By Joe Otim Dramiga
Making a move across the globe is both an exciting and terrifying prospect at any time but doing it while pregnant and with little money at all brings many other considerations. This was the situation of my single mother when she fled the civil war in Uganda. A 22 year old African woman stranded in Germany only with the hope that she made the right choice. Add to the mix the inevitable sadness of leaving behind family and friends.
Some months after her arrival she gave birth to a little boy named ‘Otim’ which means “born in a foreign place”. After delivering my mum worked as a nurse and gave me in the care of German foster parents. At the age of two I went abroad – destination: Uganda, the land of my parents. My mum married and in the course of the following years gave birth to four more children. The civil war was still going on and the death toll was rising every day. Idi Amin created a cadre of brutal henchmen whose only purpose was to terrorize the population into submission and grow rich in the process. They were allowed to steal anything from anybody with killing their victims largely acceptable. Under his reign, the Ugandan economy collapsed, what should have been a prosperous nation was turned into one of the poorest performing economies.
In those days my mum saw a brighter future for me in Germany and using her former contacts she gave me into the care of white German foster parents. Thus at the age of five I came back to Cologne, the place of my birth. I wouldn’t see my mother for more than seven years. I grew up in a middle class environment at the outer skirts of Cologne.
All the time during my life in Germany I looked for the company and friendship of black expats in general and African expats in particular. An African proverb says “A stranger in town is like a white dog, he gets noticed immediately”. Thus, from elementary school to grammar school I was always the token black. “Being a German” was never top on my wish list. For me it was much more important to be united with my family and live in a safe place. I wouldn’t care if its England, USA, Kenya, Germany.
I couldn’t have it…..thus I started to build my own African family here in Germany.
I went to African parties, weddings, clubs, concerts and became friends with a lot of African expats from different countries. I got to know their life stories, customs, food, dances….
Today some people are still wondering where I learned to dance Mbalax (Senegal), Soukous (Congo), Coupé Décalé (Ivory Coast), Zouk (Guadeloupe, Martinique) ……African expats taught me.
When I studied in London as an exchange student it was a completely different thing. I was there as a German exchange student but rarely had contact with the “club” of German students living in my students home. On the one hand I didn’t come to London to get to know Germans on the other hand there was too much slandering about Britain and the brits in this group. Thus there was nothing that pulled me to join this group. I met two other white Germans students at the university which were more open minded because they wanted to see what London has to offer : the good, the bad and the ugly. Sometimes I went out for a beer with them. I had only regular contact with two group of Afro-Germans. One group were people I had known before I moved to London, the other group were people I got to know there.
Right now – my African family is spread over four continents (Africa, Europe, America, Australia) and six countries (Uganda, Kenya, Netherlands, Germany, USA, Australia). Sadly enough, the way Africans enter Europe has changed to the worse since I came here. The Ceuta and Melila drama of African refugees struggling to enter Spain by hook or crook is shattering to say the least. Pictures reaching some of us in our living rooms are disheartening. Young men stuck between barb wires like kebabs being prepared to be grilled, is nothing for anyone to watch unconcerned. What could be so wrong with a young person trying to seek a better life or future, but the vicious world we happen to be in today, has no place for such aims, and the leaders of those affected, do not care either.
Not once, twice or thrice, do we witness African nationals being treated as fourth class citizens of the world and we turn a blind eye to such treatment because the youth of Africa has no voice and no spokesperson for their interest. This attitude must change and it is our duty as black expatriates to show our solidarity. We, who all more or less hail from the mother continent. A Ugandan proverb captures the importance of solidarity in stating that “you cannot hear the mouth crying unless you hear the mouth eating.” Africans are some of the most hospitable people in the world and eagerly anticipate any guest. And those who have visited Africa know how the experience can transform worldviews – there is no substitute for meeting Africans there and abroad.
Photo credits: Acacia Tree Over the Savannah,Kenya – courtesy treehugger.com, Africa in Germany – ©2009MDM/BlackExpat.com
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