BROKEN BUT BEAUTIFUL - by Nomshu Writes✨

Picture this: JSS 1, grade 5, minding my business, when I get hit with the plot twist of my young life I live on a continent made up of 54 entire countries. Fifty. Four. My tiny brain could not compute. From that day I was obsessed, dreaming of the day I'd island-hop (continent-hop?) my way across Africa like some pan-African main character.The universe said "say less" and the very next year served me Egypt family posting, holiday attached, main character energy fully activated. I was buzzing, ready to check country <a class="tc-blue" href="https://twocents.space/insights/tag/1">#1</a> off my imaginary list. And it was wonderful until the vibes got weird. Some shopkeepers treated us like royalty, others looked at us like we'd personally raided their tombs staring, pointing, sneaky photos and everything, like I was a museum exhibit titled African Girl, Confused. To this day I genuinely cannot tell you if that was racism, colourism, or just Tuesday.Fast forward a few years and the plot thickens: turns out we're all out here borrowing from each other like a group chat with no boundaries. Exhibit A the Jollof Rice Wars. Nigerians swear they invented flavour itself. Ghanaians beg to differ, loudly. Meanwhile the actual originators, Senegal, are in the corner sipping tea, watching two children fight over their homework. Music, dance, outfits, food, even worship it all moves through the continent like there's no such thing as a border checkpoint.Then I got to uni and met my plot twist in human form: Bibata Wusi, a Nigerien girl (that's Niger, not Nigeria, we don't do that confusion here) who I argued with constantly and who somehow became one of my ride-or-die best friends. The same guy who talked me back from the edge of depression , despite me being Nigerian African and quietly nursing some xenophobia-shaped resentment I didn't even fully clock because I taught myself to believe all South Africans are evil and xenophobic until I had a full Character development, omooo it's a whole lot. And that's when it hit me: these borders are giving decorative more than functional. We are deeply interconnected, whether we admit it or not. Case in point I once wanted to apply to the University of Ghana, and my mother, queen of shutting things down in one sentence, said: "No. You have no business in another man's land." Ma'am. MA'AM. That line lived rent-free in my head for weeks, and not the good kind of rent-free.Here's my hot take though: we need to actually follow Burkina Faso's footsteps and decolonize ourselves for real not the Instagram caption version. That's step one to an Africa that's united in more than just an ECOWAS press release a continent, not just a coastline. And honestly? That idea alone makes other regions nervous, because they know exactly what happens when Africa stops being divided on purpose. We are too rich, too beautiful, too much to be reduced to "just neighbors who happen to share a landmass."So yeah wake up, Africa. And on a personal note: I guess it's time to retire my little situationship with my Asian celebrity crushes and lock in on a Somali or Ethiopian man instead. Because let's be honest black men are teaaaa literally . ☕

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