It's different, but they sure do have a sense of humour. When I first moved to Africa, my Agni friends thought it quite funny that I could not readily distinguish the difference between a person from Ghana, Burkina, Mali, Senegal or Togo etc. Of course my African friends could even identify what ethnic group a person was probably from because of their facial features, body proportions, and of course skin color. We are so sensitive about skin here. SO this whole conversation kind of took me back.
One day a group of African friends were speaking about some man. Most in the group did not know this gentleman so they began to describe where he worked in the market and identifying him as the man, and I translate this from French; "A little tall and `Vrai Noir' or true black." Honestly, I was a bit taken back by the "true black" comment. "What do you mean by True Black?", I asked.
Well I guess the Agni describe fellow black people in the French langauge this way.
Bien Clair - Very light
Clair - Light
Un peu clair- A little light
Noir - Black
Vrais noir - True Black
Vrai Vrai noir - True True Black.
Of course they pointed to people in our gathering, or passers by, who fit each classification as an illustration. It made sense, and to this day I can identify a person from almost every part of West Africa by color shades, facial features, or body proportions. I can tell if an African is from East Africa as opposed to West Africa too. However, at the time I was a bit puzzled trying to distinguish the subtle difference between "clair" and "bien clair", "vrai noir" and "vrai vrai noir". Seeing the gears grinding by the puzzled look on my face, my Agni friend's further added that black shades are like Coffee. "What?", I said as my blond eyebrows when up.
Coffee with a lot of milk.
Coffee with some milk.
Coffee with just a little touch of milk.
Weak black coffee.
Black coffee.
Strong black coffee.
I jokingly asked where I would fit into this categoric system. One young man immediately offered, "Coffee with a lot of milk." Ever other Adult African male in the whole group said in loud unison French, "NOOOOOON!" and laughed. They said, "No he is not "cafe au Lait" (Coffee with milk), he's just Milk."
We had a good chuckle over that ever since. The first trip I made to the Village of Bebou- 50 km into the forest, I was introduced to the people, and the village Chief, as a "Peau Rouge" - a red skin. Meaning this guy introducing me figured I was an Indian with my strawberry blond hair and freckled arms and face. They had many a white person pass through. However, I was the first freckle faced person they had seen and they did not know what my "tribe" was to have skin like that. Must be Indian!
Man, oh man! Do I ever miss Africa today. They made this "milkman" feel like he was home.
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