Madiba Restaurant in Brooklyn

Now that the warm weather’s here (sorta) I’ve decided to make most of it by checking out various African restaurants and hang outs throughout the Big Apple and tell you (yes you dude!) about my experience. Feel free also to comment or recommend a good place you know of. Mind you I’m no critic of any sort, just a regular dude giving my personal opinion about those establishments, so don’t go using this as a Zagat survey lol.

So…last week-end my roommate and I got invited to hang out in Brooklyn at this South African restaurant called Madiba. I always heard some things said about that place (good and bad) so I was looking forward to experiencing it first hand. Actually it wasn’t bad at all, I liked very much the decor (very modest mirrored after typical local bars in poor African cities’ neighborhoods), the crowd (cosmopolitan, hey it’s BK after all), the ambiance and the live performance (being a guitar player myself, i loved it). I even spotted Corinne Bailey Rae and Alec Wek there too! (ok ok ‘look alikes’ maybe). You have the option to seat indoors but who would want to in the warm season? So outside we sat, and the view oh my goodness…let me just say there are some beautiful people in Brooklyn ! ;-D

As for the food, there are few things on the menu you might need the waitress (very friendly) to elaborate on if you’re not from Southern Africa. But not to worry they have chicken wings and french fries (or is it freedom fries?) if you’re not feeling like trying African dishes . I really wanted to try some Southern Africa beers but unfortunately they had run out of Windhoek Lager (my friend let me have a sip of hers tough). They had Red Stripe (Jamaican beer?), Corona and the usual stuff as alternatives however.

In any case we all had a good time there and I’m planning of going back there sometime soon, for brunch maybe? lol For more information about Madiba, visit their website for menu, events and directions at www.madibarestaurant.com

Photo source: www.ishebeen.co.za

Ohhh I’m an alien…i’m a legal alien…

…I’m an African In New York!!!! You know how the song goes. So here it is, the new home for my “Why Africans?” page that i used to host on Blogger (Blogspot). I felt that WordPress allowed much more flexibility with your site so here i am. I hope you enjoy this site which is basically dedicated to all things African in NY but you can still enjoy yourself very much in this place even if you’re not from the Tri-state area (NY-NJ-Connecticut). Have fun!

Why Africans stare at other Africans on Mass Transit?

Here’s another one…you’re standing uncomfortably in the metro, bus, tramway, train or any other public transportation (probably thinking about how you’re gonna sort out your papier situation lol) when you feel someone staring. And no, it’s not that sexy, tattooed belly button, half black half Chinese chick you always fantasize about lol. Instead it’s a dark blue skin brother probably from Burkina Faso (lmao this is so wrong) looking at you and wondering whether you were his childhood neighbor or not. By now you both pretty much figured out that you come from sub-Saharan Africa. How do you react? Well, civilized people would just nod (as to say “hey I know you know I’m African, hello but now let’s both move on with our lives” lol) if dude wasn’t smiling at you, which is kinda creepy. Anyways, why do we stare? For a variety of reasons, often when we immigrate to western countries our social circle noticeably shrinks so any chance we get to meet or see someone who may be African we get all excited and shit. Another reason could be that we suspect the person has traits common to a certain ethnic group in our country or anywhere else on the continent. So what do we do? We stare at that person, burning to ask him/her where she’s from just satisfy our curiosity. Take for instance this Nigerian dude at work; we’re both standing by the elevators for a couple of minutes and of course he was trying his best not stare but whatever…so he finally pops the question:
- Nigerian dude: “are you Nigerian?”
- Me: “No I’m from DRC”
- Nigerian dude: “oh ok…”
- Me: “ok…”

And that was that, not a single word exchange after that. It was as if being from Nigeria was a prerequisite for a conversation or something…

Why DR Congolese like to bleach their skin?

For a long time I used to think that it was mainly us (yes I’m Congolese, and no I’m dark-skin) who were so fond of this. But apparently it’s become a trend throughout the years with the Congolese, Ghanaians and Nigerians as frontrunners to name a few. So why fuck up your skin and risk getting skin cancer? Oh that’s simple…Michael Jackson! Yes I know that sounds as crazy as the OJ verdict but MJ used to be bigger a deal than one might think (second only to Mobutu, thanks his brainwashing TV ads technique). You see, MJ not realizing his status of semi-god started the bleaching trend in the 80’s and us being dumb as we once were followed blindly. The reasoning was that if MJ thought it was ok to aspire to be white then nothing else mattered. Heck it doesn’t even matter if your face is light-skin but your legs are black as coal right? It used to be that women were more prone to practice bleaching but dudes are catching up too, need proof? Just check out any Koffi Olomide or soukouss video.