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Re-branding Africa.
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28-05-2012 11:46pm#1I can't sleep (this is not relevant to the rest of the post so I don't know why it is here).
It was Africa day the other day but I was unable to attend any events because I am holed up at home with a leg injury, so I figured I would organise my own celebration and what better place to do it than in AHs.
I have read loads of threads and posts on Africa and what I took away from them is that a lot of people on boards don't really know much about Africa and an even bigger number just don't care.I know this is AH so my expectations are relatively realistic but I just wanted to invite all the other Africans on boards and any other persons foreign to Ireland to challenge what they feel are unfair or ignorant perspectives on here or simply share random interesting and or educational facts/anecdotes about their homelands.
I'll start: I am Rwandan. It's a little country in East Africa that's the size of Wales. It is breathtakingly bee-you-ti-ful: lolling hills literally everywhere, lakes and a lush green landscape. We may be a tiny country but we make a lot of noise (not literally)-very similar to Ireland in that respect. The first thing people always ask me is if it is safe now after our 'troubles' and my response is the same- it is one of the safest places and this is said entirely without bias (okay, maybe a little).
Random fact: Until the dutch overtook us in the Guinness book of world records, my tribe were the tallest people in the world.
Another random fact: Every last Saturday of the month, between 7 and noon, we clean our respective neighbourhoods- planting trees, cutting tall grass, weeding, removing trash etc. It is the responsibility of every able-bodied Rwandan. It's called 'umuganda'.
And another: Benefit packages for most civil servants include gym memberships which I find ridiculous but even weirder still is that Friday afternoons are for sports (government edict). Of course, being the party people that we are, the bars on Friday afternoons are filled with people wearing sports outfits. 79
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Itwasntme. wrote: »I can't sleep (this is not relevant to the rest of the post so I don't know why it is here).
It was Africa day the other day but I was unable to attend any events because I am holed up at home with a leg injury, so I figured I would organise my own celebration and what better place to do it than in AHs.
I have read loads of threads and posts on Africa and what I took away from them is that a lot of people on boards don't really know much about Africa and an even bigger number just don't care.I know this is AH so my expectations are relatively realistic but I just wanted to invite all the other Africans on boards and any other persons foreign to Ireland to challenge what they feel are unfair or ignorant perspectives on here or simply share random interesting and or educational facts/anecdotes about their homelands.
I'll start: I am Rwandan. It's a little country in East Africa that's the size of Wales. It is breathtakingly bee-you-ti-ful: lolling hills literally everywhere, lakes and a lush green landscape. We may be a tiny country but we make a lot of noise (not literally)-very similar to Ireland in that respect. The first thing people always ask me is if it is safe now after our 'troubles' and my response is the same- it is one of the safest places and this is said entirely without bias (okay, maybe a little).
Random fact: Until the dutch overtook us in the Guinness book of world records, my tribe were the tallest people in the world.
i love how africa day was mostly white irish people and political gob****es like the KONY 2012 supports...
dont get me wrong, africa's a lovely yet troubled place ( in more ways then war as mentioned ) but come on, its a day for you and other africans to celebrate not our wannabe upperclass elitists.0 -
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Battered Mars Bar wrote: »Never mind your tribe OP, what height are you?
Sure my peoples are suppose to be the ugliest and...er, well...
I am average height myself. 5"7 and a half or thereabouts. I am also the shortest person in my family. My brothers are 6"6, 6"5 and 6"4. Both my parents are taller than I am as well. I should probably ask my mom for my birth certificate just to be sure. 0 -
Itwasntme. wrote: »Random fact: Until the dutch overtook us in the Guinness book of world records, my tribe were the tallest people in the world.
I think you'll make a good full-forward
Recover from the leg injury and then head over to the GAA forumItwasntme. wrote: »I am average height myself. 5"7 and a half or thereabouts. I am also the shortest person in my family. My brothers are 6"6, 6"5 and 6"4. Both my parents are taller than I am as well. I should probably ask my mom for my to for my birth certificate just to be sure.
Ah this is no good
We'll stick you as wing-back so
Your brothers have potential though!0 -
Any African music I've heard is pretty ****ing good. Not sure which countries it's from though. Congo could be one I think.
Aye, love this stuff.
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I think you'll make a good full-forward
Recover from the leg injury and then head over to the GAA forum
Ah this is no good
We'll stick you as wing-back so
Your brothers have potential though!
Unless the GAA supports scrabble, I am afraid I am totally useless as an athlete. I am one of those people who has to touch their hands to tell left and right.
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id love to spend a year somewhere warm,and Africa always pops to my mind,but when reading info online it seems that whole country is trying to eat or kill you in some sort of way,the malaria ,Cece fly's,lack of clean water,also cities ridden with corruption drugs and war zones,read somewhere that a guy was traveling trough Nigeria i think it was and he said the bodies were rotting away on the streets,because if you report a casualty you have to pay the burial fees :cool: .would be interesting to know whats the opinion on the white people over there nowadays,as many say Africans are friendly and always help out but,most believe if a white person is over there then he is rich and everybody sees him as a target or someone who tries to exploit them.So anyone have any experiences to share,i know what i said cannot be applied to the whole continent so dont take it to heart . 0
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Rwanda is a fantastic country. Spent some time working all over the country in 1999/2000 and loved it and the people. I got kidnapped by blokes with guns outside that big nightclub in Kigali (I forget its name but it had no roof and they stamped your hand with ultraviolet ink) but they let me go and even drove me back to the nightclub when they realised I was Irish
Worked in Kigali and surrounding areas and also Gitarama, Ruhengeri, Butari and some other places there I can't remember at the moment (humanitarian).
Lovely place, lovely people.0 -
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id love to spend a year somewhere warm,and Africa always pops to my mind,but when reading info online it seems that whole country is trying to eat or kill you in some sort of way,the malaria ,Cece fly's,lack of clean water,also cities ridden with corruption drugs and war zones,read somewhere that a guy was traveling trough Nigeria i think it was and he said the bodies were rotting away on the streets,because if you report a casualty you have to pay the burial fees :cool: .would be interesting to know whats the opinion on the white people over there nowadays,as many say Africans are friendly and always help out but,most believe if a white person is over there then he is rich and everybody sees him as a target or someone who tries to exploit them.So anyone have any experiences to share,i know what i said cannot be applied to the whole continent so dont take it to heart .
First, you're quite self aware if your name is anything to go by. :P Second, I laughed out loud at the bit in bold. It conjured up images of white men on boats sailing to the 'dark continent', scared witless of the being killed or eaten.
In response to your question, the continent is so diverse that I can only speak for the part of it that I know which would be East Africa. East Africa comprises: Rwanda, Burundi, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Somalia, Djibouti, Eritrea. I have lived and been to most of these countries and have friends and relatives in all and apart from Somalia, I consider them safer than Dublin.The Africa I read about in the news would scare me too but that is not the Africa that I know. The Africa I know is friendly to foreigners, warm and full of character. There's widespread poverty of course but people are also happier than the majority of people I have encountered in the west. Yes, it is assumed that white people are rich but that because to many of the people, you ARE rich. You are under no obligation to give anyone anything. You will find that people in Africa, even the very poor will be willing to share whatever they have which is probably why they expect someone they assume to have more to do the same.
Rwanda in particular is very welcoming to foreigners. In fact, many of my white friends in Rwanda who came to visit or work ended up staying and have been there for years.
I am not saying nothing bad will ever happen to you- I am saying that you would be as safe there as you would in Dublin if not safer.0 -
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Rwanda is a fantastic country. Spent some time working all over the country in 1999/2000 and loved it and the people. I got kidnapped by blokes with guns outside that big nightclub in Kigali (I forget its name but it had no roof and they stamped your hand with ultraviolet ink) but they let me go and even drove me back to the nightclub when they realised I was Irish
Worked in Kigali and surrounding areas and also Gitarama, Ruhengeri, Butari and some other places there I can't remember at the moment (humanitarian).
Lovely place, lovely people. Kidnapped? 1999/2000 was just after the time of the insurgencies in the north. Brave of you to work in Ruhengeri. What work were you doing in Rwanda. Glad to hear you loved it. You would not believe the change in the last 12 years if you came back to Rwanda. 0 -
I got kidnapped by blokes with guns outside that big nightclub in Kigali (I forget its name but it had no roof and they stamped your hand with ultraviolet ink) but they let me go and even drove me back to the nightclub when they realised I was Irishah... the Africans, a great bunch of lads.
You don't get that type of service from a standard kidnapper no-siree:pac:0 -
Rwanda is a fantastic country. Spent some time working all over the country in 1999/2000 and loved it and the people. I got kidnapped by blokes with guns outside that big nightclub in Kigali (I forget its name but it had no roof and they stamped your hand with ultraviolet ink) but they let me go and even drove me back to the nightclub when they realised I was Irish
Worked in Kigali and surrounding areas and also Gitarama, Ruhengeri, Butari and some other places there I can't remember at the moment (humanitarian).
Lovely place, lovely people.
You make that sound ridiculously normal.0 -
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When I worked in Irish hotels I'd have Brits and Americans on bus tours around Ireland and so nervous about heading North and asking me about bombs and shootouts.
Sure it's grand I'd say, those days are over.
Stop worrying, Northern Ireland is beautiful
I dismissed their worries as silly
But reading this thread I think I'm doing the same
I think Rwanda and I know a bit about the atrocities and that's my first reaction to the country.
If I was choosing countries to visit it would be one of the last I'd choose over safety. As that's the message that went out about Rwanda.
Just my 2c0 -
Just a couple of things I see about Africa that tends not to be commented on in the media...when there's an outbreak of war, nobody mentions that most of the borders were drawn by Europeans and have no respect for local tribes/ethnic groups (Stalin pulled a similar stunt in central Asia) and the fact the US is more than happy for weapons from their companies to flow in to the warzone. Hypocrtical scum.
Great location Zebra. Yeah, the US has adopted a patronising paternalistic attitude towards many an African country on the one hand, rebuking them for being undemocratic whilst secretly funding and arming guerrilla wars on the other.When I worked in Irish hotels I'd have Brits and Americans on bus tours around Ireland and so nervous about heading North and asking me about bombs and shootouts.
Sure it's grand I'd say, those days are over.
Stop worrying, Northern Ireland is beautiful
I dismissed their worries as silly
But reading this thread I think I'm doing the same
I think Rwanda and I know a bit about the atrocities and that's my first reaction to the country.
If I was choosing countries to visit it would be one of the last I'd choose over safety. As that's the message that went out about Rwanda.
Just my 2c
I understand where you're coming from. I will try to paint a picture of the kind of Rwanda it is today with a little story.
My friends and I had gone out on the town one night when our house was burgled. When we returned at about six in the morning, I noticed that my laptop was not on my bed but because I was a little drunk, I didn't dwell too much on it (we hadn't realised that we had been burgled yet). I got up a couple of hours later to do some work and looked everywhere for it in vain-even woke up my very irritated roomies to help me find it. It was while we were searching for it that we found evidence of the theft. Someone had climbed in through my bedroom window and left marks on the window sill.
I was hangover, sleep deprived and depressed at the thought of forking out money I didn't have to get a new laptop. I decided to go take a shower and clear my head while I figured out the next steps. Before I could complete the thought, the doorbell rang. At the door were two policemen and a third man holding my laptop. They asked me if the computer was mine and I said yes.
A little context: You cannot go 500 metres in Rwanda without seeing either a policeman or a soldier with a gun and every evening at about 5:30pm, trucks drop off armed soldiers in neighbourhoods around the country. These soldiers patrol the neighbourhoods in files all night long. The trucks pick them up at six in the mornings. Friendliest dudes ever. Always willing to chat to me when I am out on my evening walks.
Back to the story: Anyway, so this guy had been apprehended on account of looking suspicious at about 3:00am in a neighbourhood about 30 minutes away from my house. The police had questioned him, found his responses wanting and asked him to turn on my laptop. When he couldn't figure out the password, he confessed to having stolen it and they held him overnight before bringing him round to my place in the morning. I was so happy to get my laptop and all my work back I didn't press charges so they let him go as he had no previous record. They left after cautioning us to lock up before leaving our house the next time.
The moral of this long winded response is that Rwanda is a safe place and the police are not corrupt and while crime happens, there is security in place. The other moral of the story is that I have too much time on my hands and I should really get some shut eye. 0 -
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I first visited Africa in 2006. I was fairly clueless about the continent at that time but somehow, I got past all the media negativity and decided to visit.
On that first trip, I visited a lot of countries, overland style, and spent a few days in Rwanda. I met some really lovely people there who were really welcoming. The country is also amazingly beautiful, a real Garden of Eden. I did a trek to visit the mountain gorillas which was a fantastic experience. While trekking through the forest to find them, our guide showed us wild blackberries growing - something I had never associated with Africa! I'm going back to Rwanda next year for a few weeks and I can't wait.
Regarding the continent in general and the way it is represented, I had all of my preconceptions turned upside down when I travelled there. Yes I did see cases of desperate poverty - people with obvious health issues due to poor water supply, people in fear of armed attacks by neighbouring communities (these examples are from a part of northern Kenya btw). However, I also encountered much positivity throughout the continent. People may not have all the commodities that we in the West consider to be important, but they have strong family and community ties that have been lost in many parts of our society. The perceptions of Africa that the media and aid agencies (see Linda Polman's book, War Games, for an insight on this) instill in us are pretty insulting and do little good for the continent. I think that, rather than focussing on the negatives all the time, we should look at the positives - vibrant cultures and communities, amazing natural beauty, vast potential to develop and innovate in a sustainable manner, - and learn from those a bit before we cast off the continent as a hopeless place to be fixed by Western "wisdom".
Thanks for the book recommendation. I will definitely look it up. +1 for the bit in bold. Community ties that are being torn because of the advancement of western ideals of development but that's another story for another day.
You are more than welcome back to Rwanda. Do you have any friends in the country? If not, I could always introduce you to people who could show you around or just to hang out whenever you will be there. What will you be doing there? I will be heading home for the summer in two weeks and back to Dublin in September for another year and then it's back home for good. 0 -
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Itwasntme. wrote: »Thanks for the book recommendation. I will definitely look it up. +1 for the bit in bold. Community ties that are being torn because of the advancement of western ideals of development but that's another story for another day.
You are more than welcome back to Rwanda. Do you have any friends in the country? If not, I could always introduce you to people who could show you around or just to hang out whenever you will be there. What will you be doing there? I will be heading home for the summer in two weeks and back to Dublin in September for another year and then it's back home for good.
I'll be going for a college field course in ... development studies - as you can probably tell, I take a healthily critical view of current approaches. I don't have the full details on where I will be based yet. I'll be with others from the course, but it would be really great to have some local contacts as well!0 -
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I'll be going for a college field course in ... development studies - as you can probably tell, I take a healthily critical view of current approaches. I don't have the full details on where I will be based yet. I'll be with others from the course, but it would be really great to have some local contacts as well!
Wait. I am a Development studies student as well. In fact my entire class is also going to Rwanda this summer for field work. Lovely coincidence. Are you an undergrad or post grad? Just asking because I like puzzles and I am trying to guess where you go to school and which course you are doing. 0 -
Itwasntme. wrote: »Wait. I am a Development studies student as well. In fact my entire class is also going to Rwanda this summer for field work. Lovely coincidence. Are you an undergrad or post grad? Just asking because I like puzzles and I am trying to guess where you go to school and which course you are doing.
I'm starting a postgrad in Development in September. Sounds like it could be the same course?0 -
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Itwasntme. wrote: »haha. I knew it! Yes, it is the same course.
Haha, I actually started getting suspicious when you mentioned going home, then coming back for a year.
Sure, drop me a PM, I would love to hear some more about what to expect on the course.0 -
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