Home is Africa

They call it Africa, We call it home.

Most Americans lump all the countries of Africa into one country:  Africa. The ignorance that most Americans display regarding the fifty plus countries that make up the African continent is appalling.

Years ago I went to a doctor's office. The nurse noticed that I had been in Peace Corps, and asked me in what country I had served. I replied, "Botswana" and she got a little testy, said something such as, "I don't care about that--what country where you in?" I responded, "Africa" and she was okay with that. I'm not sure what she had thought I had first said, but by lumping Botswana into Africa, I had appeased whatever disgusting thing she thought I had said.

Later, the physician came in, and there was a similar conversation. "Where were you?" Again, I said Botswana, and the look on the physician's face was of confusion. He ultimately said, "I assume that's somewhere in Africa?" These comments were from two supposedly educated people, a nurse and a doctor.

There is a big difference between Morocco and Swaziland, for example. But there seems to be no problem for most people in lumping the two into a pseudo-country called Africa.

The capital of Senegal, Dakar, is closer to New York City, then it is to Johannesburg, South Africa. Maybe Senegal should be considered a part of North America, and let South Africa be a part of Africa.

Culturally, a person can cross the border of any country, and be in a different country (amazing), with a different language, different money, different cultural norms. Imagine somebody traveling to Italy, and you say, "Oh, you went to Eurasia?" It's hard to envision somebody lumping Italy with Thailand, or even an adjacent country such as France. Oh, you went to France? No, Italy. They might use the same currency, but that is about where the similarities stop.

It all seems to be part of a cultural bias of Americans. Throughout their educational years, students in America are taught about ancient Greek and Roman civilization. Chances are there is absolutely no mention of the great past civilizations that were occurring south of the Mediterranean.

Some companies have jumped on the African bandwagon. Certainly companies may be in many countries in Africa. It makes sense to be proud of your location. A bank that may have branches in Namibia, Uganda, and Nigeria, would want to use one saying for all the different countries in which they are doing business.

There were no national boundaries during the evolution of humans. Studies and research over the past one hundred years is showing that humanity originated on the continent of Africa. That continent is now divided into a bunch of countries,

Some of the oldest, or earliest, proto-humans, Australopithecus africanus have been found in South Africa. The Cradle of Humankind is located near Johannesburg. When these remains were first reported, anthropologists, mostly from western Eurasia and North America, were reticent to believe that human beginnings were in Africa. There was a cultural, and perhaps, racial bias, against believing that humanity began in some place other than Europe or Asia.

We are all from Africa. It is the place we can all call home. You just don't know it.