Color Struck: Black and Volunteering In Africa
Three years ago, when I first volunteered in Africa, I really didn’t know what to expect. I had no idea about the country I was going to, what volunteering abroad would demand of me, and least of all, how being a Black woman raised in America would color my life in Africa.
Even though I have always been lurred by the idea of stepping away from the familiarity everything you know, I felt this experience would be no small feat.
When I arrived in Ethiopia just two weeks into their New Year (which is in September), everywhere we went there was still evidence of recent revelry; Happy New Year banners and streamers hanging in the city. In the capital, Addis Ababa, it was difficult to get a sense of the country because it was such a cosmopolitan mix of people, luxury hotels and expansive grocery stores, but then there would also be a woman in rags holding one hand out for money or food, while the other hand held a baby. While I was there, I never adjusted to seeing the women and children begging. And I never adjusted to the lookism I was subjected to.
The university I was assigned to was in a city about 75 minutes outside of the capital, and I remained a spectacle for the nine months I was there. I should state that I have never been mistaken for anything but Black. Even before I locked my hair, I have always had full lips, a broad nose, high cheek bones and dark skin. All of which made me so completely unprepared for people stopping dead in their tracks in the street, the marketplace, or basically anywhere I was, and starring with mouths open, pointing and yelling at me or to whoever they might be saying, “Nigeria!” “Hamaica (Jamaica),” “Mali,” “Burkina Faso,” and so on.
I couldn’t understand why I was such an attraction when right in the Omo Valley in Ethiopia there were people who looked just like me. Furthermore, my Filipino, East Indian and European co-workers never even got so much as a glance in the streets. All of the attention made me wonder….do Black folks not volunteer in Africa? Because if they did, I wondered what looked so alien about me–a Black woman–in Africa?
I decided to temper myself; I would endure the immediate silences that fell when I entered the faculty lunchroom on campus, the people who would follow me in the streets awe struck, murmuring about me in Amharic. The one word I was always sure to hear and understand would be the country they’d picked as my native land.
But why wasn’t my roommate, who was lighter than me, ever the subject of such attention? Sure, people came up to her as well, but it was usually to ask about the tall “Nigerian” woman they had seen her with (i.e.; me). Or when they were too puzzled by my appearance, as this man in the market place was one day, they would simply shout, “You Africa!” Why were Africans calling me Africa in Africa, like my Blackness was unusual or we were in the middle of Iceland?
After months of having to steel myself from the stares, pointing and yelling just to do everyday tasks in town, I had grown intolerant. For the record, I stopped having conversations years ago about who was of African descent and people who “identify as of African descent.” Furthermore, I had been ridiculed since grade school about my darker complexion, so I learned early on that color–a thing I had no control over–could be held against me. But I was also nurtured on the goodness of Blackness, so there’s no dinner conversation, brief exchange or vigorous debate that can dismantle who or what I am. Nevertheless, there I was in Africa being called everything under the sun and forced to ruminate on identity! But not my identity which I can sum that up easily with the eloquent words of Gwendolyn Brooks, “I am a Black,” as well as the on-point lyrics of dead prez, “I’m an African.” But what had me simmering was why it was so clear that I was an “African” that it had to be shouted in the streets. But for the other Black women in my group who were of a lighter complexion, they were merely accepted, and welcomed as one of Ethiopia’s own.
I understand there reaction, if everyone looks like their mixed with white or middle eastern blood and you don’t than yeah you would stand out. Why would that be a problem?
“I understand their reaction”.
Gee, what a surprise. I bet you do.
“Why would this be a problem?”
He’s “Confused” as to why a dark-skinned Black woman is hurt over being treated like a sideshow freak attraction by a group that includes many women who are LIGHTER THAN HER AND WITH EUROPEAN FACIAL FEATURES.
Gee what a suprise. Your ilk sure sticks to the script, and then when people notice and take issue with it, you cry your eyes out and play the victim.
Typical, just typical. No wonder sistas have so many problems.
Geez…so now you’re mad at him because he has a more enlightened reaction to the scenario described by the author?
You, like the author, are tackling this from a purely emotional perspective and that undermines your ability to be rational. There are so many other logical explanations for their fascination with her – why assume that it was about her skin complexion?
Dear Author
I understand the spirit of your piece and I respect the validity of your experience. However there are so many implicit assumptions in the article that almost invalidate the your conclusion (not your experience by any means). If you go into “Africa” and expect to find a homogenous mass of people “who look like you” how can you then be surprised when you emerge as a spectacle? Africa is a diverse continent made up of millions of people who look different, just like indigenous people in Latin America look different, or there is no one “Asian” look. Your experience was in Ethiopia not in “Africa”, and it is a disservice to yourself and to the other people in the continent not to be specific with your observations. Ethiopians have a different ethnic heritage from Somalians or Sudanese or Egyptians or Kenyans next door – you would have had a completely different experience in each of those (I’ve beent to most of those countries – as a volunteer – so I know). Taking offence to people pointing out the limitations of your assumptions is a tad self-absorbed, no?
Also, black people volunteer in Africa – there are millions of indigenous Africans running free schools, church programmes, after school programmes, Sunday schools, taking care of sick relatives, taking in orphaned family members, looking after grandparents etc. I think what you probably mean to ask is whether more African-Americans need to volunteer in “Africa”.
Signed
Frustrated African.
What you said!
Signed,
Bemused Negress
O.M.G. What she said +1,000,000,000,000,000,000
I wrote a really long, frustrated response to the author’s piece and then decided to delete it. I’m puzzled, and a bit offended by a few things she’s said–as a woman who has visited the continent as both a volunteer and then a tourist, as a non-native of the United States, as a Black woman–but then I read a few of the other comments.
I think the piece is mis-titled as another commenter suggested; perhaps she should narrow and speak as an American, unfamiliar with particulars of volunteerism abroad? Perhaps she should speak as someone from her individual way of life? I think the biggest misstep of this piece is that she’s broadened too far and thus, in an effort to reconcile an experience, misidentified and incorrectly categorized myriad of people and projected a lot of false thinking.
I remember when a dear friend of mine from Ghana came on holiday to the United States and commented on the congestion of the big cities. He was bemused to find how people in the United States lived and then concluded that aid should be kept in the United States because the people were by far the most ignorant he had met and standards of living were less than he would personally accept for himself. Now this is extreme but I think many Americans (and I generalize here as well) particularly Black Americans have a false sense of Blacks in other countries and wish to classify us based on skewed perceptions. In my experience, the most racism, prejudice and downright ignorance I encountered in this country has come from people who ‘look’ like me.
All of that said, I’m happy the author got outside of herself, albeit if she felt uncomfortable. Further, it’s good that she has not let an uncomfortable experience discontinue her foreign travels or volunteerism.
@ Kenyanness,
Thank you for your eloquence! You wrote everything I would have said but in a more crazier way!
Honestly. I rolled my eyes when I first read her piece. I think the author took her emotional baggage with her to Africa. There are dark skin people in Ethiopia and light skin people in Nigeria. The attention was most likely not about skin tone but about features (not commonly seen in Ethiopia) or a hairstyle (strong associated with Jamaica). She reminds me of an African-American I knew, she worked with a US agency in another east African country and complained bitterly when the locals spoke to her in their native tongue. Sigh.
I will really like someone to tell me why attention is automatically negative. I love to walk into a room and be stared at. I start walking like I am the new Queen of England.
You write with intelligence and grace and definitely from a point of view that is unique. It is also very enlightening of the misconception many people have about the continent of Africa, however I will come to this author’s defense.
She was not speaking as a product of an homogeneous mindset, or what some people may mistake as entitlement. I believe this author was confused by the level of fascination that her appearance garnered outside of the fact she was not the only different person amongst her volunteer group. I have experience this same reaction, not in Africa but in different environments where I am the cultural minority. It can be really jarring for anyone to be made a spectacle of. It makes you question your worth and can invalidate the experience you are attempting to have when wanting to be in a diverse place.
I am truly sorry for the frustration you feel reading this author’s words, but if you could try to understand where she is coming from because she was also very frustrated. In my experience the fact that I am an American trumped the reasons for me being in a diverse cultural setting/meeting. When doing the best thing for the betterment of people, the last thing you want is to be a target or marked as “other”, “not like us”, “different” because this can feel very scary.
Just my two cents. I appreciate your words and wisdom in this situation and hopefully articles like this help in the discussion of African diaspora.
Thank you Kenyanness!
A more accurate title for this article may have been “American and volunteering in Africa”.
As someone who left the States after high school in the mid 70′s, and who has gone through an entire gamut of frustrations, epiphanies and re-orientations since then, I think the friction you experienced had more to do with stepping outside the familiar American worldview (of which the black American worldview is simply a subset) and inhabiting a space where that particular worldview is no longer valid currency.
From personal experience I can say that one of the most enlightening challenges of navigating life outside the American worldview has been coming to understand my/our place within the bigger context of things and dispelling judgment (“We’re right, so they must be wrong!”) long enough to understand how their particular history and development led them to their specific worldview.
One of the most valuable things travel brings is the opportunity to better understand what truths, semi-truths and untruths make up our own sense of identity.
Agreed!
I was to born to a Ghanaian father and an African-American mother, when I first visited Ghana, I was about 13 years old and fell in love immediately once I got there, but I too experienced being stared at. I was young so my feelings weren’t as affected as the writer. I really was not offended when people would mention things like I didn’t “look” Ghanaian. because in my heart I was. and noone could tell me I wasn’t.
I still get comments even now as a 23 year old from Africans who say I don’t look African at all. And I get comments from AA’s that say I don’t look american lol
But those comments roll off my back easily because I understand that
“One of the most valuable things travel brings is the opportunity to better understand what truths, semi-truths and untruths make up our own sense of identity.” as stated my you Trina Roach.
My semi truth was that even though I may be American and Ghanian, the creation of my identity is up to me and no one else.