Me side-eyeing the cliched Starving African kids quip they pulled in Diary of a Prosecutor. They almost got the right pictures/video – it was missing THE crucial FLY. That golden globe winning fly that finds a way to star with almost every starving African child. Almost perfect! It’s the details!!! I guess IT was too busy staring in another photo shoot. In their defense, It’s a pretty famous fly! I heard IT got bodyguards after the numerous attempts made against ITS life.

What we desperately need in Africa is pest control. We can’t seem to get rid of that fly no matter how hard we try. The fly is like male Korean celebrity trash! When you think you’ve done your best to get rid of their ‘scuminess’ by unearthing their latest evil, they come crawling out after a while with a comeback like Michael Bublé crawling out his cave during Christmas.

I don’t blame them though. Nothing proves altruism more than someone weeping over the state of us starving African kids – especially if you have photos to prove it (we don’t see cameras much). We bring pity out pretty easily – and also seem to invoke or afflict people with selective blindness. No matter how hard a lot of people try, when they look at the African map, it’s a moderately vast desert populated by animals, us starving kids and our beloved pet lions. No countries whatsoever!
It’s one thing I miss so much being so far away from home especially during Christmas. Us kids have sports competitions between our pets (cause we’re starving and we can’t run) and the winner gets to star in their own special photo-shoot/video shoot along side the infamous fly. If you manage to kill said fly, our village chief will give to you half a chicken wing and 20 grains of rice to last the year. It’s something we look forward to every year. I’m so sad I can’t partake in it 😕


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    Ugh, THE Fly falls in the same category as “Oh, but your English is so good!”, “Did you swim here?” and “Your name is hard to pronounce. Can I call you — instead?”

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      ‘Did you swim here?’ What the hell? Don’t they know Africans can’t swim? We live in a desert! We don’t have water to drink. Are they making fun of our sufferings?
      💀💀💀

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        😂😂 How dare they make a mockery of our pain

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      And my personal favourite, when someone hears you’re from an African country and they immediately follow with “I knew a person from [completely different country on the other side of the continent]” like you’re somehow supposed to know them.

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        I mean we DO all share a single mud hut in the middle of the savannah but that’s beside the point.

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        YES!!!!!
        *feeling the pain of maintaining one’s composure when this happens*
        Staying polite in those moments is hard…

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      my all time favourite is the scenario (and its similarly offensive variations) below.

      them (usually white): where are you from?
      me: (names town I currently live/work in)
      them: ah, no, but where are you REALLY from??
      me: *resigned* Cameroon
      them: *very excited* ah! I went to Ghana in 1942…
      me: *tries hard to not roll eyes to the very back of my skull*

      urgh…

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    Couldn’t agree more about the pest control.

    Although I was hesitant between the fly and the mosquitoe (at least in my home country).

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      Oh, mosquito is family in my side of the big plot of desert that is Africa. We managed to strike a deal with the mosquito chieftaincy. We’re mostly on good terms now. I’m sorry to hear about the the mosquito still being a problem on your side. Maybe with enough exposure like this on Kdramas, people will pity us enough for the mosquito to stop. Trust me, it worked for us.

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    Ugh. As an African-born woman, I feel your pain. One of my producer colleagues was based in Kenya for 10 years as he produced videos and short films for Save the Children all over the African continent. While he strived to tell people’s stories with dignity, he loathed the reality that the maudlin, tragic narratives —paired with a A-list celebrity—brought in the most money.

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      What pisses me off the most about those videos is how its intention has been twisted. There are people suffering in parts of Africa (like the rest of the world) and also people who genuinely donate or want to try help make the world a better place. But I just hate how Africa has become the yardstick for suffering. We’re the poster card for poverty and destitution. That’s not all there is to being African!
      And those videos continue to propagate that notion that we all need WellCare packages to survive. I hate how petty I become because I know that there are people who are actually suffering.
      But I hate so much how Africa has been turned to the poverty tourism destination.
      I hate how so many non-Africans, especially celebrities, go to some impoverished African cities/villages and takes pictures with the kids there (without their permission) just to show they went to ‘Africa’ and how altruistic they are. So they can get as many compliments on how nice they are to go to poor, destitute Africa and help those kids swat the flies.

      And throw comments like this when they meet you.
      ‘I did some volunteering work in Africa!’ Okay? I didn’t ask you that! Where in the continent though? It’s a HUGE continent- I hope you know. Did the airplane just drop you in the middle of no fucking where? And while you’re at it, show me the pictures of how you infiltrated people’s homes and livelihood to take a picture you can post online to brag about. ‘Those poor African kids!’ 😊☺️😑🙃🤬

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        F***. I’m clutching my abdomen, laughing and crying at the same time.

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