I have never been to Sub-Saharan Africa. Well, I haven’t been to Africa! Which is why I am excitedly (and a tad anxiously) looking forward to my trip to Tanzania later in December. I will be there for a month. I am confident that I will come back much more informed and wiser about Tanzania, and Africa too.
Of course, throughout graduate schooling, and even here at Western, I have had the pleasure of interacting with Africans. A good friend in graduate school was from Nigeria. He now lives in Minnesota—totally unlike Nigeria, as one might imagine. A couple of months ago, when I emailed him about the cold there, he wrote back that his son, who was born in Minnesota, was complaining that it was way too warm to play outside; and apparently it was only 30 degrees outside!
Nigeria is one huge country, with a diversity that we “outsiders” often don’t pause to recognize, let alone understand. As noted in the CIA Factbook:
Nigeria, Africa's most populous country, is composed of more than 250 ethnic groups; the following are the most populous and politically influential: Hausa and Fulani 29%, Yoruba 21%, Igbo (Ibo) 18%, Ijaw 10%, Kanuri 4%, Ibibio 3.5%, Tiv 2.5%
To begin with, most African countries are creations of the European colonizers; i.e., the countries did not always exist as we currently know them. In fact, often the borders were drawn so horribly that clans ended up divided into two different countries. (Note: do not make the mistake of referring to Africa as a country; it is a continent, with a number of countries that have linguistic, cultural, ethnic, religious, and other differences. And, "Niger" is different from "Nigeria.")
Nigeria is oil-rich. For those of you familiar with the idea of one single land mass a long, long time ago, and then the land masses breaking up and drifting apart, well, you will find it exciting to note that when you fit Africa and South America, their oil rich areas neatly overlap. Venezuela is rich in oil, and so is Nigeria.
Oil, it turns out, is a curse—most countries that are oil-rich have huge internal problems. Nigeria too has lots of problems, with oil itself, and otherwise too. One of the problems is what you read about. Demographically, Muslims and Christians are nearly equal in numbers, which I would guess makes Nigeria pretty unique among the countries of the world.
Of course, Nigeria is only one of the countries in a large geographic region that we refer to as Sub-Saharan Africa. You notice where Tanzania is in this region, and its location relative to Nigeria? A friendly note here: if you do meet somebody from Africa, say Senegal, make sure you don’t ask them for details about, say, Uganda. It will be like expecting an Italian to be able to explain Estonia. (Yes, Estonia is a real country.)
An interesting factoid: notice Ghana quite near Nigeria? A little off the coast of Ghana is the triple-zero of location on this planet: zero degree latitude, zero degree longitude, and zero degree altitude. So, if you want to determine the center of the planet based on latitudes and longitudes, well, now you know :-)
Sub-Saharan Africa has an incredible amount of natural resources—which is why European colonizers went there in the first place. Yet, it is one of the poorest regions of the world. And seemingly trapped in a great deal of political instability. In the center of this region is the Democratic Republic of Congo, with immense problems and conflicts. Congo, the river, is one of the largest rivers in the world—in terms of water volumes. This part is also home to the rainforests. If you have taken Jordan Hofer’s class, well, you are probably familiar with this territory.
The news earlier today was about the crash of a Yemeni plane near the Comoros Islands. These are very near Tanzania, almost midway between the coast of Tanzania and the island of Madagascar (which, I presume, you are familiar from the movie?)
Just because we are looking at south of the Sahara, it does not mean that everything is lush green. Do not forget the Kalahari Desert in southern Africa. (Note that the usage “southern Africa” does not refer to the country of “South Africa.”) Up until very recently, a colleague, Gwenda Rice, used to lead a team of school teachers to the “bush country” in Botswana. I am not sure if she does that anymore. Chat with Dr. Rice about this if you know her.
Another long lecture, eh! Any questions, comments, thoughts?In the next couple of days I will email you individual feedback on this and the previous assignment
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