Isn’t the image above cool. Africa looks amazing all lace up in Drogba’s hand.
Anyway in 1996, when I was in grade 2, I had a very puzzling experience. The experience still torments me today!
A boy in my class told me that Africa was a state like New South Wales is a state in Australia (another example: Like Texas is a state in the United States). I was horrified and furious. Of course this started an argument. Mind you, I was 7 years old at the time, but I knew my geography. When I was in grade 1, my Mum bought me an atlas. I used to spend hours learning countries, their languages, their capital cities, their currency and interesting facts fed through me by my ex-history/geography teacher Dad. Clearly I had all the facts. I remember naming at least half of the countries in Africa and said to him, ‘How can you explain all these places. Are they cities? NO. How come a lot of these places go to the Olympics. Africa is a CONTINENT like EUROPE’. Yet he was adamant that Africa was a state. I couldn’t comprehend this. I was dumbfounded. I knew I was right, so I asked the teacher. I thought she would surely set him straight. But instead she defended the boy. This was the most traumatic part of the experience. She told me that Africa was a STATE as well!!! This was my favourite teacher, and in a split second she was demoted to the worst teacher ever. With my frustration I went home and told my parents. Of course, my Dad wasn’t happy. So he wrote a letter to her explaining that Africa was a continent and not a state. I don’t remember whether the letter was effective or not!This incident was about 14 years ago. It’s funny that there are people out there who still have that perception of Africa – either as a state or a country!
Sometime last year, I came across the blog ‘Africa is a Country‘. When I first saw the title, I was confused. I thought it was a blog site for an international group against Africa being a continent. I quickly figured out that it is a great blog about Africa. But everytime I see the title of the blog, I am reminded of my traumatic grade 2 incident!
IMAGE SOURCE: KISS MY BLACK ADS
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