My Africa..

So much things to say...
Yeah..
Bob Marley said it best..

Im not at a crossroads.. rather I'm closer to finding my lane.

I love Africa.
Yes
Yet I suspect you may have worked that out by now.
I feel a connection to a place I was never born in.. Never spent my childhood .. and didn't get to visit until my 20s.

I feel at home there. Felt at home in the carribean too kinda.. but perhaps not as much.
Yet..does 'Africa'.. love 'me'?
I have been blessed with the wonderful disposition of being able to confuse.
I look African. (Because I am..however mixed I may be)
In my travels so far.. most have assumed I was born of the counties I've visted ( not enough yet). Until they hear my accent.. or my language confirms my 'Europeanness'

Unable to place me squarely into a 'tribe' I become 'foreign'.
But not white foreign..No... there is a pecking order.. No.. just foreign..black.

When many think of Africa they think subsaharan... poor.. dark. Up north?. they think Arab..whiteness..

I've lost count of the number of people I've met who have been to Egypt.. yet don't for a minute consider it Africa...

Africa's seeming inability to recognize.. 'itself' stems from many things. One being... they too have been fed an idea of life outside of their 'parameters', which is often not quite accurate.. but perhaps the main reason is...Most don't get out much.
You need money and a visa to travel and many have neither.
It has been systematically designed that way.

As a result, many of us remain in.. not so blissful (yet it can be on and off)...ignorance.
I always encourage that 'Africans' visit the Carribean and visa versa. In doing so 'they' would see the existence of a commonality so far denied from thier experience. In doing so.. they too.. as I and many others have witnessed, will also recognize how West African cultures in particular, (given that they were the main trade routes of the trans Atlantic slave trade).despite the attempts to eradicate it.. has however.. been sustained.
Quickest routes.. ?food..music..masquerade.. folk tales...

(Wow.. did I just mention slavery?.. I rarely if ever do that lol)

It remains true that the best way to control a nation..its people.. is to divide them. (and keep them divided)
It was true then.. and it's true now.

So what is that road?
I'm feeling creative tonight..
I'll see
x
Pizza night.. x