Geography, and generally any topic that required memorization, was definitely one of my weaker subjects. The fact that the geography teacher would bring a few students to the board and quiz them on the previous session’s material did not seem to have any effect on me other than trying to hide myself in class in order to not get called upon. As my luck had it this particular day I was the first one called to the board. With the topic being Africa, the teacher asked me a few questions and in response I spewed whatever came to my mind. He finally asked me about the whereabouts of a certain ethnicity in Africa. Dumbfounded I blurted out that they were in northern Africa. “Ok, let’s go,” he said as he began escorting me towards the door to throw me out of class.

“But that’s what it said in the book,” I protested.

He stopped and grabbed a book and said, “Show me where you read that.”

I flipped through the pages, unsure about where I was going with this, until I came to the page with a giant map of Africa with highlighted sections of the different ethnicities. The ethnicity in question was green and I was quick to point out that there were a few blobs of it in the northern part of the continent.

“That’s hardly anything,” he responded, fully aware that I had just gotten lucky. “There’s more of it in the western side.”

Just as I thought I had dodged a bullet, he went for another assault. What type of people resided in central Africa, he wanted to know. I wanted to say black people but somehow I couldn’t say it without feeling the answer was too amateurish. So instead I responded that they were dark skinned. He once again escorted me towards the door but not before saying, “For next week, copy the entire lesson out of your book twice in your notebook.”