THE AFRICA THE WORLD NEVER KNEW OF

Normally, the entire image of Africa projected to the outside world through foreign media is that of despair and misery.  Violent civil wars, famine, drought, and poverty summarize the grim and gloomy picture that is constantly broadcast to the world as the real Africa.  No wonder people from America and other European lands after many years of biased indoctrination on the true state of Africa find it extremely hard to accept any other view of Africa apart from the one they have been made to believe.

Honestly, the depressing image of Africa projected by Western media is not inaccurate. Indeed, there have been and are still civil wars in Africa. Diseases that were snuffed out in advanced countries centuries ago still plague Africans. For example, malaria and cholera still take the lives of many Africans yearly. Famine and Drought are also rife in some parts of Africa.  For Poverty, the least said about it the better.  Many Africans south of the Sahara are still grappling with absolute poverty – many still cannot afford three square meals a day, not to mention a decent shelter.

When I was growing up in Kumasi, a city in Ghana, many of my friends were and some are still shocked to find out that kids in Western countries have their own rooms decorated with pieces of furniture and comfortable beds. They are shocked not because it is one of the taboos in Africa for children to have access to their own rooms, but mainly because it was totally and simply unaffordable due to poverty. Thus the average African family were all cramped in one single room, with the parents sleeping on cheap beds and the children lying on a mat on the floor. These were not only five year olds but children as old as eighteen, nineteen and twenty who were still dependent on their parents and could not seek shelter elsewhere. They had no choice but to share the same single room with their parents.

Even currently, Africans who are able to afford an apartment are considered well-to-do. Unsurprisingly, children look at their friends occupying apartment buildings with their parents with understandable envy.  Interestingly, those lucky children are few and one could easily make them out of many people in a given area or suburb.  For adults who have striven to build their own houses, they are treated with high respect.

I believe Westerners would find it humorous if not shocking to learn that rice and Chicken (one of the delicacies in Ghana and Africa) was eaten only during Christmas. Rice was expensive comparable to the traditional foods. Fowl too was costly and families who had one protected it with their souls to prevent it from being stolen. Some marked their fowl to differentiate them from others’. Others too bound a strip of cloth on one foot or smeared paint on their feathers for easy identification. Unfortunately, almost all fowl had one destiny, and that was to be slaughtered on Christmas day.

This was in the 1990s and the years prior to it. Looking back, I can say confidently that things have improved a little. Rice and Chicken is no longer eaten by the average family during the end of the year as a special food. The accommodation dilemma is gradually improving.

In spite of all the above inconveniences, the African world then and now, albeit disorderly, is more than exciting. Free from the technologically-induced fast-paced world and sheer individualism that characterize the developed world, Africans enjoy a very high sense of belongingness, togetherness, communal love and care, and emotional stability that no amount of the American dollar can buy. Despite the famine, drought, civil wars, poverty, political upheavals, and corrupt leadership, the typical African is generally at peace with himself. The extended family system, and the traditional sense of communal living, though gradually eroding, has in one way or the other blessed Africans with meaningful lives and kept them going joyfully amidst the numerous problems and challenges confronting them.

This is the Africa the world knows very little of. It is not about high-rise buildings because there are very few in Africa. It is not about the excellent road networks, super fast cars, scientific and technological breakthroughs or the simmering and eye-pleasing lights of Las Vegas or New York City. It is the pervading sense of contentment and unique emotional stability that Africans undoubtedly enjoy.

When we hear here in Africa about the sporadic but maddening mass shooting and the frequent, sudden and unnecessary flare ups at “anything” and constant complaints by people in highly developed lands, we cannot help but unwittingly ask the question Eddie Murphy posed in his very successful romantic-comedy movie “Coming to America” that “Why is it that almost everybody in America seems to have an emotional problem?”.

For Europeans or Americans who accidentally discover the natural beauty and the friendly disposition of the African people, they find it extremely hard to leave for their countries. Some eventually settle and never go back to their home country again. 

In fact, we might not be able to live meaningful and satisfying lives by completely abandoning the traditional values that bind us together in brotherly love and common humanity for the individualistic way of life.  There is a saying in Ghana which can be literally translated in English thus: “Human beings are sweet but their bodies are not eaten”.  Yes, human companionship, interaction and brotherliness give us so much comfort, joy and inner peace that the man-made materialistic world has deprived us of.

Whether black or white, Hispanic, Asian, Caucasian, let us draw closer to one another and live together as one for we are all one and the same. We are all human beings.