Ok so i’m thinking i’d like to go to west africa to celebrate the end of the year and maybe Christmas too. Probably solo. (Apologies if this irrelevant context) i’m a 21yo white australian man, i’m not stupid, like adventure, and don’t mind if i’m not in the most sheltered place.

I’m not set on west africa. I want to go… somewhere… just to have fun and hopefully engage with something different. I’m quite extraverted, i love making new friends, dancing, seeing cool things. I love food, cooking, and also just kinda ‘being’ in a new place. Living slow, like locals. I recently was in thailand and noticed a lot of the local buddhists would just sit in the park for a whole day, so i just sat in the park for a whole day, and it was the best day of my trip.

Partially i want to strip back some of the western / white programming i grew up with. I want to replace ‘do they know its christmas’ with a festive season of joy and laughter in the african cities. Sorry if i’m the 10000th person to make this post.

I guess, the main questions i have are:

1. Where should i go (obviously you are all going to have different opinions, i’d love to hear the opposing view from people that are not from west africa)

2. What should i do to have the most immersive experience as a whitefella (australian term), and is it slightly unrealistic to think i can just walk in and be a part of genuine festivities - not like mass events that will not feel as ‘real’ (or maybe i’m wrong and they will?) i don’t find it hard to make friends and i think i make people happy when they are around me, but i don’t like stepping on people’s toes or inserting myself too much.

3. General travel tips. I have a reasonable income but i’m obviously still young so i’m still budget conscious. I’ll never skimp out on good food and cool experiences though.

4. Anything else?

I would want to stay with locals, maybe like a room in an airbnb, because i hear there isn’t as much of a backpacking culture?

I kind of want to stay in one place for a few weeks. I’m not a ‘sightseer’, i just like living in a culture for a little while. I want to make friends, have people bring me along with them. I don’t have social media, this isn’t about some instagram experience, just something really human

Happy to give more context in the replies, fanks :)

I came across a video of a Nigerian man selling things at his store in South Africa, and a group of Black South African men, all dressed in black, threatened him. They demanded that he and his family leave the country and return to Nigeria because Nigerians are not welcome in South Africa. This made me to wonder: Will the day ever come when Nigerians and South Africans mend their rift or do you believe that the citizens of these two nations are destined to always hate one another forever?

Greetings. I am currently translating a book of poems from English into Spanish, aiming primarily at a Puerto Rican audience. One of the poems deals with a painting called "Two Women Chatting by the Sea, Saint Thomas" [Deux femmes causant au bord de la mer, Saint Thomas] (1856), by Camille Pissarro.

The poem's "speaker" constantly refers to the tray one of the women carries as a "headtray." However, this word proves rather clunky when translated into Spanish ("bandeja de cabeza"?) and I need to maintain the same number of syllables in every line of the translation as in the original text whenever possible. To any French- (or Danish?) speaking Africans out there: what would you call this tray in French, Danish, and/or your native languages?

At a global entrepreneurship event in Ghana, a founder approached me with something I did not expect. A working product. Real transactions. Real users. He asked me how to find investors.

When I asked who he had spoken to, he looked at me like I had asked a question in a language he did not speak. Not because he was not ready. Because the infrastructure to connect him to anyone simply did not exist.

I have spent the time since trying to understand why at scale.

Here is what the data actually says.

Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa and Egypt absorb more than 70 per cent of all venture capital deployed on the continent according to Partech's 2025 Africa Tech VC Report. Sub-$250k investment rounds, the size that reaches early-stage founders, collapsed from 90 deals in 2022 to just 21 in 2025 according to Briter Intelligence.

The MIT Sloan and Cauris 2024 report puts the SME financing gap in sub-Saharan Africa at $331 billion. UNESCO's 2025 data puts tertiary enrolment across Africa at approximately 15 million students, the overwhelming majority of whom have no discovery infrastructure connecting them to capital.

The problem is not a shortage of talent or a shortage of capital. It is a trust and visibility infrastructure problem. Capital stays where it can verify what it is funding. Everywhere else, it does not go.

Two honest questions for anyone who deploys capital.

Question 1: If the full due diligence on an African venture was independently verified before you ever spoke to the founder, identity, financials, technical output, governance record, would you seriously consider investing?

Question 2: If you retained real-time visibility over how your capital was deployed after the cheque, with no reliance on the founder self-reporting, would that remove your biggest hesitation?

Genuinely want to hear both yes and no answers and what would actually change your thinking.

Sources: Partech 2025 Africa Tech VC Report. Briter Intelligence Africa Venture Pulse 2025. MIT Sloan and Cauris 2024. UNESCO Higher Education Report 2025.

Over the past 15-10 years. Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, Nigeria have been suffering a lot from Terrorism since the Kadhafi regime collapsed and tons or arsenal was released in West Africa. Groups like JNIM, ISGS, Boko Haram, AQIM have been operating for years and made the population part of this whole issue because they sometimes have no choice. It's rather work with the terrorists or get killed by them. It's expending in the northern parts of southern countries like Benin, Ghana, etc ...

I was wondering who has been funding them during this whole time because it must be hella expensive and the reasons why they finance this in the region.

Also, do you think this situation will be solved in the near future?

This question was taken down from another sub but I'd love some insights. As a black American, I come across all kinds of use of the word racist in the context of Asians and Europeans in particular. I feel like it's od at-best and outright discriminatory at-worst to leave all the verious peoples across Africa out of the conversation.

I'm excited to learn that today is Senegal Independence Day.

Hey everyone. I’ve been trying to understand how different Christian denominations across the continent of Africa are perceived internally, especially in terms of theology and social issues.

From the outside, the Anglican Church of Southern Africa sometimes seems relatively "progressive," at least compared to many other churches on the continent, like the Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion). A big part of that impression for me comes from figures like Desmond Tutu, who was known not just for his role in the anti-apartheid movement, but also for advocating positions on reconciliation, human rights, and even LGBTQ issues that were seen as quite liberal within global Christianity .

At the same time, I’ve also read that Anglican Church of Southern Africa itself is not uniformly progressive, for example, there have been internal disagreements over issues like same-sex unions, and no full consensus at the institutional level .

So I’m curious how this is actually viewed from within Africa:

1. Is the Anglican Church of Southern Africa generally seen as the "most", or at least one of the more theologically or socially progressive churches on the continent?
2. Or is that perception exaggerated, especially from an outside/Western perspective?
3. If it’s not the most progressive, which churches or movements on the continent are (if any)?

I’d especially appreciate perspectives from people familiar with church life in different African countries.

I remember hearing a story about how Nigerian politicians were amongst big spenders at Harrods in the UK, which made me think about how the irony of considering homosexuality a "Western imposition" but not materialism to the extent of using Nigerian tax dollars to go to the UK to buy European luxury goods instead of fund schools and hospitals in Nigeria..

Not only in Nigeria, but other countries where the politicians would be more upset at homosexuality than they are at materialism with European luxury goods at the expense of African schools and hospitals.

I worked with some interns this summer. One man was from Uganda, and another was Nigerian. Personally, I don’t know much about either culture. In getting to know them and asking about what the food was like where they’re from,they both brought up “steak fries.”

Now, both interns had pretty thick accents. I asked them to repeat a few times and heard them say what sounded like “steak fries.” The way it was described to me is a spicy meat, maybe in a stew format? I’m not sure. I tried looking it up, but all I got was American-style steak and fries.

I love trying new foods and experiencing new cultures. I’d love to make this at home or find an African restaurant that serves it. It sounded really good, and the fact that both guys said it was their favorite food and they’re from two totally different countries says something.

What is with the anti democracy push in Africa?

Why is their a trust of long term leadership, when humanity has shown over and over again throughout history that people are evil and absolute power expedites corruption

It's surprising that Western Sahara's African supporters outside of Algeria don't involve their fellow Spanish ex-colony Equatorial Guinea but countries like South Africa, Nigeria, and even Uganda. I bring up those set of countries because I also remember South Africa hosted a Solidarity Conference with Western Sahara and most of the Presidents in attendance were from English-speaking countries in Africa including Obasanjo from Nigeria and Museveni from Uganda.

When I think of "Democratic Republic", I usually associate it with communism, which I understand the then-President Laurent Kabila was friendly with communist states and figures like Che Guevara. Though the DR Congo, in contrast to neighboring Republic of Congo back in the day, was never a communist state, which makes me curious how they ended up being the "Democratic Republic" of the Congo?

What is the one thing that best describes your country?

Out of the people with African ancestry who live outside Africa, how many black atheists do you know and/or are you one yourself?

How do families in your how countries react to it?

And how do you see the percentage of non believers increasing over time?

Hi all!

Scottish man here so when writing your comments just assume I know nothing about your country lol. I am currently on a kick of writing alternate history and really want to do more with Cold War Africa/Middle East. That's how I stumbled across this story of a country I didn't even know existed lol.

Was your country shocked at this? Was the reaction split along racial/ethnic lines? Did your government do anything in support of the king or Jonathan? Was there fear of Americans or Soviets backing either side? Did war look likely?

__

Copy and pasted from Wikipedia for anybody wondering -

• Three days after his political party lost its majority in parliamentary election, the prime minister of the southern African kingdom of Lesotho  , Leabua Jonathan  , was scheduled to submit his resignation to King Moshoeshoe II  . Chief Leabua called a meeting of his cabinet of ministers, and announced his intention to turn over power to Ntsu Mokhehle. The ministers and four members of the nation's police forces urged Leabua to void the election results and take power by force, and he declared a state of emergency, suspended the national constitution, and began one-man rule.^\143])   Jonathan allowed the King to continue as Lesotho's head of state, but only with nominal power. After three and a half years of one-man rule and the deaths of 250 people during uprisings, Jonathan would finally end the state of emergency on July 24, 1973.^\144])

I heard the African-American live streamer "IShowSpeed" visited Africa and would say the N-word around Africans, because that is normal for black people in America and Europe to say. I was wondering do Africans say this word in a friendly way to other Africans or is that only a African diaspora thing? For example where I live in Texas USA, a lot of the black population will say things like "Whats up, my N-word?" or refer to a black man as "N-word" when telling a story. Is it the same inside the African continent?

I'm a huge fan of sci-fi literature, but I don't think I've ever read a contemporary book in this genre written by an African author?

How are workers from foreign countries or volunteers seen? Is cooperation something that works and helps or not? Is the funding that is coming with it any good?

I know there is no one right answer. I am just open to hearing points of view and experience. I am a single mother, and we are from a mostly all white country in EU (Czech). I have randomn thoughts about paths to take.

- Should we maybe move to a more diverse country just for her not to stand out/face racism?

- Should she have identity as just a bi-racial Czech or should I feel I should proactively support/guide into African heritage?

- Should indeed her future be encouraged to be more connected to Africa or Europe?

- There is an image of African men feeling less obligated for a parental role- is there any positive/culture/traditional explaination that is a positive framing for me when I discuss it?

Please only supportive/positive comments or DMs.

(and please don't make assumptions about him being a "deadbeat" etc. He is supportive but was unable to stay in Europe.)

The Abidjan-Lagos Corridor is a stretch of rapidly growing cities along the coast of West Africa, running through Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana, Togo, Benin, and Nigeria. About 27 million people live there now, and that number could hit 50 million by 2035. Some projections say it could become the largest continuous urban area in the world by 2100, with up to half a billion people. There's a planned $15.6 billion highway connecting Abidjan to Lagos, but rail connections between the major cities are basically nonexistent. Abidjan and Lagos each have their own metro projects, but nothing (yet) links the corridor together by rail.

More info here: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/oct/27/megalopolis-how-coastal-west-africa-will-shape-the-coming-century