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.