6 Things Westerners Get Wrong About Africa

Teach your children well. It's so much more than "the place with all the animals."

Misconception No. 1: The ties that bind the countries in Africa are more than geographic.

This is not "America." Africa is as much a collection of very separate and distinct individual countries that happen to share a continuous expanse of land as Europe is  --  more so, since you need a passport, a visa, and a currency exchange to travel from one country to the next. There's no cultural or even ethnic norm. When we use the demonym "African," we're being as vague as when we describe someone or something as "Asian." (Read the rest of the story on Medium.)