A saint that walked among us

There will no doubt be some of the most touching eulogies written about Nelson Mandela in the coming days. It stands to reason because like so few of our time, he lived an exemplary life and stood by his principles till the very end. He wasn't perfect but he was an example of human potential - our potential to be good, to stand by our beliefs and to put the greater good before our own personal needs and wants. 

When the news broke this evening, I was chatting with a group of friends on whatsapp and we were divided on whether we should feel sad or just grateful to have lived in the same time at this incredible man. I felt the latter emotion - gratitude for his long life - for the fact that even after spending 27 years in prison he was blessed with a long and very fulfilling life. He found happiness even after he separated from the woman, who was once considered his 'other half' in every sense of the word. He was able to achieve something that many who struggle for self-determination only dream of - to become the leader of the country whose independence he fought for so tirelessly.

It goes without saying that many of us idolise Nelson Mandela and with good reason. Good, honest people are so hard to come by. To argue that human beings are good at their core, ignores the reality of those who lead our societies  - be they politicians, businessmen, so-called philanthropists or community leaders. So few of them can be considered exemplary - truly exemplary. Even when they claim to be 'in it' for the greater good - I'm thinking of the Bono's and Bill Gates of this world, or the ones who inspire us with their words like Barack Obama or Richard Branson and even those who do or have done so much for their country's advancement like Paul Kagame or Jerry Rawlings, they are so deeply flawed that we end up feeling ambiguous about looking up to them or commending them for their achievements. That they are our only choice - our modern day heroes if you will, can leave us feeling quite short-changed.
While Mandela was no doubt a flawed human being, he was a giant among those who hold positions of power. Although I believe that many people in the world are good in every sense of the word, I find it regrettable that true altruism is hard if not impossible to find in leaders, those who have the ability to effect real change.

Madiba was one of a kind, gentle, thoughtful, selfless to a fault. He sacrificed his freedom for his country and continued to serve his people until he was physically unable to do so. He is truly and inspiration for all of us. He gave us more than we can ever expect a single person to give us so rather than mourn his death or start speculating about some man-made impending disaster that will befall his country because of his passing, we should show our gratitude for his life and for the lessons he taught us.
We should be inspired to be the best that we can be, to be good, not just as ordinary citizens but also when we are in positions that can influence society and bring about change. We must remind ourselves each day when we achieve the goals we set out to achieve, of the dreams we had as children, the lofty ambitions we held to one day make a difference. In being principled even when we do not stand to benefit personally, we will ensure that the legacy of this modern day saint lives on. Rest in peace our beautiful Madiba. May we do you proud!

Beautiful Salone

On 27th April 2011, Sierra Leone celebrated its 50th Independence anniversary and although the debate about what there is to celebrate still goes on as do the celebrations (if you had no idea, few nations know how to party like us), it got me thinking about what it is that makes my country special. No doubt many people feel this way about the place they call home but for me there is, has always been something magical about Sierra Leone.


Growing up in the Capital City, Freetown, my childhood was nothing short of idyllic, I grew up surrounded by a loving extended family and attended a school I looked forward to going to (inspite of my frequent canings – I admit I was handful) because I would get to spend time with my friends and work hard in order to be top of the class. There were activities and events throughout the year to look forward to from schools’ thanksgiving ceremonies which involved getting dressed to the nines and marching in the streets of Freetown for all to admire, to ‘Jumps’ as the daytime parties were known back then. School sports days were an exciting time where you’d get to compete but again always an opportunity for a new hairdo, new specially-starched uniform and a chance to show off to friends and family.

It was all about traditions and we loved looking forward to these at different times of the year, at Christmas it was about the family get-togethers, scrumptious meals of jollof rice (rice cooked in a tomato stew) with chicken stew, krio salad (a salad that is packed with what seems like 101 ingredients and named after the descendents of slave returnees) and roast-beef (not to be confused with British roast beef – these were beef kebabs marinated in hot scotch bonnet pepper, tomato puree and peanut butter). Christmas day started with church, and church traditions, and ended with visits to the various grandmas and aunties’ homes in the centre of town – where the action was. With each visit came more food, more laughter, and more celebrations. There were masquerades where figures referred to as ‘debul’ dressed in elaborate costumes, covered head to toe, would dance and perform tricks in the streets. As children we were told they had special powers and were not be stared at - of course we obliged and marvelled at them as they performed magic. They had names likes Mama Para (the really tall one – probably on stilts), Gunu-Gunu, Paddle and Kaka-Debul.

Boxing Day involved outings to the beach – with delicious food, home-made ginger beer and sweet bottled drinks like Vimto, Mirinda and 7-Up packed in Coleman picnic coolers, we’d head off to the likes of Sussex beach again with family and friends. New Year’s Eve (‘watch net’) would involve going to church and as we got older maybe a party or two afterwards. New Year’s Day was also a beach outing day, who could blame us in a country where the Atlantic oceans stretches over 300 miles. On Pray day as Eid-ul-Fitr is known in Sierra Leone we’d receive food from our Muslim neighbours who had been fasting or better still attend the numerous parties and celebrations they had. At Easter we attended church and spoke solemnly of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ but for children the highlight was kite flying. These came in all shapes, colours and sizes and we competed with each other to see whose would go the highest, who could bring whose kite down, Easter without kite-flying just wasn’t Easter.

When I left Freetown and moved to London, I recall feeling constantly nostalgic for my old life. The traditions just weren’t the same in England; and although I was young enough to be able to adapt, my childhood lost its sparkle, I envied my friends who’d stayed who probably envied me for being in the ‘First world’. It was even harder for my cousins who moved to the UK in their teens, they felt as though the rug  had been pulled from under their feet, like a parent interrupted a ‘sweet’ party and sent everyone home. Although they got on with life, there was a greater yearning for the life they’d left back home. They’d recount exciting stories of Inter-Sec Sports where the various secondary schools in Freetown competed, the latest fashions, popular boys, even the newly opened nightclub Bacardi’s they’d sneak to occasionally and I would sit and listen with envy.

Visiting Freetown at Christmas time now became our new tradition and one that we equally looked forward to; as we exited the plane, thoughts of poor cabin crew service and ghastly food would evaporate as we felt the blast of humid air in our faces and walked across the tarmac towards eagerly awaiting family members and random strangers who just liked the buzz of an airport. The partying would usually start the same night – with phone calls to the few friends still in town confirming the best parties for us JJCs (Johnny-Just-Come - a term used to refer to Sierra Leonean holidaymakers) to attend. The next morning our aunt would treat us to oyster stew which we'd eat with kotor bread (traditionally baked half baguettes sold at local Fulani-owned stalls). We'd also sample all the local snacks throughout the holiday the granat cake (peanut brittle), breadfruit chips; we'd enjoy fruits we never got the chance to eat in London like chuk chuk plum (a prickly fruit), guava, small pink apples and countless other exotic fresh fruits. At the end of our two week holiday we would return to the UK, saddened by the thought of leaving sunshine and incessant fun for cold winter days that started in darkness as we dragged our feet to school and ended in darkness as we made our way back.

Years later when I moved back to Sierra Leone, the country took on a whole new meaning for me, the partying was now infrequent but I appreciated its natural beauty more than I’d done as a child. Sierra Leone is stunning in a word. Its landscape, green and hilly, the ocean is visible from most parts of the Capital City, did I mention its miles and miles of white sand beaches? The people are warm and friendly and even though they seem to revel in a bit of ‘kuss-kass’ (drama), their bark is far worse than their bite. A 5ft nothing elderly lady can challenge a burly taxi driver, knowing full well he will concede in an argument over the elevated fare he tried to charge her. There were times when I would drive through the streets and find myself shouting at people ‘fool-man’ ‘your idiot’ ‘oosai yu pull yu licence’ (where did you get your licence from) as I knew I wasn’t about to be pursued by some nutter and become the victim of road rage. Insulting people (‘for koss’) is an integral part of who we are and often times the ones with the loudest mouth are the most cowardly ending a verbal fight with words like ‘nar way nor more....’ (if it wasn’t for the fact that....). As an adult, I got to travel outside Freetown visiting Makeni and Port Loko where I found people equally approachable and welcoming. I found it comforting that I could also speak to my people in Krio (the lingua franca) – it meant that we could somehow relate to each other, even though not everyone in the places I visited spoke it, there were always a few who did.

Sierra Leone’s architecture is also worth a mention, from the traditional colourful Krio houses in the Capital City and the Krio villages in the Peninsula to the modest wan-flats (bungalows) and huts in the villages, to huge beautifully designed houses scattered in the suburbs of Freetown. Sierra Leone's architecture is an assortment that captures the imagination and tells the story of the country’s rich history.

Recently I stopped by an Italian colleague’s office to ask him a work-related question and spent thirty minutes listening to him tell me about how beautiful Sierra Leone is; he had spent a couple of years there working with the UN peacekeeping mission. He told me that the ‘patch granat’ (roasted peanuts) that were sold on the beaches were the best he’d ever had, not too salty, just right and so crunchy. The lobster he had at Bureh town beach was the largest, most tasty he’d ever had and did I know that River No. 2 was just so beautiful, the white sands and clear water, he’d never seen anything like it. (I smiled and told him there was one just like it in Jamaica). He went on about the food, oh the food, and how his house-help used to make fresh shrimps which were so huge, he made a fist to demonstrate and they were just so delicious. The people were so nice, he was invited by colleagues to their houses to eat and this was so unusual because he’d lived in Liberia and Guinea and Angola and this had never happened in those places. As he continued waxing lyrical about Sierra Leone, I smiled, nodded and remembered why I love my country so much.

Africa and the single narrative

I've been trying to read a horrid little book (well not so little but very horrid) that was recommended by a colleague of mine as a background to the conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The book, Blood River by English journalist, Tim Butcher is peppered with racist stereotypes about Africa and its people and is evidence of a lack of understanding or perhaps desire to understand the problems that plague the DRC. His account is superficial at best but if I'm honest I would say shallow and racist with comments referring to 'the natives and their kalashnikovs', depictions of the 'emotionless' corrupt Government minister, and references to the 'dark continent', its 'dark past', 'dark present' etc etc. The book offers no hope, no depth and clearly no understanding and what makes it infuriating is that rather than telling 'his version' of a story, Tim Butcher seems to be offering up a so-called factual account of what he describes as 'the World's most dangerous country' with over-simplistic and inaccurate pronouncements including one about Tutsis being taller and thinner and having finer features than their ethnic neighbours. The irony of it all is that Butcher's journey which culminates in the writing of this book was a mere 45 days long, aided by the UN and various NGOs and a lot of money and by his own admission he lacked skills in the languages spoken by the so-called 'natives' whether French, Lingala or Swahili. Yet the book was well received and received high praise for giving 'A fascinating insight into Belgian colonial history and Congo today'. Reading this book, or attempting to, reminded me of a confrontation I once had with Rod Liddle, another English journalist who having spent two weeks in Uganda, returned to the UK to write some ridiculously inaccurate and damning account of the country, its people and its problems, all summarised in less than 2000 words.

This simplistic approach to a hugely diverse and complex continent seems to follow the style of colonial accounts of the 'dark continent' and its population who were summed up as either docile or savage, but always primitive . Although the modern narrative is less openly racist, the suggestion that you can sum up a country, however small with one account and especially when you have no real grasp or understanding of its cultural or social dynamics is no different from what European 'explorers' and colonisers were doing when they reported on Africa.

I recently watched a film called Kinshasa Symphony about a symphony orchestra in the DRC's capital and beyond the poverty what I saw were hard working, incredibly resourceful people who had developed a passion for classical music and who were striving every day to make their lives better. It was a simple story yet one that we never seem to hear when we see or read accounts of Africa.

The vey talented, Nigerian author, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie gave a talk two years ago on the danger of the single story, in it she eloquently speaks about the impossibility of engaging properly with a place or person without engaging in all the stories of that place or person: http://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story.html

In fairness, foreign writers are not the only ones guilty of perpetuating the one-dimensional view of Africa and while I think it's wrong to expect any writer to paint a full picture of a country or a place, I do think is important for African writers to make it clear that they are simply telling one story, one little part of a very large and complicated jigsaw puzzle. Unfortunately because of the lack of a positive discourse on Africa, there is a tendency to turn writers, whether they are writers of fiction or not into 'experts' on the continent. These same writers seem to lap up their newly-acquired status, making gross generalisations about countries with countless ethnic groups and languages, while accepting their new role as an 'authority' on x, y or z country. This would never pass for so-called developed countries, considered by their very nature as far too complex to be summarised by one work or one writer, so it saddens me that it still passes for Africa.

I read a book last year which infuriated me to no end called 'Say you're one of them' by a Nigerian-born Jesuit priest; not only was every single one of his stories about children in various parts of Africa devoid of any hope, but what made it worse was that the cover of his book had the following quote from a review: "Akpan reveals Africa's pain, pity, joy and grace, and comes closer to the truth about modern Africa than the entire outpourings of the western mass media.". I appreciate that this is just one person's opinion but the effect has been to somehow sell this book as an accurate account of African children's lives. One of Amazon.com's readers wrote that the book had opened their eyes to how children in Africa live and suffer. The reader is based in the United States of America and having read this book had concluded that this was the reality of all African children.

As Ms Ngozi Adichie states "the consequence of a single story is that it robs people of dignity, it makes recognition of our equal humanity difficult [and] emphasizes how different, rather than how similar we are". Moving to the UK from Sierra Leone as a child, I remember having to contend with established stereotypes from the playground about living in a jungle or swinging from tree to tree and living among animals. That story which my classmates had all seen on television and read in books had absolutely no bearing whatsoever on my reality growing up in an urban centre in a middle class family. To this day, all the Africans I know have never been to, nor seen a jungle, and that includes those who grew up in the village but as African children moving to Europe or America, that was our single story - animals and the jungle.

Anyone who chooses to embrace a single narrative of any place in my opinion, contributes towards the false accounts that are at the root of our ignorance of one another today. Historical accounts are full of lies and half truths because stories were told by individuals who had their own agenda. We now have an opportunity to ensure that many stories are told that reflect not only the cultural diversity of places and people but also that celebrate the beauty of the human race. In all my travels, I can safely say that for every difference I see in people, there are countless similarities because even though our circumstances vary, fundamentally we are all the same.

An open letter to corrupt African Leaders

Dear Sirs,

As a citizen of the most beautiful continent in the world, the second largest and second most populous, I am writing to tell you that I have had enough, we Africans have had enough of your corruption. We are sick and tired of you waging wars against us for your own personal gains, enough of you abusing our basic human rights to freedom of speech, expression, association not to mention our social and economic rights. You deny us access to things that citizens of every other continent take for granted: food, water, electricity, education.

There are one billion of us and only a handful of you, yet you succeed in waging war against us. The majority of us are hard working and have never seen or picked up a weapon in our lives yet you somehow manage to equip militias, drug-infused crazed men who then abduct our children, rape our women and decimate our villages. You play with our lives as though we were merely pawns on a chessboard siding with countries who you feel will further your personal and political interest at the expense of our country's wealth.

We are frightened of our own security forces; our police are so poorly paid that they make a living extorting the little money we earn from us. We are not safe as we drive our own streets, as our children play in their own backyards unaware of who may have received a bribe in exchange for our liberty. When your military harm us, there is no redress, no criminal case or civil one for that matter, we lose a life and the trigger-happy soldier moves on with his life, with impunity.

You are so quick to condemn your peers, leaders in other countries who you have been warned by Western powers to be vocal against, yet are you any different....really? You accept a democratic process, yet when we as a people exercise our political franchise, you ignore our choice if it means you will have to cede power. You subvert legitimate governments, making coup d'etat a phrase that is far too familiar to many African children. Even when we plead with you, when the outside world pleads with you, you refuse to see reason. You are prepared to kill us when we exercise our right to protest peacefully, our young men lose their lives for merely chanting slogans or carrying placards so we stay at home instead and pray for peace even if it means that you will stay in power for 30 years. We are willing to trade democracy for peace because we've seen the devastation that war causes, but surely even you can see that this is too high a price to pay?

Oh and please don't tell me about the White man, I am tired of hearing about the White man meaning Western powers. You revert to arguments of race as though this will resolve all our problems yet even when we take the White man out of the equation you manage to collude with others who seek to oppress us. Rather than trading our children for weapons to the White man, you trade our minerals to the Chinese for billions of dollars which you then handover to the Swiss for 'safekeeping'. The real oppressor is you, not the outside party, because let's face it, they don't owe us anything - why should we expect altruism from a complete stranger?
You on the other hand promised us development when you were campaigning, instead you developed your personal wealth - buying houses all over the world, contributing to other economies at our expense. You try to create your own personal dynasty, appointing your brother or son when you feel that power may be slipping from your hands as though no one else were fit to govern our country. We have a saying in krio  'If ose nor sell yu, trit nor go buy yu' - loosely translated this means that if those closest to you (in your home) do not betray you, then strangers (in the street) wont be able to do so. It all starts with you our dear leaders.

I am tired.....we are tired and we don't know how long this cycle of wars, corruption, human rights abuse, rigged elections will continue to plague our continent. We would love to bring our children up in this breath-taking continent of our's but we realise that there is a personal risk which given the choice, so many of us are not willing to take. We've seen friends and family lose their livelihoods in a second because of a change of leader or another coup d'etat or another war against the unarmed and innocent. We want change but we do not want to keep on losing our lives especially if that change will not be guaranteed at the end of the bloodshed.

So many of us believe in a higher power and sometimes this is where we find solace - we reason that things will have to change one day! We hope and pray for good leaders surrounded by good politicians with the political will to unite with other African leaders and promote our interests as a continent. Unless and until there are more inspirational African leaders than corrupt ones, our continent will continue to be plagued by the same issues. Unless our neighbours are at peace, there will always be a risk for us. Until your peers accept the will of their people to choose their government, there will always be the chance that when your turn comes you will be no different.

A wise man once said "The greatness of a man is not in how much wealth he acquires, but in his integrity and his ability to affect those around him positively". That wise man was called Robert Nesta Marley.
So I ask you African leaders, when will you start affecting those around you positively?

More than just a game

Football can be a source of  passion for many and irritation for others, especially I suspect, a lot of women who have to play second fiddle to the sport. Considering it occupies around 9 months of the year if we consider the national leagues or in the year the World cup comes around add another month to the equation. Imagine, the best part of a year taking a back seat as the guys bond over the numerous all important matches, 10 months of enduring football chants and mood swings dictated by egotistical overpaid football players' performances. It can't be easy on the average girlfriend or wife. A few years ago I decided that if you can't beat them you may as well join them so I got into the beautiful game and surprisingly loved it!
I recognise that supporting a particular team can be something of an emotional rollercoaster - fortunately my team of choice is Manchester United so I rarely have cause to cringe with embarassement or despair at their performance, what with them being the greatest team in the English Premier League and all.... I would say in the world but that may be a stretch because of those darn Catalans.
So this year it's a football fest all year round, first the Champions League, then the Premier League which we lost...only just, and now the World Cup. Although I haven't watched many of the matches, I know where my allegiance lies - Africa. Whether it's Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Cameroon, South Africa or the mighty Black Stars, Ghana who are taking it to the Quarter Finals on behalf of the continent, I am an African through and through....first and foremost. Then comes my adopted country - England, provided ofcourse they aren't facing an African team.
This World Cup has been so politicised that my convictions have become even stronger. Every pre-World Cup documentary in the British and some European media was about the poverty in SA or the level of crime or how the money could have been better spent. I confess that there are many issues that South Africa needs to address and is addressing and perhaps many more than most former host countries of the World Cup but we cannot pretend that those countries who sit back and throw stones, don't live in their own fragile glass houses. For instance, the budget for the 2012 Olympics in London will probably exceed the projected £9.3billion, yet there are homeless people on the streets of London. There are council estates in London which are so run down or ridden with crime that they have become no-go areas for non-residents. There are old British people who have to make a choice between food and heating as their pensions and living allowances do not afford them both 'luxuries',we have become so deeply indebted that public spending is being cut at an alarmind rate and as though all that wasn't enough there are still children who leave school barely able to read and write destined for a 'career' on the dole (unemployed). All this in a so-called developed economy. So the question should be whether any country perhaps other than Brunei is justified in spending millions of dollars or pounds on sporting events? Why single out South Africa?

The repeated stories calling into question South Africa's capability of holding such a high profile event reflect a racist attitude on the part of the Western media. Likewise there is a deeply inbedded sense of inferiority on the part of some Africans, who like the media, give credence to the 'dark continent' narrative, telling whoever will listen that nothing good can or should ever come out of Africa. While this is irritating though hardly suprising coming from our former colonial masters,  it is disturbing and disheartening when it comes from Africans themselves. Why are we as Africans unworthy of hosting an event like the World Cup? Why raise the question of where money should be prioritised when almost every nation is guilty of throwing good money after bad knowing full well that there are always more pressing needs. Surely the World Cup is a positive event that will have both a positive impact on the country's economy whether in terms of the number of jobs it has created or the countless legacy programmes that have come about because of the World Cup. Are we expected to keep on apologising for our struggling economies, which we alone as Africans cannot be deemed responsible for? Why does it bother so many to see something good come out of the continent?

As Africans living both in the continent and the Diaspora, I would argue that even with the lack of opportunities and resources, and all the odds stacked against us, we still seem to succeed and often excel. Yet if the countless documentaries that were churned out in time for the World Cup are anything to go by, this still comes as a surprise to many Europeans. An African Journey with Jonathan Dimbleby on the BBC had him repeatedly aghast at how resourceful or hardworking Africans can be...or that there are African economies which would be of interest to foreign investors. Likewise in the hugely debated Welcome to Lagos, the narrator, David Harewood (who is British of Caribbean origin) seemed taken aback that residents of deprived areas in the city were able to make a life out of so little. All of this led me to wonder how it is that in the 21st century people know so little of our beautiful continent or its people. They all seem to buy into the usual downtrodden needy malnourished African to be pitied. Yet the story for the majority of Africans is no different to that of ordinary Europeans who work hard and have aspirations for themselves and their children.

Back to football where the same attitude is prevalent; once again many ignore the fact that some of the greatest players in leagues all over the world are African and assume that African teams are only in the running as formality. Their failure would appear to be a fait accompli according to the football pundits. That some of the African teams have not performed well has little to do with the players' individual abilities and more to do with the fact that they rarely play as a team and therefore lack the cohesion and discipline which other teams have. The African Cup of Nations is missed by many because of players' commitments to their clubs who after all pay them a salary unlike a team like England who all play on home soil and therefore have ample opportunities to practice as a national team. Inspite of all but one of the African teams in the World Cup not making it past the group stages, we still have much to be proud of. If money were anything to go by France, Italy, Denmark and England would be wiping the floor clean with teams from less developed nations, yet the first three teams were sent home before the knockout stages and England fell pitifully at the first crucial hurdle. South Africa was able to beat France and Ghana sent the Americans home with amazing precision. I cannot fathom how as Africans we can fail to feel proud given that some of the Ghanain players are not even signed to major football clubs nor does their team have a fraction of the USA team's budget. Even though many African football players are now signed to international clubs with access to the best facilities, they all started with nothing but their pure raw talent.....cultivated on home soil.
In my humble opinion, there is so much to be proud of, whether it's South Africa's amazing efforts in hosting this event, or the Black Stars and their superb game. It is worth recognising these efforts and asking ourselves that if things were different, how far could African teams go....? Personally I am reminded in watching this World Cup that our continent's future is bright and that Africans will continue to influence and impress the rest of the World.
For now we will continue to sound our vuvuzelas in resounding support of our heroes the Black Stars!

Afropolitans – a new breed of Africans

I’m not sure who can take credit for this label which is said to define ‘internationally mobile young people of African descent, making their mark in the world’ but I believe its more relevant today than ever before. This tag can be said to apply to returnees who have completed their first degrees, Masters, Phds and returned to Uganda, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Ghana and other countries that show promise. What makes this young, well-spoken, multilingual African unique is that she or he is not running away from something or somewhere but rather towards a better Africa. 

Get rid of all your preconceived notions about the African in the Western World – whilst some people may still have a rough time, having to work two jobs a day or live a life in fear of deportation; a number of Africans in Europe, the USA and beyond not only hold good jobs, they define and influence certain sectors. Working as directors in the City, IT consultants, Financial Analysts, Business Owners, Solicitors, Politicians, Designers…the list is endless. They are living well, earning good salaries and getting on with their lives in their adopted countries.
So why go back?

That I would argue is the difference between the Westernised African and the Afropolitan, the latter still has a passion for the African continent, even when in many cases she/he has never lived there. I have friends who have moved back to Tanzania, Kenya, Sierra Leone, Nigeria and Uganda, only to learn their would-be mother tongue when they got there. Many have set up charitable organisations, private business, joined promising governments, not just earning a living but making a difference. Gone are the carefree days of living as a nuclear family; they’ve come to understand the importance of community and that their community’s success is theirs too.

Afropolitans are equally at home in Africa and in the Diaspora, they can inhabit either culture just as effortlessly but it is their dynamism that makes them able to switch between New York brownstone and the Bugolobi flat. They are just as happy eating sushi as they are eating bitter leaves (bittas) and fufu or matooke and binyebwa. Some people may say that the African language they speak is flawed, foreign sounding, yet having decided to immerse in the African continent, they will speak it all the same and over-exaggerate the intonations when they have to hit the market, or negotiate with the taxi driver. They rightly believe that speaking luganda, kiswahili, chichewa, tswana, twi or krio is part of who they are. Don’t get me wrong, they will just as easily roll the Queen’s English off their tongue or the Cali twang or better still French comme les Français – like I said these people are without limitations and that is what makes them such a formidable force.

Africa stands to benefit tremendously from Afropolitans in the form of her returnees, should she choose to. Afropolitans are raring to go and excited about making a significant contribution to their country, there are those who are paving the way to head back home. Others are keeping one foot in the Diaspora and the other in the continent.
I recently received a very impassioned email from a friend who is about to start a business in Sierra Leone, his sense of hope and promise was inspirational. His words translated to the belief that he could move mountains, if he put his mind to it. Knowing that he would at some point no doubt be faced with all types of obstacles, bureaucracy, naysayers and criticisms from those who'd rather sit and watch, I felt proud that at this point in time he was so energized about joining in the efforts to make his country better.

It would no doubt be simpler for the Afropolitan to stay in his or her adopted country; engaging in consumerism, acquiring things that are supposed to translate to happiness, making money and contributing towards the all powerful Capitalism. By choosing not to do this he sets himself apart and demonstrates a deep commitment to Africa as a continent. In spite of all its problems, the Afropolitan sees hope and promise and a bright future ahead.

This dreamer, believer and doer has a tremendous amount to bring to the table, acting as the peaceful diplomat, negotiating between the continent and its former colonial masters. Understanding how both worlds operate and viewing Africa not as a subject, or case study but as a place where he or she has a vested interest.

With their limitless dreams and unending ambitions, there is little the Afropolitan cannot achieve when he puts his mind to it.