If I were not African, I wonder whether it would be clear to me

Host: The heat of the afternoon pressed down like a living thing. The marketplace buzzed with sound — the calls of vendors, the clatter of metal bowls, the hum of engines in the dusty street. The smell of roasted maize, sweat, and red earth mingled in the air, thick and honest.

Beneath a sprawling acacia tree, Jack sat on an overturned crate, his white shirt rolled at the sleeves, a faint sheen of sweat on his neck. He looked out at the crowd — women balancing baskets on their heads, children laughing in the dust, men shouting over prices and politics. His eyes — sharp, grey, watchful — carried that detached curiosity of someone who observes but never quite belongs.

Jeeny stood nearby, her dress simple, her hair tied in a scarf the color of the sunset. She was speaking to a small group of locals — her voice steady, her gestures alive. They listened to her not because she spoke loudly, but because she spoke like one of them.

Host: The sky above burned in shades of gold and ash. The air vibrated with the pulse of life — imperfect, chaotic, but vibrant.

Jack: “You sound like you’ve swallowed Chimamanda whole.”

Jeeny turned, half-smiling.

Jeeny: “Maybe I have. She said something that never left me — ‘If I were not African, I wonder whether it would be clear to me that Africa is a place where people do not need limp gifts of fish but sturdy fishing rods and fair access to the pond.’”

Host: She said it slowly, her eyes scanning the people — the woman mending shoes, the boy selling water, the old man repairing bicycles with hands that trembled but never stopped working.

Jack: “Fishing rods and access to the pond,” he repeated. “Sounds poetic. But you think the world listens to poetry?”

Jeeny: “Poetry is how we remember what we’ve forgotten. She wasn’t asking for pity. She was demanding respect.”

Jack: “Respect doesn’t feed anyone. Aid does.”

Jeeny: “No, Jack. Aid feeds dependency. Respect feeds dignity.”

Host: A light wind lifted the dust, swirling it around their feet like a restless spirit. Jeeny’s eyes hardened, and her voice deepened.

Jeeny: “You look around and see poverty. I look around and see potential. Do you think these people want your sympathy? They want opportunity — a fair chance to use their strength.”

Jack: “Opportunity requires structure. Systems. Infrastructure. You can’t eat passion, Jeeny.”

Jeeny: “No, but you can starve without it.”

Host: The noise of the market faded for a moment, replaced by the quiet pulse of their words.

Jack: “You talk as if the world’s unfairness can be undone with slogans. The truth is — power always protects itself. And Africa, for all its spirit, keeps getting betrayed by its own.”

Jeeny: “She knew that too. ‘African nations have a failure of leadership,’ she said, ‘but they also have dynamic people with agency and voices.’ That’s the part the world forgets — and so do people like you.”

Jack: “People like me?”

Jeeny: “Yes. The ones who think they can ‘save’ Africa by feeling guilty from afar. You build schools without asking what kind of education people need. You donate money but never dignity. You bring fish, but never rods.”

Host: Jack leaned back against the tree, eyes narrowing. The shade flickered across his face like bars of light and shadow.

Jack: “So what’s your solution? Hope?”

Jeeny: “No. Partnership. Listening. Letting people define their own future. Not assuming they’re broken.”

Jack: “That’s idealism, Jeeny.”

Jeeny: “No, Jack. It’s justice.”

Host: Her words struck with quiet force. The wind shifted, carrying with it the distant sound of a radio — an old song sung in Swahili, rhythmic and defiant.

Jack: “You make it sound easy. But leadership fails because corruption eats everything. You give someone a rod, they sell it. You give them the pond, they fence it.”

Jeeny: “And yet people keep fishing, don’t they? Even with broken rods, even when the pond’s poisoned. That’s the kind of resilience you can’t teach — the kind this continent was born from.”

Jack: “Resilience doesn’t fix systems.”

Jeeny: “But it keeps people alive long enough to build new ones.”

Host: She turned to him fully now, her face alive with conviction, the kind that felt both ancient and immediate.

Jeeny: “Do you know why people outside Africa always talk about saving it, Jack? Because it makes them feel superior. They mistake poverty for helplessness, and generosity for virtue. But Chimamanda reminded us — Africa doesn’t need saviors. It needs fairness.”

Jack: “Fairness doesn’t exist in global economics.”

Jeeny: “Then maybe the world should stop pretending to be moral.”

Host: The sun began to sink lower, painting the sky in blood and copper. Children ran past, their laughter ringing through the air like bells. An old woman balanced a sack of maize on her head, her spine straight, her steps sure.

Jack watched them, something shifting behind his eyes — a flicker of humility.

Jack: “You sound angry.”

Jeeny: “I am. But not hopeless. Anger’s just love that refuses to give up.”

Jack: “Love for this chaos?”

Jeeny: “For its people. For their brilliance, their humor, their endurance. You think the West invented innovation? Walk through Lagos, Nairobi, Kampala. You’ll see ingenuity born from scarcity, not privilege.”

Jack: “You think self-reliance alone can beat centuries of exploitation?”

Jeeny: “No. But self-belief can start the fight.”

Host: The market was thinning now. The light grew softer, the air cooler. A rooster crowed somewhere — confused, defiant. Jack exhaled, long and slow.

Jack: “Maybe I never really saw it.”

Jeeny: “Because you were looking with pity, not respect.”

Jack: “And you think I should what — walk in, throw away my assumptions, start again?”

Jeeny: “Yes. Listen. Ask. Learn. Let the people you think you’re helping tell you what they need. That’s what Adichie meant — agency, voice, ownership. That’s how love looks when it grows up.”

Host: Jack’s gaze softened. He looked at the ground — red, cracked, beautiful.

Jack: “Maybe Africa doesn’t need fish or rods. Maybe it just needs the world to stop telling it how to fish.”

Jeeny: “Exactly.”

Host: She smiled then — small, weary, but full of light. A group of children passed by, chasing an old bicycle tire, laughing as it wobbled away into the dusk.

Jeeny watched them, her eyes full of warmth.

Jeeny: “Look at them. That’s what hope looks like when it doesn’t know it’s supposed to give up.”

Jack: “And you think that hope can rebuild a continent?”

Jeeny: “I think it already is.”

Host: The sky deepened into indigo. The first stars appeared, small and stubborn against the fading light. Jeeny bent down and scooped a handful of dust, letting it slip slowly through her fingers.

Jeeny: “This soil holds stories, Jack. Empires. Injustices. Dreams. Every grain remembers something. And yet — it still grows.”

Jack: “You really love this place.”

Jeeny: “It’s not just love. It’s belonging. The kind that hurts and heals at once.”

Host: Jack stood, brushed the dirt from his hands, and looked out at the darkening landscape — the glow of lanterns, the hum of distant drums, the low laughter carried by wind.

Jack: “Maybe Adichie wasn’t just talking about Africa. Maybe she was talking about all of us — about how we keep giving each other fish instead of trust.”

Jeeny: “Yes. Every time we underestimate someone, every time we silence a voice — we repeat the same mistake.”

Host: They stood side by side, silent now. The world around them pulsed with life — imperfect, fierce, and unyielding.

The moon began to rise over the horizon, casting silver light across the red earth.

Jack: “You know, for the first time, I think I understand what she meant — that love without respect isn’t love at all.”

Jeeny: “And that faith without fairness isn’t faith.”

Host: The night came fully, swallowing the day. Yet the market, even in darkness, continued to hum with quiet resilience — the sound of a people still fishing, still building, still dreaming.

And under that vast African sky, their two figures stood — not as cynic and believer anymore, but as witnesses to a truth older than history:

That strength is not in pity, but in partnership.
That beauty is not in saving, but in seeing.
That love is not in gifts, but in justice.

And from that knowing, somewhere deep within them both — something sacred, something uncolonized, was born.