What Makes You African?

Africa is a land of stern eyebrows and overbearing elders, a continent of singing mosquitoes, and naked children, running to embrace beneath their mothers' knees. In Africa, the labourer's sweat drop down his body like oil on the head of David. At the townhall, men distrust their brothers, the market is noisy from women gossiping about lazy husbands, and at the gates of our schools, teenagers wait on bare knees to be flogged by their teachers. Deep into Africa, the drumbeat is fast, the women are cooking and Kwame is proud of his first kill. I know all these because I was born in Africa and live everyday under the infringing sun of the dark continent.

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Our aged tell us uncountable parables and fables; dark magic breathes on this land, the dwelling of dark magic. The dead will come alive by the blood sprinkled over the earth above it, from the neck of a black hen, the ground receives those who swear to have it. Amidst the abundant vegetation is a scared shrine; amidst schools and retail shops is a holy church; and above them all, the cry of the Iman is heard, calling for prayers, from a tall mosque. In Africa, we search for the ultimate power, we pray to different gods, we pray to wealthy men.

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I know wherein lies the ultimate power, it cries everyday in the ample palms of midwives-the sound of victory blown from the horn of hope- the spirit in every survivor, present in every true African from suckle to buckle. It was there, wild in the eyes of Kwame the lions slayer. It saw him through the fear that gripped his skin taut, He would live to kiss his mother, from the painful roar of the stabbed beast, the comfort of the still carcass, the praises and glory, the smile of a proud father, and the sage advice of a sweet mother, to the oiled breast of a coloured virgin, the tale of raw passion; he became a man and a man sits and speaks in council.

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To wield the charms of my father and his father before him, to die leaving wives and their children to dispute over vast landed property is Africa. I am Kwame and I am very African.