The Talk

I had “the talk” with Micah today… Not that talk! The “You represent the United States when you travel abroad” talk.  My Zimbabwean experience was that Africans love Americans, but non-Africans traveling in Africa do not like Americans.

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Let’s face it there is a stereotype of Americans as fat, pushy, lazy, loud, stupid, showy and impatient. I had a young British woman at Victoria Falls, tell me snidely that I “looked American.” My response was that I thought the same about her, she looked stricken. I told Micah that because people in African countries see few Americans, how we behave reflects on our nation as a whole. No pressure, but your good behavior makes all of America look good and your bad behavior makes the U.S. look bad.  Impatient is Micah’s middle name and I have been preparing him for long waits, delays and holdups. It’s Africa and the pace is S-L-O-W, as Lopez Lomong said in his book Running for My Life, Africans embrace hakuna matata, no worries, as part of their culture.

We are traveling abroad because we want to experience another culture, but that also means that Africans will be experiencing American culture through interacting with us. As I told Micah, we need to be the best ambassadors for the United States that we can.