Where is Africa? - Update

Over the weekend I stopped by WalMart to pickup a disposable camera (I had to record the metamorphosis of my room for the sake of posterity). I try to avoid going to WalMart when I can the lines to pay are always so long a quick trip to get sugar could well last an hour minus your commute time! Anyway I had no choice really on Saturday, WalMart was really the only place to go since it was on my way and I am conserving fuel (recent increases in gas prices have bumped the cost of my bi-weekly trip to the gas station from $35-37 to $42!). Soooo … I am patiently waiting in line when the guy behind me asked where I get my printer consumables from. One of the ‘joys’ of owning a printer worldwide is buying printer consumables especially ink. I have a friend who has a somewhat radical solution to the problem – trash the printer and buy a new one. I passed on this solution. We started chatting and he asked the inevitable question ‘Where are you from?’ I took a deep breath and said Nigeria. He then asked ‘How is it over there? Is it as chaotic as the media always seems to portray it?’ That kinda stopped me in my tracks; this is not the kind of question I am used to being asked. ‘Not all the time’ I reply taking a closer look at him. ‘Didn’t think so’ he replied. ‘I go online and want to read about Africa and that doesn’t make any sense since Africa is made up of different countries’ I nearly passed out! I took another good look at him. Nothing looked amiss could this guy have read my blog and somehow found me here on the ’10 items or less’ line which was moving a lot slower than the other line where each person had atleast 2 carts brimming over with purchases? Could he have followed me with the intention of proving to me that not every American is ignorant to the fact that Africa is a continent not a zipcode? ‘That’s right’ I reply. ‘I am from Nigeria which is only of 54 countries on the African continent’. We spent the remaining time in line talking about Nigeria, Ghana, South Africa well I talked and he listened and no, he wasn’t staring at my paint speckled bosom going by his body language (head cocked to oneside) he was actually really listening to what I was saying. As I finally got the chance to pay for my purchase he bid me a good afternoon and thanked me for the enlightening discussion. ‘My pleasure’ I replied. What a coincidence, considering the fact that I only just blogged about my annoyance with the whole ‘do you take I405 North or South to Africa?’ thing. I guess the ‘Universe’ is trying to tell me something, less annoyance more patience perhaps?