Private muses, by Tom Mukasa

Private muses

I come from Africa;
a part squeezed-in by the grips of nature,
the mountains of the Moon and Masaba,
the source of the Nile,
the equator is a tight belt,
the sun a hot overhead furnace,
evening time is T.V. time,
the source of information,
from news, films and dramas,
our eye on the world,
except for critical history and geography lessons,
I remained content with generalizations,
the world was divided into spheres,
very much after the compass,
north, south, east, west,
we knew where good cars came from,
where poor house-hold appliances were made,
we could list names of world leaders,
point out cities,
that about summed it all, until I came face to face,
with an Irish, a German, Chinese and Samoan in America,
I realized I knew little, very little,
the knowledge-closets were quickly emptied,
not even Holly-wood films filled the gaps,
and so a tete-a-tete goes like this;
yes, Sumo-wrestlers also come from Hawaii,
yes, Africa has Indians, Jews, Arabs and Chinese too,
yes, older civilizations existed before that of Egypt,
no, Africa is a continent and not a country,
Nubia has older pyramids,
and thus we saw each other as treasures.


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