A general misconception about Africa
Few days ago, I had seen this tiktok where an African lady was talking about how she's tired of this general misconception of Africa being a poor place with nothing but bad roads, no clean water, corruption and all of those terrible things, and I couldn't agree more with her.
You see, what a lot of people out there don't know is that just like every other place in the world has its good and bad places in a country, it is the same here too. There are places over here (in Nigeria for example) that look so rich and clean that if you had been blindfolded and taken to those places, you would argue that you're no longer in Nigeria.
But unfortunately, the media has made it look like there's nothing good over here other than people suffering everyday and everyone not in Africa is just eating up those lies and believing everything they read on the internet. I go online on unsplash searching for pictures of Africa and all I see is pictures of elephants, zebras and untarred roads with women carrying firewood on their heads as if there's no civilization here yet.. That's the problem you know.
Sometimes I see the way they portray some places in Africa and I just get pissed off. In some of those videos, you see things like people washing their clothes in the river like we don't have washing machines over here, or we've never had electricity or something like that.
Yes I agree that there are certain parts of the country where you rarely find these things, but it's not because it's not available, it's just because they can't afford it, which is totally normal because there are rich and poor people everywhere.
The one thing that just boils my blood everytime I hear it is when some of this foreigners use the phrase "there are hungry people in Africa" whenever they're trying to give someone a reason not to waste food and be appreciative for what they have. Why drag Africa into the whole conversation? Ain't they hungry people everywhere???
The irony of this whole thing is that when it comes to the richest continent with natural resources in the world, Africa tops the chart, but due to corruption and greed, the people isn't really benefiting much from it but that doesn't mean that we're all wretched, broke and drinking dirty water.
I've never even drank dirty water in my life and I grew up in the ghetto. So please, the next time someone talks about Africa and just goes straight to talk about the bad side of it, always be kind enough to remind them that just like every other continent, Africa has its good and bad side.
I don't judge Africa based of internet information. But people judge based on the lifestyle of average people and average African people are not receiving all the facilities like other countries. Just think about electricity. My country is also a poor country and the corruption is in peak levels like Nigeria but the electricity issues is not so huge like Africa.
But there is another reason for the misconceptions and it's the past or the history. Maybe you haven't seen it but those created a bad image in front of foreigners.
When it comes to electricity, there are countries over here that have nothing less than 20 hours daily electricity.. But I understand your point when you mentioned "average"... All I'm saying is that every country has its developed and underdeveloped areas.
I remember this degenerate youtuber called fidias who goes to Burundi years ago for his content. Goes to a school there and explain smartphone and internet as if non of the residents knows about it. Plot twist: One of the teachers pulls out his smartphone while fidias was going with his bs.
Things like this is what triggers my anger.. That mentality, that we have little to no knowledge about technological advancement.
Yes oo...
Every countries have it slum area and Nigeria is no exemption
Exactly!