For Brothers Only: I Have A Craving…

My dear brothers:

I have a craving.

In all my brief travels to the cities of the world, particularly in Europe, and residence in North America, one prominent craving that swells through my inside and saturates my soul is a craving for the African woman. It is a craving so bad that it overwhelms my nightly insomnia into insignificance.

Do you have the same craving as me?

My brothers, this craving is entirely platonic, of unbridled purity of heart, and completely innocent in every way. No dishonorable desire accompanies this maddening craving. It is a craving for a glimpse of she who reminds me of my sisters, a sight of she who is like my mother, a peek at she who brings memories of my aunts, a gaze at she whose likeness compares to my nieces. In short, it is a craving for the presence of she without whom I am nothing — the African woman.

Now, someone somewhere said that ‘out of sight is out of mind’. Oh, how wrong he was! He was wrong a thousand times. He was wrong because he never met me. He was wrong because he never spoke to me. If he had, I would have informed him that the ‘out of sight’ of the African woman causes such ravaging mental distress to me that I am a living proof of his wrongness. But absence, someone else said, makes the heart grow fonder. Now, my brothers, that was the man of correctness! Let him speak!

My brothers, are you wondering why the presence around me of women of other races and nationalities cannot assuage my craving? You say, after all, the African women come in varying shapes and hues just like the European and American women. But, my brothers, a house is not a home. Just like the peace, the tranquility, and the serenity that come with a home, the shapes and hues and the general mannerisms of the African women are irreplaceable to a real African man.

Brothers, my understanding of the dynamics of my craving is that they are strictly esoteric and strictly nonphysical. I do not engage here in the physical comparisons of my African sisters to our sisters in the foreign nations. Nor do I compare our sisters to the women of the other races. No, my goal is more difficult. I am strictly embarked, in this letter to you, in a rather difficult project of attempting to put in words what goes on inside me when I have not seen the woman of my dreams — the African woman. For want of a better word, I call it a craving.

As I sign off, I ask myself whether I have fully conveyed to you, the reader, why only the presence of an African woman would assuage my craving when I am away from home. I answer the question in the negative. I have not done the best possible job here. But I do not ascribe this inadequacy of my writing to a failure of the English language. I ascribe it to the esoteric nature of the craving and the maddening and overwhelming mental need, which cannot be fully described in words but instead must be experienced if one is to comprehend it. Perhaps you too have this craving. Perhaps if you too have this experience, then the inadequacy of my description of this desire will not matter.