The stolen dreams of Africa

This has undeniably been a really grumpy day for me. But I didn’t wake up grumpy, I woke up feeling really excited, reminiscing about my university days. Thinking about family and friends, all those talks of what we wanted to be, what we will do at university and why we must achieve those Advance Level points required to study what we really wanted. Getting those points and studying what we wished, would put us on the trajectory to be what we dreamt to be, and to do what we wanted to do for the rest of our lives.

I thought of my peers who needed 9 A Level points to qualify into accounting, those who yearned for just as many to qualify into law. And all the energy that went into achieving the required points and the excitement that came with studying what you desired. This was all in the hope that political sciences will take you to parliament, that law will get you into the bar, and journalism will land you that newsroom job.

Most of my peers are in their dream jobs, pursuing careers in the field of studies they had undertaken. But just as many ain’t. And as I reflected on who was in their dream job and who wasn’t, both within my family and in my immediate entourage, a pattern began to emerge.

More than a third of my family relations pursuing careers in Africa, are in the field they had dreamt to be in. In some cases, they studied further and transitioned into more sophisticated related fields. And the same third of my relatives who are in the West – Europe and the US – are in careers so far away from what they had studied, so far away from what the dream was, that I wondered.

So I called up my best friend, we both studied journalism, made a brief stint in the newsroom and travelled from home for different reasons. She is a nurse today and I wanted to hear from her what made her embark on such a massive switch.

“My dear, those opportunities ain’t for you and I in the newsroom here, and if I had to hold onto that dream, I will be living on the streets as we speak,” she said. “Nursing is in high demand for us Africans and the pay enables you to live a more than decent life,” she continued.

I know she is happy, I know she makes a good living. I know she has a decent and honorable career, and a good life. And I know she let go of her dream.

Then I called up my cousin – he was a brilliant young man, a nerd in my opinion. He wanted to be a neurosurgeon but he serves in the military. This wasn’t just a switch, it was a colossal offset. My aunt dreaded the military, the police and every profession that came with a gun. My cousin would never have served back home. So I asked him why he chose to serve and the response was quite manly and to the point. ‘“A guy is gotta do what he’s gotta do.” I asked him if that was the new dream, the newfound passion. He giggled and replied, “You ask many questions, why does that matter now? You can rest assured, I am okay.” Well, boys can be hard to have a good conversation with, I told myself. But it was clear in his unspoken words that this too was the option that was available.

At the end of my calls, my grumpiness turned to anger. When will our leaders step up to their oath of office? When will we truly commit to this continent? When will we reverse the trend that we must hope for a better life in destinations so far away that the trip dissipates into a quest for survival, for bread and butter that a dream becomes an ‘unnecessary’ luxury?

And my anger turned to rage. May 25 is Africa day, a day set aside to mark the liberation movement’s progress and to symbolise the determination of the people of Africa to free themselves of foreign domination and exploitation. How far have we come?

And as I began my rant to let off some steam, my husband gracefully shared an old newsclip of the Ghanaian President, talking during a visit of French president to Ghana. H.E Nana Akufo-Addo spoke boldly about the need for Africa to move away from foreign aid, the need to build a Ghana that sets its own priorities, a Ghana that can harness the potential of its youth, a Ghana that can build on the dreams of its people.

“…We are going to have those energies working in our country if we begin to build systems that tell the young of our country that their hopes, their opportunities, are right here with us….We want young Africans to stay in Africa.

“We want to build a Ghana beyond aid…, I believe that if we change that mindset of dependence, we will see that in the decades ahead of us, that new African personality that was talked about at the time of our independence will become real and imminent in our time”.

Nothing could have made me more hopeful. This was the kind of narrative I desperately needed to hear, as I pondered on Africa day and how far we had come. There’s hope!!!

The voices of wisdom on this continent are still much smaller, much less than the voices of the clueless. But there’s hope, because all you need when you feel a sense of doom, when you feel hopeless about the millions of Africas who still lose their lives in the high seas in search of ‘greener pastures’, all the young and talented men and women who have let go of their dreams for the urgency of bread and butter, is one voice of hope; just one voice of wisdom.

There’s no doubt that we cannot afford to sacrifice the dreams and aspirations of another generation. Africa must rise, and that we must collectively make sure of.