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I recall when I was about to "fall bush".You know the anxiety I had and the hype that surrounded my personality.
All my friends almost thought I had eventually risen to the rank of a demi-god.
I (can) tell from the adulation and favours I received.
Though I was uncomfortable with this sudden likability of my personality to everyone,I knew it was a privilege to be counted among the few thousands who had managed to make it in those days.
Countdown time approached and my plane took off at the last command.
Well,well!!! I landed.I won't say where but it was a 'first world' country.I was coming from the 'third world'.So they say of us.
Then something immediately struck me.If they call people from these less-developed countries 'third worlders',then there must be a reason for it.
I would try without belabouring every point to to make you aware of some of the most glaring ones.
--The reasons:
*Their network channels are obsessed with negative images streamed out of Africa;
*99.9999% of the most positive news about Africa comes only from documentaries about animals.Especially the big cats and man-eating reptiles like the croc.Mind you that snakes,lions,crocs,etc, kill more people in other continents than in all of Africa combined.
There are more bear and mountain lion attacks in America than in Africa.Africans know best how to co-exist with nature.Snakes and tigers kill countless numbers in India and other parts of Asia.I just wonder why ours is more pronounced.I bet it is a calculated attempt to treat us in the most contemptuous of ways.
Anyway,that was a side issue,but still an integral part of my gist.
*Third world people,especially Africans come to their countries as mendicants.We are so poor that we can hardly survive in our original lands.Well for me poverty is relative.Some have their billions and still feel empty; others barely make it,but their spirits are vibrant with satisfaction and hope as long as life still runs.
This idea is fuelled by images of sporadic skirmishes in some sub-regions on the continent.And where this occurs,there is bound to be refugees.It is worth noting that Africa is not the most notorious in the exportation of refugees,yet we bear the brunt and the fury of our bush-citizens.India,Bangladesh and Pakistan alone have more refugees in Europe than all of Africa combined and twice that.Don't mention China,Russia,former communist East Europe.
*There is equally this postulated myth that black men's 'things' are enormous in size.Mine is.I confess,(just kidding now)!!!!!!:)
*The most popular one is that none of us is literate to a certain degree and those that are,never make it to a university.We cannot express ourselves well in any language,even our mother tongues.This sounds preposterous to me.I can express myself cleverly in camtalk.Hahaha!!!!
If we have elementary schools at all,we don't have desks and ball points.No books to read.We study using sign languages like primitive people did and "still do".
However,I must admit that bush-citizens are precocious and nerdy.Look at the tech gadgets they invent.I really believe they've laid a solid foundation that makes it possible for their citoyens to easily thrust themselves in whatever endeavour they want to undertake.That is a thing the kleptocratic "be yeah" regime cannot conceive of offering to us.
However,bush societal evolution is working against them in that where set rules and organisation replaces human spontaneity,there is bound to appear a society that is almost robotic.People think in a certain direction that it becomes exceptionally hard to divert their minds.
Bushcitoyens need a complete overhaul of their mental faculties to be able to see us in a different light.
I remember my first bush chap asking me what my favourite pet was in my jungle-ranch.I told her that first of all,my pets don't live in the jungle out there alone.We share the same space-and peacefully too.She insisted on her question about my favourite pet.I knew what she was expecting and I gave it to her.
"My favourites to cuddle are lions and cheetahs" ,I told her.
She wasn't surprised but it made her fear and respect me.I told her that my first tree-house was built by me alone and that it was proof of my manhood.Plus I had to sleep in the jungle alone for three weeks without human contact and eventually had to bring home a wild male lion alive to add to my collection of pets.
She believed me.Incredible,ehh??-yeah she did.
There is this other blockhead who asked me where I came from.
I told him from Camer.Hmmmm!!! He wasn't sure where Camer was,but in a buffoonish display of supposed intelligence,he came up with a funny laughable supposition.He said yeah,'I know where that is".I asked where it was.He said in India.He supposed that since my skin was dark,I must also be an Indian.But Indians are 'lighter-skinned' than most Africans and so I could not digest his reasoning.Well,I later found out he was just darn moronic.I say this because after telling him I was from Cameroon in Africa,he said he knew where that was 'now'.That it was near America.An Island near America.I said yes.He was darn right.Hahahahaha!!!!
Listen to this one.It's funny.
Whenever I'm traveling to a country that is not English-speaking,like when I go to Russia or Romania,Italy or Greece ,they usually want to display their intelligence in cases where I seek for some direction or general inquiries.They always like engaging me in a challenging but rather subtle fashion.
They will assume,hey,there he is--the African,the black man,he cannot speak good English.They will want to engage you with the best they know.Well that doesn't hold true with me because I remember many cases where they would later ask me if I spoke their language.I discovered this was because they found out that their perception deceived them and since they couldn't carry on with the conversation in that it was unbalanced,they had to withdraw.Remember that bush-citizens hate challenges from African bushfallers.
Their vaunting about their countries and development usually follows an 'embarrassing' encounter.It hurts their pride to be out-done by an African in any field.My advice is that we strive to rise above mediocrity.
There is this other one that met me at the metro station the other day.Anxious to speak with me,he commenced,'do u c-peek(speak) Inglis?' I wonder why even uneducated bush citizens think they are better off than we are.I mean they really think the poorest of them is richer than we are and the most moronic better equipped with more brain cells than the average bush-faller.
Until I arrived in the 'bush',I never knew bush-citizens could beg for money from a bush-faller.And I've been really gracious until recently that I'm pissed.I cannot give money to people begging in trains and to junkies whose kinsfolk will later look at me as a pest in their beloved land even though I'm contributing relentlessly to their economic development by being hard-working.
There is much more to say,but this suffices for now.
My contribution is merely to awaken our consciousness to the fact that we've got to be proud of 'us'.I'm only bringing out and adding substance in a critical way to the many different misguided views that many bushcitizens hold of us bush-fallers.These views have been narrated to us by our daring bush-fallers who've each shared their bitter-sweet bush experiences.
I would add that despite the many facet of the psychological imbalance we suffer from this as a result of mistreatment by most bush-citizens,we stand to gain a lot in that when the dust finally settles and we head home(or some head home),many back home will benefit from our bitter-sweet bush-falling experiences.