May We Never Forget How Wealthy Africa Is
We are often blinded from seeing our rich plenitude
Would anyone visit our continent if it was not rich in culture or teeming with nature’s wild wonder?
I doubt.
When I was in primary school, we were told that the leading factor influencing international tourism was our wildlife. People would visit Kenya from all over the world to see the wildebeest migration at the Maasai Mara which stretches into the Serengeti plains in Tanzania.
Others would love to see the Maasai as they performed the customary practices, leaping in the air with straight, ramrod legs like a stotting deer. Another portion might want to see the only national park situated in a city — Nairobi National Park.
But, there is a lot that goes on behind the scenes. Books can explain just as much as they can conceal.
Sometime back, while we were still staying in Lucky Summer, I was informed of a medical camp that was around Korogocho and Baba Dogo. I thought it would be good to attend and brush up on my clinical skills as I had yet to start my clinical years.
In attendance were Americans who spearheaded the program. They didn’t know squat about the local language besides the chorus to the famous Lion King song — Hakuna Matata. And ‘jambo’, a phrase we hardly use when greeting each other.
Our role? Interpreters.
They provided the medication.
The American team comprised some doctors and nurses. Even at this level, there was a lot I had assumed but learned from the people who visited the grounds. Health-seeking behaviour was not encouraged among the local communities. After practicing for a few years, this tendency is seen in many settings. It’s a mark of cultural influence that still influences our behaviour.
Before they left Korogocho, I saw them take pics of the Dandora dumping site. Few took snaps of the recreational centre where the camp was held. This space had a basketball and netball court, a football pitch, and kids who practiced music in the open space next to the church. They didn’t even visit the library where several kids often spent their evenings. They mostly took pictures of the dumping site. The dump was stored in their phones and the budding rich experience which was a part of their immediate surrounding was forgotten.
I remember before one of them left, she wanted to taste chapati. In my opinion, she was one of the friendliest ones who had an experiential touch of our local culture. Her face turned into wide-eyed awe when she took her first bite. All her life, she had never tried such a delicacy. She wanted me to send her the recipe. We exchanged emails but I knew it wouldn’t help that much. There is a lot to cooking chapati than a simple recipe.
This exchange captured what Africa always had and what it could offer — gems hiding in plain sight. But we’re made to believe that our continent is the poorest.
What we need is a paradigm shift.
Lemb Dholuo and the Maasai
While attending the funeral of a friend who had lost her mother, one of the close relatives mentioned a movement they had started when they were younger.
It was called Lemb Dholuo.
I have a mind to avoid translating what the phrase means because it is one way of showcasing our rich culture, but my point would not have sunk home. Lemb Dholuo means ‘prayers in Dholuo language’. The movement was started in Umoja Estate because the local Christians felt that many young children of the Luo tribe were born in the urban centres but didn’t know how to speak their mother tongue.
I was reminded of a common practice back home. My mother would never let us sleep before praying. And we would always, always pray in dholuo. For several months when every school was closed during the COVID-19 pandemic, we would pray the Rosary every night. In dholuo.
I learned how to say the mysteries in my local language. I became confident in saying the prayers. And at times, she would bring out the Luo version of the bible for us to read.
Such actions are fueled by a shift in one’s paradigms.
According to Dona Meadows, in any system, the action points with the highest leverage are the intangible ones. At the top is transcending paradigms. One only needs to know the germ theory of diseases to understand how backward it was for people in the past to acknowledge that malaria was spread by malodourous air — it’s where the name malaria came from.
I could say the same thing about wealth. Our continent is immensely wealthy, but we’re still colonized into thinking we lack. We have cultures that are as diverse as they come. One of the reasons I attribute to the failure of the West to understand and implement strategies in Africa is tied to our extreme diversity.
Kenya alone has over 42 tribes. Even among ourselves, there are cultures we’re not familiar with. How do we expect those outside to do so? So what they do is spread their ideologies to us. The people who have always held strong to our traditions die and the young and growing population embrace the new teaching. Our traditions get diluted. The Western culture continues to percolate our densely packed practices.
I too am a victim. I cannot write in dholuo and I doubt my writing will get shared. I have to use the easiest way to reach people.
When one brings up tradition, it is often the foul practices that are discussed at the expense of its variety which raised generations long before colonization. Every tradition has its flaws. But demonizing it all makes us lack perspective. There’s a need for a paradigm change.
In America, having a gun is common. People would cite the need for self-defense. That is their culture. In the past, we would walk around with spears. In South Africa, they would have assegai, short spears very effective among the Zulu. But walk around with these and people would think you’re mad.
But you know what? There’s a tribe that is not ashamed to flaunt their handy weapons — the Maasai. On their waists, it would be difficult for you to spot them without a rungu. When the whites visit Kenya, they would always want to visit the Maasai.
In towns, they would move their herd of cows from one street to another, unbothered. Cars would have to halt for them to pass. Cows, the kind of cows I see they have, have the confidence of Thanos. They can stand and watch as a driver hoots incessantly but remain unabashed as it chews cud. A whip from the Maasai would be enough to nudge it forward. That’s another weapon they can carry with them.
Here we have a group who did not wake up to rush to work because their boss said they needed to make sure the report was on their desk before 8 am. We also don’t have someone dressed in classical Western fashion, with a well-ironed shirt and combed hair. Neither do we have someone who waits until month-end to get their salary only for it to get swallowed by another list of other Western ideas — a mortgage, rent, school fees, shopping, taxes, and entertainment.
Our local man wakes up, wash their face if they have water, milk the cows if they are by themselves in the wild, and decide how the day unfolds. Nobody pressures them about deadlines. Nobody questions their fashion. Nobody tells them what to do when they cross roads with their property.
You know who else does that? The extremely rich as per the Western dictates.
J. Cole said it best:
Mentally we let this
Poison of Western philosophy make it sloppy
We forgot we are the chosen
From hip-hop to astronomy, they copy what we showed them
When my friends travel abroad
The story gets flipped when I hear stories of my friends who traveled abroad.
A few weeks ago, my Rotaract club organized a virtual meeting, to hear some of the stories our friends had to share about their experiences in their respective countries.
The one person who was moved by the cultural experience, in a positive way, was the one who traveled to South Africa. He mentioned how they confidently spoke in their local vernacular and insisted that those they interacted with do the same. He was put in a position where he needed to learn the local dialect or get cast out as an outsider. I wondered how he could incorporate clicks in his speech. Teaching an old dog new tricks is a tricky affair.
From a young age, the children are instructed in their mother tongue. At this tender age, they all know how to speak the language that defines their tribe. You can hear it in their accents when they talk in international fora. Even Trevor Noah brings up the accent if he so wishes. That is wealth. Historic and cultural wealth that’s getting diluted from the outside.
The other friends talked of the microaggression they receive in Europe. Paralysis defines their action, or rather, inaction when they are verbally attacked because of their skin.
One time, a friend chronicled, that he was from a party and was walking this young lady back home when someone along the way requested a meal from him. He did what he could, the African way, and offered him a drink. A soft drink.
Although he thought his action was generous, the man declined and started calling him that foul word that Kendrick told Drake to never say: nigga. He didn’t stop there. He continued calling him that, shouting it in front of everyone, following him at every spot until he boarded his means of transport and headed back to his place.
Let me make this scenario clear. During colonization, Western practices were instilled as a norm. We had to go to school, learn their language, and practice their arithmetic in the name of progress. So we did. Meanwhile, when a black football player plays for a European team, they can get bashed by the crowd calling them monkeys. The racist slurs are still present. Is that progress on their end?
Granted, there is always a portion of people who understand the importance of treating each other equally. But that does not mean imposing one’s culture over another. By embracing the culture shipped from the West, we should not yield by dropping ours. If we do, we forget just how wealthy we are.
Look at the Ethiopians. They have their Abyssinian calendar. It is roughly 8 years slower than the Gregorian calendar. And they don’t care what anyone else says. They stick to it. That is cultural heritage. That is wielding your wealthy customs. As the world changes, they don’t just take it all wholesomely.
From the experience I have shared about the Maasai, it is clear that wealth is not only seen as the West describes it. The Occam’s Razor definition of extreme wealth is having the ability to confidently say ‘f*ck you’ and knowing you will still live to see tomorrow.
In my younger days, when I lacked a soccer ball of the kind I would see on our black and white Salora TV, I would gather all the polythene bags I could and using a stretch of sisal rope, make my ball. It had features very different from the ‘international’ one. First, it was cheap. Second, it was resilient. It could not deflate because of a puncture. And thirdly, it could be made by anyone who has the will to do so. This was how our childhood would say ‘f*ck you and your ball; I’ll make my own’.
You say these words with your actions. They speak louder than your words. You can only say that when you know what you have. But if your interpretation of what you have is biased, those actions will never reverberate through you.
And we’re one of the friendliest people you will ever meet. You know a plastic smile when you see it. But plastic never existed in Africa until industrialization strengthened its grip on our continent. For millennia, we had smiles that were not plastic. Genuine smiles even from the evil leaders in different local civilizations.
When my memory was somewhat matured, I recall the first time I visited my mother’s birthplace. Everyone along the way greeted me.
Amosi
They would extend their greetings.
Ber
I would respond in the little Dholuo I knew, hoping I had captured the accent properly.
That is the kind of wealth I wouldn’t want my people to ever forget.
What I’m trying to say is…
There are harmful traditional practices. Female genital mutilation and wife inheritance can have their flaws.
That does not mean the entire tradition is evil. When my aunt visits, she always carries with her a chicken for us to slaughter. Should she also drop that custom? Isn’t that wealth? She does not bring cash. She brings a meal. A healthy meal.
Wealth is defined by optionality. If what she does is not a demonstration of wealth, then the definition must have changed last night while I was asleep.
Yemi Alade always reminds us:
Everywhere you go, London USA, nowhere be like Africa, nowhere be like home.
If this continent is unlike the others, then it helps if we see it not as those outside it do. We should see it as our ancestors did — teeming with life, health, and wealth that cannot be housed inside a bank.
Please, let us never forget the wealth we naturally possess.
