Essential Reading – Africa is Not a Country by Dipo Faloyin

A pre-arrival reading suggestion from a past volunteer.

Written by Louise Waldram.

I have just returned to England after spending the whole of September 2024 on the African Impact Teaching Project in Zambia. The experience was immensely rewarding, and something I would hope to do again. One hugely valuable thing I came away with was a book recommendation (thanks Barbs) for Africa is Not a Country: Breaking Stereotypes of Modern Africa by Nigerian writer, Dipo Faloyin. Since I’ve been home, I’ve found it completely unputdownable and wish that I’d discovered it before my trip. I would suggest it as essential pre-reading for anyone considering any of the African Impact projects or locations.

For most of my life, I’d remained rather incurious about Africa. I’ve never coped well in hot climates and so had written off the whole continent as somewhere I’d probably never visit. Of course, I’d been aware of news reports over the years of conflicts in various countries and had responded to some very moving charity campaigns regarding unfolding disasters. However, I can’t say that I ever really engaged with the details of where or why things were happening, beyond sending an affordable donation. I gradually fell into the trap of blurring the borders between Africa’s 54 independent countries and lazily imagining one huge amorphous place that was hot, underdeveloped and needy.

Africa is Not a Country addresses brilliantly this all-too-common distorted view of the continent, and of the individual countries within it. The book starts with a detailed history of the seemingly random carving up of the continent into colonies by greedy European nations, regardless of the existing cultures and wishes of the people living there. It then follows with examples of the many problems encountered when these former colonies became independent nations in the 1960s – how, without any experience or good models of leadership, the new leaders struggled to create a sense of belonging and loyalty among the people. I’d already learnt about this at school long ago, but it was truly shocking to read about it all from a perspective other than biased British history books.

White Saviour symptom.

A real eye-opener for me was the chapter devoted to the image of the ‘White Saviour’, wading in to solve ‘African’ problems without stopping to consider the precise details, locations or causes of the problems and assuming that these can be best solved by White foreigners rather than by the nations in question. I’d decided to go to Zambia, despite my former lack of interest, because I had recently retired from teaching and wanted to use my skills to ‘make a difference’. I hadn’t seen myself as a ‘White saviour’ but, after reading this chapter, I wondered whether I had been driven to go more by what I thought I would like to do than what the schools and children might actually need from me. My imagined days in the advertised Teaching Assistant role, sitting under a tree listening to children read, were quickly brought to a halt once I found how desperately short of teachers the small community schools were, and that I would instead be acting as class teacher for most lessons. I also found that my tried and trusted teaching practices from modern British classrooms didn’t always transfer seamlessly to the context of a small community school on the outskirts of Livingstone with 40 children in a class. I was grateful for the opportunity to observe the school’s few teachers in action to pick up some tips. I also found out how to laminate using Sellotape – essential in a school suffering a never-ending power-cut!

During an English lesson with Grade 6, we were discussing the typical celebrations at school for Zambian Independence Day. Every child was able to tell me the date of this – October 24th – and that this year’s celebration would be extra-special, being the 60th anniversary of independence. They enthusiastically told me how they would dress in the colours of the Zambian flag, including the significance of each colour. I was informed that when you sing the National Anthem, you must stand very still, “even if a snake is biting your foot!”. The class spontaneously burst into a confident rendition of the anthem, showing a pride befitting Olympic medal winners. For these young people at least, Zambia has clearly established itself as a nation to which they are proud to belong.

The children then asked if my country had a National Anthem too, and would I sing it for them. I obliged – not quite with the same gusto the children had shown – and they kindly gave me a round of applause. With hindsight, I think I should have been more sensitive to the fact that it was independence from the British that was being celebrated and that, even though the children seemed to enjoy the song, the adults in neighbouring classes might not have received it so well.

Further reading & project preparation.

I feel that reading Africa is Not a Country in advance of my visit would have prepared me well for my time in Zambia. By having the historical context of the country fresh in my mind, I might have avoided situations like the one described. I would have also asked African Impact more questions about the classes and communities I’d be supporting, and about any practical day-to-day resources that were needed, rather than assuming that my years of teaching experience would be enough.

Further chapters in the book were equally enlightening. There were detailed examples of countries that had suffered years of dictatorship following independence but which, through the courage and determination of their citizens or just through the long-awaited death of a bad leader, eventually came to be successful democracies. There was an interesting chapter about how the myth of this one ‘country’ called Africa has persisted and grown through its presentation in films and novels. In Zambia and neighbouring Botswana, I was lucky enough to witness the sweeping savannahs, glorious sunsets and wide array of wildlife. Clearly, these are not everyday scenes for most of Africa. As a complete contrast, there were wonderful descriptions of the hustle and bustle and sheer enormity of Lagos, the author’s home ‘megacity’ – not a lion in sight.

The book ends with a very uplifting chapter looking towards the future for the continent, with examples of recent developments in a variety of countries in, amongst other things, democracy, equality, business and entertainment.

I would heartily recommend this book to anyone thinking of volunteering on one of the African Impact projects. In fact, I’d recommend it to anyone full-stop.

Africa Is Not A Country is available for purchase through Amazon and other major online stores.