I Like The U.s. And Feel Gratitude

If I Had Not Grown Up In Nigeria- And If All I Knew Of Africa Were Of Popular Images- I Too Would Think That Africa Was A Place Of Beautiful Landscapes, Beautiful Animals And Incomprehensible People Fighting Sensless Wars, Dying Of Poverty And Aids- Unable To Speak For Themselves And Waiting To Be Saved By A Kind White Foreigner.

If The Government Doesn't Fund Education, Which They Often Don't, Students Are Going To Stay Home And Not Go To School. It Affects Them Directly. But I'm Really Not Interested In Writing Explicitly About That. I'm Really Interested In Human Beings, And In Love, And In Family. Somehow, Politics Comes In.

We Teach Girls Shame; Close Your Legs, Cover Yourself, We Make Them Feel As Though By Being Born Female They're Already Guilty Of Something.

They Themselves Mocked Africa, Trading Stories Of Absurdity, Of Stupidity, And They Felt Safe To Mock, Because It Was A Mockery Born Of Longing, And Of The Heartbroken Desire To See A Place Made Whole Again.

I Am Drawn, As A Reader, To Detail-drenched Stories About Human Lives Affected As Much By The Internal As By The External, The Kind Of Fiction That Jane Smiley Nicely Describes As 'first And Foremost About How Individuals Fit, Or Don't Fit, Into Their Social Worlds.'