LITTLE KNOWN FACTS ABOUT OUR ANCESTRAL HOMELAND

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For this week’s www.AfricanAncestry.com blog, I wanted to share some little known facts about the Motherland for those of you who recently traced your roots, and have all of this excitement and passion about the continent built up inside.

While doing my research though, I was disappointed to find that most of the positive “trivia,” was all too familiar.  It’s like when during Black History Month you hear about the same 10 or 12 people who made a difference, and rarely hear about any other achievers.

The good news is that there is a lot of good news coming out of Africa.  It’s not all gloom and doom as some reports would have us believe.  But again, what’s reported, is generally the same facts: that Africa is the world’s second largest continent after Asia; Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa and the most populous black country in the world, with about 140 million people; and that Africa is said to be the first continent where human fossils were found.   That’s me below, by the way, posing with “Lucy Bones” – the 3.5 million year-old skeleton and oldest hominid that has ever been found.

Neal posing with "Lucy Bones" at The Ethiopian National Museum in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

So, yes, it’s great that there are interesting facts floating around about Africa, but to find those little-known gems, I had to really dig down to the bone… Sorry, Lucy!   At any rate, I’m happy to share them with you here to help give you a greater sense of pride and knowledge about our ancestral homeland.

DID YOU KNOW THAT…

  • Africans are some of the most educated immigrants in the world, and one of the most educated men in the world is Zimbabwean President, Robert Mugabe who holds seven degrees – two of them are Master’s degrees.
  • Eighteen people from Africa have been awarded the Nobel Prize.  Coincidentally, two of them have houses on Vilakazi Street in Soweto, South Africa:  Nelson Mandela, and Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
  • While there are between 2,000 and 3,000 languages spoken in Africa, with possibly as many as 8,000 dialects, Somalia is the only country in the world where all citizens speak one language, Somali.
  • Even though diamonds are abundant in Sierra Leone, the largest diamond in the world was the Cullinan, found in a mine near Pretoria, South Africa in 1905.  It weighed 3,106.75 carats uncut.  In fact, half the world’s diamonds come from southern and central Africa.
  • The Nile River is the longest river in Africa and in the world.  It’s over 4,000 miles long. And while it’s often associated with Egypt, it actually touches Ethiopia, the DRC, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi and Sudan, as well as Egypt.  This is a picture I took of it from my recent trip to Uganda.

The Nile River, photographed in Uganda

Now that you’ve traced your lineage to Africa and are starting to do your own research, let me know (sneal@africanancestry.com) if you uncover any additional little known facts about our homeland.  I’d love to share them here.  Until next time…

Amani (peace)