One of my biggest regrets was not spending more time in Cologne. We only had the afternoon, a rainy summer afternoon that left me in a very reflective mood.
Cologne is famous for the Cologne Cathedral, the largest Gothic church and currently the tallest twin spired church in the world. It is truly magnificent and I recently learnt that it is Germany’s most visited landmark. This comes as no surprise, beautiful stained glass windows, such intricate detail on what I am sure are hand sculptured marble statues, even the wooden benches have carved wooden images at the end. This is a cathedral worth the trip, I was grateful to say a prayer and light a candle in such a beautiful place.
We continued on our way and came across an Afro music festival, through my travels this was one of a kind. Next to the stage was an open market and just walking around made me think of the flea market I used to go to all the time back home. True to any market, the same curios, antiques and this time the merchants were fellow Africans. We stopped at one stall in particular and a man in his early 30s was selling clothes and promoting his music and art work, he was sitting with his wife who we later learnt helped manage his business because his German wasn’t very good. We immediately gravitated to this man because his story was one we had heard before. He was an economic refugee, he had come to Germany looking for a better future. So many merchants in that open market had the same story, some had come as students and never left, others to look for jobs that they never found, all of them thinking that selling to tourists was the better alternative than what they had left behind. The forgotten dreams and the need to make a plan and to make “this” work- this being whatever they needed to do to make a living. My heart went out to each and everyone of them, knowing that buying something was great but it wouldn’t really make much of a difference. They didn’t need to say much about how they ended up in Cologne, I already knew, I had left my beloved Harare looking for greener pastures, there wasn’t anything to say. Along my travels I have always explained that Africa is one continent and not a country, that we are so diverse from the north to the south. Our North African cousins identify more with Arabic culture as evidenced in religion, language, cuisine. Our West African cousins, more French speaking and honestly that’s all I really know about them largely due to the fact that I haven’t really encountered them on my travels. Our East African cousins, in my opinion the kindest people I have ever seen. Finally Southern Africans, my own people, who need a whole new blog post to unpack those differences. Despite how different we are as a continent, the one thing unified us in my mind that day in Cologne, how far we had all gone from Africa in search for what we hoped would be a better life. This is not to say that some of us are unhappy where we landed up or we didn’t make it, it goes to say that the one thing that I believe unifies us as Africans is that we all get it. All we need to do is to lock eyes and through that there is an instant unspoken connection …Ubuntu.
