Africa!

You know you're from Africa when...

• it doesn't seem right to pay the asking price on anything in a store. If you can't barter for it, it's not worth having.
• you're appalled that American grocery stores only sell one or two different types of bananas.
• your parents yell at you for forgeting to use silverware in public.
• you're going to visit your Grandparents and take you passport ~ just in case you have to evacuate.
• you find all the non-white people on campus so you can be a minority again.
• you can lead a 20 minute conversation starting with "walleponaua!!"and keep it going by replying "ehh" in numerous different tone-levelsfor the next half an hour! (...and have the other person exactly understand what you are saying!!)
• you fear for you life while riding in a Taxi....anywhere!
• you call everyone older then you uncle or aunt.
• you'd rather be barefoot
  
• you know that the bloody gooey messthey call beef jerky in the States would never pass for true biltong.
• every toothpaste is colgate.
• every soap is surf.
• every softdrink is coca cola or fanta.
• you have uncles and aunts who are younger than you.
• black outs are nothing new to you.
• no running water for a day is just another ordinary thing
• 40 degrees is cold.
• you can do your monthly shopping on the pavement.
• four cars are driving parallel to each other on a one-lane road.
• the smell of freshly rained on mud paths/tarmac is comforting.
• being an hour late equals being "on time"
• you get car sick because the roads just don't have enough potholes!
• you pass by someones house and you know what they gointg to have for dinner because you can pretty much see and/or smell what's cooking
• you can bribe a cop and get away with it!
• you have an over whelming urge to wash all your salad in milton(baby bottle bleach, supposedly kills cholera) and add a bit ofcharcoal to your milk just to get the taste your used to.
• you know that the police isn't always the safest place to go when you're in trouble.
• cramming 7 passangers in a 4 passenger taxi is really not a big deal.
• you know never to question what you're eating (even if it does taste good), cuz sometimes you just don't want to know.
• you invite people for a get together at 7 and they all come at 9.
• football is played with some sort of ROUND ball and WITHOUT hands.
• everyone in your country plays soccer.
• you cram 24 people into a 14 passenger taxi and have never felt closer to your African friends.
• you make friends with the local shepard and know the goats by name.
• you spent countless hours shining your shoes when you know very well that by the time you get to the taxi stop, they'll be covered inunbeleivable dirt!
• you keep converting the value of things in your home currency when you see the pound value.
• a plane flies by and you just cant help but look up!
• you have another name in your home language.
• you hate American corn, because it's never hard enough.
• you've drunk real chai, not this coffeeshop stuff.

thanks shupiwe

technorati tags:africa