So, I’ve
been thinking about this for a while. Really, just a lot of things. I suppose I
ought to preface this with what I experienced in America before coming here.
The perceptions and reactions of others and my own.
So, at one
point, I told you I was going to Africa. At one point, I told myself I was
going to Africa. I probably told you, though, that I was going to Rwanda (a
small country in East Africa, I’m sure I said). You probably had to look it up
on a map, and I did too at one point. I can remember calling my mom Fall of
freshman year and telling her about this program and how much I wanted to do
it. She then proceeded to talk me out of going that Spring, thank god. I
remember knowing that the genocide remembrance week activities were going on at
Hendrix each April, but for some reason, I didn’t actually go to the events.
Even when I had already applied to come here. Because that’s all we know of
Rwanda, of Africa, right? Violence, bloodshed, terror. Poverty, small children
with distended bellies with flies crawling undisturbed around their mouths and
eyes, AK-47s, black people, villages with mud brick houses and thatched roofs,
women with baskets on their heads, babies on their back, and colorfully printed
dresses on their bodies. No one ever thinks cities with sky scrapers, security
guards everywhere, an obsession with cleanliness, French fries for every meal, business
suits everywhere (even in the middle of the savannah in a refugee settlement on
a dirt road), boarding schools, internally developed development strategies,
delicious fruits, gorgeous scenery, music videos, domestic help, and a more exercise
than you can imagine.
Back to
pre-departure reactions though. The most memorable was also the most hilarious.
I told a neighbor’s grandma that I was going to Rwanda…that’s in Africa. Her
face completely fell and her mouth dropped open. I laughed. In an old lady’s
face. I had to. It was hilarious! “I’m studying abroad next semester,” I had
told her minutes earlier, much to her delight! Marvin was with me at the time
and had just mentioned that he was going to England. Oh but why can’t I go
somewhere safe like that? Another favorite, but not really, was after
clarifying that Kigali is one of the safest cities in Africa (which, can I
clarify how true this is? Please?), I was told simply (humorously and
sarcastically of course, but I know they believed it) that that’s like saying…it’s
the best out of entirely terrible options (there was some metaphor, but
apparently I’ve chosen to forget it). Well yeah, you could say that, but come
on, it’s Africa. And it’s the
implications present in Africa that…honestly…they’re
just so pitiful. I could call them stupid, stereotypical, misplaced, and
completely wrong, but no one realizes that until they come here. They’re just
pitiful. And honestly, I can’t really blame them too much. Sure, I can sit here
and make fun of misinformed Americans, but I don’t really think I can blame the
individuals, as much as I would love to. I suppose I’ll go the route of blaming
institutionalized racisim, sensationalistic media, the fact that we learn
colonial to civil war American history a billion times but only look up at the
rest of the world and go “oh, I guess you’re there too. Whatever” once during
our educational career, and a culturally inherent ethnocentrism. America, after
all, is the center of the world, right? But really, let me please just tell you
one thing.
Africa is
not monolithic. It’s an invented concept. It exists only in the mind. Your mind,
the collective western mind, and the minds of Africans themselves who are
grouped together because the rest of the world has done and continues to do so.
I mean, please tell me what Tunisia and Swaziland have in common. And I
challenge you to find them on a map. What does Twi (shout out, Kelly!) have to
do with Kinyarwanda? What is Africa, and what is an African? Is it a continent
or a stereotype? Are they just black people and others don’t exactly count if
they’re anything but? Are you *really* not an African man if you didn’t grow up
herding cattle in the hills of Uganda (Love you, Muna)? Africa is not one thing. Africans are not one
people. Show me a starving child, and I’ll show you my siblings who turn up
food because they don’t want to be fat. Show me a wealthy warlord, and I’ll
show you one of my babies with cerebral palsy who lives at an orphanage. Show
me al-Shabab or Boca Haram (however you spell those) and I’ll show you the tons
of nuns I see every day. Africa is not one thing. There is no “African culture.”
There are more than just black people. I’m friends with an Egyptian,
Pakistanis, Europeans, Americans, and native Rwandans. Hell, beyond here, I’m
friends with white South Africans and black Americans. As my friend Zoe put it,
“If I was born in South Africa and then moved to America, does that make me
African American?” I mean really. What is an African? What is Africa? Yes,
those two things exist. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to promote some sort
of cheery global village, “there’s only one race—the human race” sort of idea.
I don’t believe in that either. I’ve definitely been made cynical to that idea
here. I just want you to realize that the Africa you think you know is wrong.
Hell, the Africa I think I know is wrong. No one will ever have the whole
picture. It’s the whole “you can’t step in the same river twice” idea. The
thing I love most about Africa is… (someone please rewrite the Pocahontas
song).
And
honestly, I don’t even like using the word Africa anymore since it’s lost a lot
of its meaning to me. I’ll say East Africa, Central Africa, Southern Africa,
West Africa, North Africa, the horn of Africa, Francophone Africa, Anglophone
Africa, whatever. Maybe even sub-Saharan Africa, though I think that’s just
something people say to politely refer to that place with all the black people
and all the problems. I’ll only say Africa when I’m mad, generally. I only
really know East Africa. And at that, I only really know a bit of Uganda and
Rwanda. And at that, I really only know Kigali. So please don’t ask me how
Africa was. I know you’ll be saying it jokingly and just to emphasize that I
went to some place “super crazy, dangerous, and undeveloped,” but please. Ask
me how Rwanda was. Or even Kigali. Because I can’t tell you about anywhere
else.
And so now I
have to go back. Or soon, at least. And I have to face the stereotypes again.
The monolithic comments. And honestly, I don’t think I’ll handle them as well
this time. Last time I laughed knowingly, understanding that people thought I
had something to fear. I reassured them when they thought they’d have to send
me with a gun and come bail me out of an African jail (love you guys, promise).
And see, there it is again. African jail. Not just any jail, a terrible, awful,
no good, very bad jail. I consoled them when they worried about my health and
safety (there are freaking soldiers on the street here, yall. Armed with huge
guns, and they’re everywhere. Kind of terrifying). I can’t say I’ll be as
forgiving this time.
But I
suppose I’d be lying if I said I never had any concerns myself. I thought I was
going to live in a simple house. Cement, I guess. Wouldn’t have been too far
off. Only I lived in a Rwandan mansion, essentially. Still cement. I thought I’d
have to do my laundry by hand all the time and douse myself in my 40% DEET bug spray.
Turns out I have helpers that do literally everything and I’ve hardly touched
those two bottles of bug spray. I don’t even really use my mosquito net that
often. I wasn’t too concerned for my safety. Any more than I would be in any
other big city. I thought I’d rarely have internet. I spend 4 hours in a café every
day. I have a ridiculous lunch break. I thought the food or the water would
make me super sick. I thought I’d have to follow those iodine and boiling rules
to a T or face…the Rwandan version of Montezuma’s (Kagame’s?) revenge. My small
pharmacy in my suitcase has largely gone untouched. I thought I would have to
dress as conservatively and professionally as possible because that’s what the
packing list said, right? God, I miss my nike shorts and short dresses.
Pre-Rwanda me was pretty hilarious. And a really terrible packer.
So I’m just
going to have to laugh. At the monolithic (I think that’s the nice way to put
it) questions when I get back, at the “feed a poor starving child in Africa”
commercials (because really? Would you want some old white dude to walk through
your neighborhood, just pick your child up out of nowhere, put them in front of
a camera, and make up some sort of sob story about them as they walk away? Like
really? That seems so weird now. And yes, I know poverty and starvation exist.
But really. Just think about it). I’ll have to laugh at the lack of news
coverage about positive things happening here, laugh at the terrible and
expensive fruit, and laugh at how really, no one is going to care that I came
here. I find this hard to believe (because I’m just so damn cool, right?), but
that’s what they tell me. And I’ll just have to laugh at how coddled American
kids are (and American parents. You have real diapers and 2.5 kids, yall).
Oh, and turns
out there are actually mud brick houses with thatched roofs and flies crawling
all over the kids. But the former are few and far between (or just in Uganda),
and my babies don’t give a damn about the latter. They just want you to keep
pushing the merry go round because that is so much fun, sha!!! Oh, and I’ve
seen black people. White people are weird. And I am so getting one of those
dresses made!
Anyway, back
to the title. Don’t congratulate me for coming here. To “Africa.” I’m not
brave, I’m not daring, I was just curious. If you want to congratulate me for something
(though I’m an introvert and that’s wayyyy too much spotlight for me. Just ask
me questions or put up with my rambling), congratulate me for getting into a
new culture, congratulate me for not bleeding too much when I did my laundry,
congratulate for getting up at 6 every day and going to sleep by 10 like an old
person :P Congratulate me for learning to laugh at men who, after approximately
10 seconds of acquaintance, profess their undying love for me or men who fondle
my hair (yup, couldn’t think of a better word. Pretty appropriate) as they walk
by. Lord, or for drinking milk that tastes like smoke. But not for getting on a
cushy plane, living with my family, going to school, and playing with babies.
Anyone could do that anywhere. No “but still”s. It’s a place with people and
things. If you wouldn’t congratulate someone for going to Canada, south Dallas,
or Dubai, please don’t congratulate me for coming here.
