Africans are very hospitable people, not only to their fellow Africans but also to the whites who visit their countries. In Europe it’s a little bit different because you can never go to someone when you don’t have an appointment and someone can never just welcome you to his/her house like in Africa. In my continent people just jump in without an appointment, notice or even a phone call. In my view, this makes Africans more hospitable than Europeans.
However, when the whites go to Africa they are received by Africans with one heart and you hear many of them saying that despite of poverty, wars, and disease Africans are happy and hospitable as one Dutch young lady who was in Africa said: ‘The moment I reached Rwanda I felt this is where I belong no matter that I’m Dutch,” she said. Bibiche said that she was on a study trip in Rwanda and she was impressed with the way she was treated: ‘People who picked me up from the airport hosted, fed and helped me with my research’ she said. ‘I was like a little queen something you cannot find in the Netherlands,’ she continued. I was also expecting to be treated in same way Bibiche was treated in Rwanda but it was very different.
Skin colour
It was different because some Europeans treated me based on my colour. It happened to me one day when I called a taxi to take me somewhere but before the driver could start the car he first asked me if I had the money to pay him. ‘Do you really have the money?’ he asked me three times in a big voice.
In my opinion, he thought that since I was black I could not afford to hire a taxi. Sometimes in public transport means, when the controllers come in to check those who have no tickets they start with black people because they think that blacks are more criminal than whites are. European racism is not so directly exposed but it is shown in small things like when you get lost in an area and you try to ask the whites for directions. They can ignore you; refuse to give you advice or the right directions. However, in Africa when a white person gets lost in an area people just fight to give him/her the right directions!
