Hey there. It’s me, the nameless African woman from your last Instagram post.
Thank you for including me in the documentation of your time on the “dark continent.” I had a quick look around your account; you posted our selfie after your close-up shot of our dearly departed Sudan the rhinoceros (love that you called for a moment of silence for the majestic beast — will you do the same after I pass away?), but before the panoramic sunset photo with the silhouette of an acacia tree. Great job on the caption, by the way; Serengeti does indeed mean “endless plain” in the Maasai language.
I know I wasn’t bare-breasted, as you expected to find me — our people are “famously and frequently unclothed,” as you know. I do like to think of myself as a noble savage, though, with a rolling laugh and an endless concern for everyone’s well-being.
I don’t mind that you didn’t ask me my name, my daily routine, or my interests. I exist to enlighten you, after all, and maybe for you to save me (if your travel schedule allows). And most importantly, to show your Instagram followers how worldly and sensitive you are. “Even though we don’t speak the same language,” you write, “everyone can understand a smile.”
Why ask me questions anyway, when that article you read on the plane already told you everything you need to know about my community? You know what our houses look like, what our primitive diets consist of, our literacy rates, our recent troubles, our surprising resilience. I could see in your eyes that you didn’t know what to do with your immense guilt upon meeting me. You’re dreaming about “becoming successful, having a big family in a big house in a beautiful country,” while I’m rotting away “alone with my child in my small house made of mud and trees.” I re-lived the guilt you felt (we Africans are deeply compassionate) when I read your Instagram post. You’re right, we are poor but happy.
I wasn’t aware until I saw our photo that I’m a “wild nomadic wife” that you picked up on your travels. A couple of questions about that. Will I be invited to the wedding? Will our wedding be themed “Colonial Africa” like that one in South Africa, with touches from the good old days, like khaki pants and rifles and an all-black staff? Will you have me wear, like that female “Maasai warrior” from California, red nail polish that makes you feel fierce and pearl earrings that remind you of home? Can we turn the whole thing into a music video, kind of Old Hollywood meets Out of Africa?
Actually, will I ever see you again? I somehow doubt it. As you predict, in two years I will “meet a grown up man that I have never met before, have a child, and then if I am lucky he’s gonna stay with me, but he will probably leave me. I will probably sell my body to someone else to earn money for my child.”
In the meantime, I’ll be reveling in the greatest joy of my sad, disease-riddled life — “sitting on your lap and drinking from a bottle of Coca-Cola.” And of course, watching our Instagram photo grow in popularity. 98 likes in four hours? Not bad.
Editor’s Note: Most statements in this satirical essay are directly quoted or referenced from real events (though a few are from other pieces of satire; can you spot them?). In particular: Louise Linton’s memoir about her year in Zambia; Mindy Budgor’s memoir about becoming the “first” female Maasai warrior; a couple’s colonial-themed wedding in South Africa; a travel vlogger’s recount of his time in Namibia; Taylor Swift’s music video for “Wildest Dreams”; the shooting of Cecil the Lion in Zimbabwe; and most recently, Josephine Johansson’s Instagram post about her time in Nairobi, Kenya.
We were inspired to write this after National Geographic’s decision to examine its own racist history; in particular, how the magazine portrayed black and brown people for decades as “exotics, famously and frequently unclothed, happy hunters, noble savages — every type of cliché.”
The magazine’s legacy is far-reaching. “They knew that there were problems with the way that they and their people were being represented,” said John Edwin Mason to NPR. “And yet the photography was often spectacularly good, it was really inviting, and it carried this power. And as young people, these men and women said, I want to do that. I want to make pictures like that.”
