He told me he was from Egypt. "Egypt! Good." I replied.
"Yes! Africa" he said pointing back and forth to me and himself with a look that says "we're one."
Now,when ever I go to this supermarket, the Egyptian is always very nice to me and will check me out at the expense of his fellow Arabs. The people with whom he shares culture, religion, skin colour, language, history and many more.
This man might be aware that we both share the same religion but he never asked me, and I never told him. He also might have gotten a clue from the veil always wrapped around my head but then again, that doesn't necessarily make one a Muslim here.
This man doesn't care that I am black, that I don't speak his language, that my culture is no where near his. No! All that he sees is his fellow African. I know this because he would tell people that I am from Nigeria, African just like him. This single thing we have in common is a thing of pride for him. A unifying factor.
Now, we Nigerians despite our few differences have much more in common than my Egyptian acquaintance. How then is it so hard for us to co-exist peacefully?
I took a class last semester with two other Nigerian friends of mine and there was this good looking guy, one day he asked where we were from and when I told him Nigeria, with a big smile he said " I'm from Egypt", I just smiled and said "mmm nice", then he said "Egypt is in Africa, we're both Africans " and he was sooo happy, now everywhere he sees us he says hi, and sometimes he reminds me that he's from Egypt.
ReplyDeleteThis is just another african, to him we're a family, then what about our fellow Nigerians?
Yes Nigerians can be loud and a pain in the ass but we have to be patient with each other and help each other
I think we lack respect and love for each other, probably because we don't know the other person and we just don't take the time to know and understand people
And that needs to change, we have to know people to know how to deal with them, we have to contact and communicate with people, listen and understand , respect peoples opinions, I believe that's one of the ways to co-exist.