All African men are scum, but marry my brother.

Everywhere I go, it seems that outrageous people flock. Maybe I bring out the best in them, or maybe it's just that there are an abundance of outrageous people in the world. Either way, I met another one yesterday- a Ugandan lawyer named Rose who is here finishing her master's in law, specifically peacebuilding and democratization. For some reason, they have placed these women in their late 20's in the International Students Hostel, where they are obviously unhappy. While I am reluctant to admit that I do not fully appreciate Ghanaian food, she flat-out says that she hates it. She also says that Ghanaians are ugly, and that Africans missed a step somewhere in the past, and that is why they are not developing at the rate of the rest of the world.

I asked her what about the economic dependency issues that resulted from colonialism (monocrop, foreign-controlled economies, exploitation of raw materials rather than finished problems, lack of industrial development, commodity exports whose prices are widly variable and unbalanced, etc)? Oh, well, that's not really the problem. The problem is lack of democracy and weak state structures. But why are there weak state structures? Well, because the governmental regimes refuse to cede power, and the state is captive to the government. Thus, Uganda's president Musevini (the same one who wrote a book saying that heads-of-state should not overstay their terms) has been in power for over 20 years. So there's nothing economic about political development? Not really.

So anyway, we talked about this for a long time, and then she started in on why and how Africa had missed a step somewhere in the past, basically that the people were just not as good or advanced as white people. Well! to my white liberal American viewpoint, that is practically heresy, but what do you say when an African says it? She had an essentially cultural basis for the argument, and so I just laughed and explained that I have a hard time believing that black people are inferior. Poor, yes. Embroiled in socio-political conflicts, definitely. But I have far too much white liberal dependency theorist guilt to buy into it.

She also told me that all Ghanaians are ugly, but that Ugandans are all very beautiful, and that all Nigerians are rude. Not one to contradict people's deeply held assumptions (haha), I told her that my best friend is Nigerian, and lied in insisting that she is always very polite. I also asked her if a Nigerian child were raised by Ugandans, would that child be rude? She said that the child probably would- there's just something about Nigerians.

Then, there are the African men- they can't be trusted. They will sleep with any woman who comes around, they don't have respect for women, and some are very rude (beating their wives and the like). Before I can understand this, I should start dating an African man, and then we will laugh about it together. Also, her brother is very nice, but he is still an African man, so take him away from Africa, and he will behave because he is not on his turf. Having dated a Nigerian for 2 years (my dear boyfriend Charles), I think that I can honestly speak on behalf of all African men in saying that not all African men are scum, but some might be. Really, though, that applies to every single human being that I know, so there you have it.

Anyway, this woman was amazing and confident and spunky. She said that when she was in South Africa for her master's program, the white Afrikkans students looked down on her and would make explicitly racist comments, but she just laughed at them because she knew that she was smarter than they were. She worked for UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) for a year as a protection officer, and we talked about the possibility of an internship at either UNHCR or Refugee Low Project, which works more directly in the camps.

Anyway, that's the only semi-interesting detail about my life. I'm going to the Karaoke bar tonight with my group. That will be fun and funny.