Leaving Africa Made Me Realize How Lucky I Am To Be African

Out of nowhere, the tears began to flow. They took me by surprise.

"Bye Dad," I whispered as I fixed my eyes on the Helderberg Mountains. I began sobbing quietly as the plane shifted and the Hottentots-Holland Range came into view. We had scattered my father's ashes there months prior. His soul was now at rest in the mountains that made him so happy for two decades.

As much as I tried, I couldn't quell the tide of emotions that were surfacing as we soared above my homeland. What began as a tribute to my father morphed into a goodbye to Africa.

For decades I detested the continent on which I was born.

"I'm not African, I'm SOUTH African," I would say emphatically, annoyance clear in my voice when an ignorant foreigner lumped me into a continental culture.

It shouldn't have surprised me, we do it all the time. Are you Asian? Are you European? Are you South American? White folks love to generalize - it's an Olympic sport for us.

Moving to New Zealand and then Australia, I was clearly part of the European nation. We were a people of developed structures, functional utilities, economic strength, and educated societies.

Much of the world viewed Africa as the bottom of the barrel. A continent full of "shithole countries" savaging each other with corrupt governments and starving children. I got caught up in the groupthink.

Deep down where I was afraid to be, I knew differently though.

The only perceived redeeming factor about Africa was the wildlife. Teeming with many of the world's most revered animals, giraffe, elephant, zebra, buffalo, and rhino wandered the plains of the ancient land. Thousands of tourists flood into the continent every year pointing and clicking their cameras and phones at anything that moves.

The lowest of the low came to shoot what they could, proudly displaying their cowardly kills on their barren walls back in 'civilization'. Sounds ever-so-slightly uncivilized to me, but what do I know?

Every three or four years, I would soar over the veld as an airplane brought me back to my homeland to visit my parents who still lived there, going about their normal lives at the southern tip of Africa. After two or three weeks, I would board the big, white bird and fly back to my cushy life Down Under.

On to the United States and Canada, I journeyed, looking for a place that felt like home. A place I felt I belonged. I fell in love with the Great White North with her sparse winter wonderland and Christmas lights twinkling in the snow. The colour explosion every fall as leaves turned shades of red, orange, and yellow set my heart aflutter with Halloween decorations adorning porches and front yards everywhere.

After the brutal heat of Australia, the Canadian summers greeted me like an old friend after the long winter. Festivals and events sprang to life as did the people after the prolonged hibernation. Every time I had to leave to renew my visa, I longed to be back in her maple-scented arms.

An extended stay in Africa.

It happened slowly.

I returned to South Africa for my obligatory visit with my parents. I sighed as I landed on the tarmac of Cape Town International Airport - looking forward to seeing my folks but aware that I was back in Africa.

My father was born and raised in England, moving to South Africa with his parents when he was seventeen. He loved the country - deeply, something I struggled to understand for a long time. He met and married a third-generation South African girl with the same British heritage.

Dad found such joy out in the bush, pointing his Pentax at the hordes of animals as they bent to drink at watering holes. He rallied cars along South African roads, bringing home awards and trophies. He hiked through the Drakensberg Mountains, stood staring out at the majesty of Cape Point, marvelled at the beauty of the colourful birdlife, and revelled in the life he had built on the Mother Continent.

A week after my arrival, a German friend visited. I had spent time with her family in Bavaria two years earlier and now here she was, visiting us. She'd been an exchange student in my hometown thirty years prior, a thousand miles northeast of my parent's village.

It was she who sparked my stubborn mind to look at the land with different eyes.

"Wow!" "Incredible!" "Unbelievable!" Astonishment and praise flowed from her lips wherever we went. I hadn't explored many of the tourist spots on my visits - why would I? I knew the place. I came back to see loved ones and rest from a work-weary life that developed countries excel in creating.

Observing her utter joy and amazement in a landscape I took for granted, I started to look at things differently.

Wow! That view over Cape Town from Table Mountain is truly spectacular.

That little sunbird drinking from a King Protea is exquisite.

Damn! The colour of the ocean is really incredible.

I had just finished a four-month trip through South America where I marvelled at the beauty of the countries therein. Why couldn't I realize how phenomenal my own country was? Had I really been that influenced by the propaganda over the last twenty years?

I had visited so many other lands - most of which were developing - and had waxed lyrical about their beauty. Why couldn't I do the same with mine?

Slowly, my mind began to change and my appreciation grew.

Shortly before I left to head back to Canada via Australia to take care of a little business, an Egyptian student who works in Saudi Arabia arrived in Cape Town as part of the requirements for his British Master's Degree.

"How can you not want to live here?" he asked. "This country is truly incredible. I love it here. Why don't you want to stay here?" he asked again, unable to fathom why I was so desperate to get back to my life in the Great White North.

"I don't feel like I belong here anymore," I replied, which is true - I don't.

I struggle with the white South African culture. In fact, I'm really struggling with all white culture these days. The more I read from people of colour, the more disappointed I become in my race. We're an entitled group and those who live in developed countries are, by far, the worst.

Through the eyes of my German friend and the accolades that rolled off my Egyptian friend's tongue, I allowed myself to feel proud. Proud of my country of birth and the people within who fought so hard for their own freedom. Through years of oppression and violence, black South Africans never lost their joy. This astounds me.

The term "shithole countries" has been making its rounds since the era of the narcissistic orange cheat-o. The general level of happiness in these 'degraded' countries is far higher than in those that are financially strong and stable. Prosperity and stability, I might add, that were only gained by pilfering and looting the disparaged countries.

As I travelled more, I realized that Western countries are full of far deadlier corruption. While Africa, Asia, and South America’s corrupt governments do their bidding overtly, it is the covert trickery and sleight-of-hand strategies of the wealthy countries that I find far more abhorrent.

These countries can afford to help their people. More than that, however, they should be putting money and resources back into the places that they pilfered during the reign of colonization — much of which is still happening in the name of trade agreements!

The sense of community in poorer countries is far greater. I have only really seen pure joy in these countries. Africans are strong and resilient. They've had to be. They've been taken advantage of, insulted, and invaded, and yet they keep going through it all. No global temper tantrums, simply turning their backs on global bullies.

Returning to Canada recently, I have been watching Canadians lose their minds over the ramblings of an orange megalomaniac psychopath. To an African, it seems like a bunch of kindergarteners crying about the class bully. The country is on the right side of history so why allow a deranged narcissist to spoil your tea party?

I don't get it.

Right now, Americans are fleeing the same deranged narcissist-led government. After decades of complaining about immigrants, many of them are becoming one. It may be a lesson in humility for many. Some may realize what it feels like to have to desert your homeland, not by choice, but by circumstance.

Being "free" is not always in the hands of the voters.

It's funny how perspectives change. After ten months in a village on the West Coast of South Africa looking out over False Bay to the back side of Table Mountain, Australia looked so dreadfully dull. Tired, brown, dry, and dreary. My friends are weary from the rising costs and new challenges of daily life as their politicians dip their snouts even further into the money trough.

Returning to the back end of winter in the Great White North, I find myself surrounded by unhappy people, frustrated at the turn of events from their neighbours to the south as well as their ever-increasing costs of living. They, too, have a narcissist getting closer to winning the Prime Ministership. A man who will not think twice about teaming up with his orange buddy to rock the lives of his citizens in much the same way.

As I close another of life's chapters, firstly in Australia and now in Canada, I realize how lucky I am to be African. The resilience, patience, and strength the Mother Continent bestowed on me through my formative years has stood me in good stead.

I thank her for that.

"Ubunzima baphula amanye amadoda kodwa benza abanye."

"Difficulties break some men but make others."

-Nelson Mandela

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