I sometimes wonder whether the Geography lessons in class had a place for the location of African continent and its many countries. It is not that I find pride in questioning the wisdom of teachers or lecturers and asking them to be clearer about Africa but some of the lecturers themselves have proved my point of view. There are so many times when I leisurely walk through the college gates only to bump into a lecturer and bam! The question pops up. “Where are you from?” Oops! The first time I heard that question or rather the statement, I thought the guy was going to tell me how beautiful my country is until I realized that he had forcefully ended with the sound of the question mark. Anyway, there are some commonly held notions that I found here. You inform the guy that you are from Kenya and he still asks where Kenya is found. Hello, does Africa ring a bell in your mind? But still the expression on his face is still
the same. Meanwhile, your mind is racing so fast trying to figure out how you are going to explain to the guy the exact location of Africa but bam! Another question pops up. “Is Kenya found in South Africa?” You better believe you got that right. I mean the sound of the question mark is appropriate and I bet it’s happy to be in its right place. Wrong! Kenya is not found in South Africa and you are a thousand miles away from the correct answer. The ignorance of
not knowing my country might be dealt with easily but when someone takes the ignorance to another level of not knowing the continent is definitely intolerable and disrespectfully. The great Nelson Mandela should be proud of his country because when you tell most of the local people to mention countries that make up Africa, they will start with South Africa and that
will be the end of Africa. Would you believe it?

Why has South Africa won so much favor in most of these people’s hearts? That is not so hard to answer. South Africa is a cricket playing nation and has played India on many occasions. But is South Africa the only African country that plays cricket? Of course not, other African countries like Kenya and Zimbabwe also play cricket, but I guess they will have to be in South
Africa to be popular. No offense but lets assume most of the players on the South African cricket team were actually blacks (Africans), would the South African cricket team be so popular as it is now?

A friend of mine was thoughtfully standing under a tree when an elderly man started coming closer to him. He thought that the poor man was coming to enjoy the shade provided by nature but the gentleman came so close and started starring at my friend so closely. As if starring was not insulting enough, the gentleman started raising his hand towards the guy’s head and he started touching his hair. As if that was not disrespectful enough, he asked whether having that type of hair was a disease in Africa. Da! Should we also say that you all have diseases because your hair is different from ours? They say we should respect our elders but I even doubt whether that man had ever heard of the word respect in his life. You would hope that the students you study and sit with in the same class would have already gotten used to you but all in vain. Even up to date, the people that we have studied with for
some years still gaze at our hair and fingers point at us and laugh.

I was standing somewhere one time watching my friends play football when an elderly man also came up to me. When he looked at me, definitely he realized that I was not from India and he greeted me in English. That is not the case when most Indians meet us. They straight away start the flow in Hindi or Kannada even when they know you are not from India. “Where you are from?” Of course that is a constant question and I told him Kenya. The gentleman was so happy and he told me how he had stayed in Kenya for twelve years. He again greeted me ‘Habari?’ (How are you?) and he continued conversing to me in Swahili, the local lingua.

He told me how Africa is a beautiful continent, lots of fresh food, animals, beautiful weather and friendly people. We talked about football and how African players are so strong and so good at the game. He even mentioned the greatest African players like Abedi Pele, Makanaki, Majidu Musis, and Roger Mila. He even asked me about the most controversial figure in Uganda, Idi Amin. Who does not know Idi Amin? Surprisingly, most Indians know Idi Amin but
ask them where he came from and they will mention South Africa. Oh God! How I envy South Africa! I was so surprised how this gentleman interestingly knew so much about Africa and I even respected him more. That was one in a million. Come on people, we are in the 21st century!