1 week ago
4
September 4, 2025 — 2:15pm
The waiter, wearing a faded black tailcoat and white gloves in a grand hotel that had seen much better days in the rundown game park in Uganda, smiled as he handed me the breakfast menu.
I asked for the muesli. “I am sorry, madam,” he said, “but we have run out of muesli.”
The porridge? No, none of that either. Pancakes? Apologies again.
It was time to shift tack. “So how about you tell me what you do have?” I suggested.
He took a deep breath. “Madam,” he said, pausing for effect, “we have … we have … an egg.”
We looked solemnly at each other and then, at exactly the same moment, both broke into laughter, and didn’t stop until we cried. “I think then,” I said when we’d eventually recovered, “I should have an egg.”
He grinned. “Very wise, madam.”
It might be the call of the wildlife – the roars of the lion, leopard, elephant and rhino – that attracts the first-time visitor to Africa, but it’s the people who bring them back.
That can be the easy friendliness of tour guides taking you to see those animals, the simple joie de vivre of villagers outside major cities, or the readiness of some locals, despite obviously facing extremely tough times, to find the funny side to almost everything.
On a continent whose inhabitants are generally nowhere near as rich, materially, as us, it’s refreshing to see how generous they are in forging meaningful human connections, and how keen they are to connect with a good laugh.
That’s all sorts, too. I was once a guest at a Maasai engagement ceremony in northern Kenya, and was invited to dance, amid much merriment at my clumsiness, alongside the bride-to-be. I joined a group of San people in Namibia – previously known as bushmen – on a hunting expedition and, when they failed to hit a dik-dik with an arrow, was transfixed to watch them rolling around the ground in hilarity.
Another time, in southern Ethiopia, the joke was on me as I had to squeeze into a narrow canoe made from a tree trunk to cross a swollen river, and only just managed to fit in. The crowd watching me fell silent as I struggled but, when I smiled at my predicament, it gave them all permission to absolutely roar with laughter.
Of course, it would be wrong to generalise too broadly.
Just like on any continent, people in separate countries in Africa, and even in varying areas of the same nations, can differ hugely from each other, in language, culture, customs and beliefs.
There are large populations of Muslims in North Africa, the Horn of Africa, the Swahili Coast and West Africa, and Christians in East Africa, Central Africa and Southern Africa. There are many kinds of political systems, as well as places still scarred by their colonial past, and others that have risen in their wake. There are intense poverty, and incredible riches.
But I’ve spent years in Africa, travelling to many countries, and never have I found people so eager to laugh, to find the positives on the darkest of days, to point up the ridiculousness of many situations we find ourselves in.
And believe me, there’s laughter all the way – from the local in a remote village in the Central African Republic who refused to believe chickens were not exclusive to his country, to the woman in Cameroon who doubled up in mirth at a picture I presented of a kangaroo.
“That is very funny,” she said. “But it is not possible.”
Oh yes, the wildlife in Africa is extraordinary, but the people are a pure delight.
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