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RAMBLE in the JUNGLE

African Preachers

By Wanaku Verdzekov · · Africa & the Gulf of Guinea

Date note: Undated Facebook note, written between 2011 and 2014.

Tags: africa, storytelling, au, restoration

Africa as an entity has been fragmented to the point where it can now be called a "nonentity". Seriously: no other continent on planet Earth has eleven million square miles to itself. But that means nothing if the humans who live there agree to let it remain… say it again… a nonentity.

Change? It won't happen by magic. It takes the exercise of brain muscles to create, design and implement policies that can move African people from point A (nonentity) to point B (a restored entity to be reckoned with globally).

TribalMonk


The most difficult thing to do is to show the truth to people who have been misled for so long into believing that the truth is at the bottom of an ice-cold bottle of "33".


Preachy humans are great storytellers. Stories have a way of capturing the human imagination and playing havoc with human emotions.

The question is: should a human allow his or her imagination and emotions to be handcuffed and imprisoned by… a storyteller? You tell me.

TribalMonk


The arrogance of the Francophone-led regimes in the Cameroons has established a sort of culture, by default. You can see it even in five-year-old kids in this region. The problem is that the Anglophone region of the Cameroons CANNOT, and WILL NEVER, get used to this arrogance.

So to those Francophones, check your vocabulary: using the word "secession" is a misnomer. We call it "restoration", because God in the omniverse knows that we have tried to make things work in the Cameroons. But the arrogance seems to be endemic. We see nothing wrong with avoiding arrogance. Do you?


Sad. African Union? If any of the leaders of this African organization have any ideas, the African youth are ready to help. I will step forward and be present.

First of all, does the AU have any plan to stabilize this part of Africa? If so, let the youth know what to do. We cannot let brothers and sisters hack each other to death while the rest of the world watches in bewilderment. The children are also watching, and the cycle of resentment could keep spinning.

We, the African youth, can stop this.

TribalMonk

— Wanaku Verdzekov

Reading & grammar

Reading level: Gr 9–11

Understand

  1. Why does the author call Africa a "nonentity"?
  2. What does the author say about preachers as storytellers?
  3. What does the author ask of the African Union?

Grammar focus: correcting a figure. The original note said "11 million acres"; Africa is about 11.7 million square miles. When quoting numbers, check units: an acre is about 1/640 of a square mile.

Try it: Convert 11 million square miles into square kilometres (1 sq mi ≈ 2.59 km²). Write the result in a sentence.

Discuss: Can storytelling unite a continent, or does it more often divide people? Argue with examples.