St. Lucia
(now how many Americans even know that St. Lucia is part of North America. One
thing all Africans can tell you though is that not all Africans are black,
which leads me to the next major misconception.
2. LANGUAGES AND
SKIN COLOR
The most frequently
asked question I get is "do you speak African". It might sound like
an innocent question but if you think about it that is an extremely dumb
question. I use to tolerate it but these days I just simply reply by asking,
"do you speak North American?" Even the continent of Australia
has smaller islands that speak separate languages. As I mentioned before there
are 54 countries in Africa and they all have many languages that are spoken in
the country. I'm also going to just briefly tell you that not all Africans have
dark skin. The North Africans mostly descend from Middle Eastern Arabs and have
extremely light skin tones. The Western, Eastern, and Central Africans are
where the bulk of the dark skin toned people are. South Africans vary due to
British and Dutch influence. The moral of the story here is DON'T ask an
African if they speak African and don't be surprised if a light skinned person
tells you they're from Africa.
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| Algerians |
1. LIVING
CONDITIONS
Thanks to the
Discovery and National Geographic channels a lot of people assume all or most
Africans either live in the jungle of a small village. This couldn't be further
from the truth. Most Africans actually live in cities or right outside of a
city. I lived in Monrovia, which is the capital of Liberia, and it is nothing
like what you've probably seen on TV. The only people that live in the jungle
are the Bushmen and they are few and far between. The Bushmen probably only
make up about .001% of the continent's population. They are also the only ones
that wear loincloths around their waist, the rest of us wear regular clothes
like everyone else in the world. Believe it or not there are also wealthy
people that live in compounds, which consist of a massive house along with
smaller screen houses around it. While poverty is high and not every home has
electricity, Africans are generally happy about their lives as we really
appreciate small things like family and just being alive.
In conclusion, if
you ever run into someone who says they're from Africa and you're curious about
what their homeland is like just ask general questions "what languages are
spoken there"? Or "did you live in a city"? Don't ask questions
like "why isn't your skin dark"? Or "do you speak African"?
Anyways I hope you all enjoyed my rant/educational session. God bless.
By Guy Hudson
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