Last semester I was sitting in Pattee, half asleep, racking my brain and skimming through the encyclopedia trying to find a suitable topic for a class assignment without much luck. Then BANG! I saw something that struck me.

I saw something the average American may just have given a passing glance -- the encyclopedia had referred to the Hausa people of parts of Nigeria and Niger as a "tribe." "What's so shocking?," you may ask. Well, Hausaland is about the size of Germany and with a population of about 23 million, by conservative estimates, there are more Hausas than there are people of the average European country.

If the Irish, British, Portugese, Czech and other peoples of Europe are not called tribes, why are the Igbos, Asantes, Swahili, Zulu and other peoples of Africa labelled as such? Time and time again I hear this sort of trash, even surprisingly enough on the game show Jeopardy.

It may not be too bad if this was the only misconception about Africa but there are even worse ones. One of the biggest reasons for these misconceptions is that people don't realize just how large Africa is. How large is it? Well, Cyril Griffith, University associate professor of history, showed me a map that best illustrates the size of the African continent. On this map, which is drawn to scale, the continental United States, Europe, India, Japan and New Zealand are superimposed onto the African mainland and still leave some space.

But people seem to think Africa is the size of Ohio or some other tiny U.S. state and this is reflected in their thinking.

I have been asked, "Do you speak African?" I reply, "Do you speak European, do you speak American?" Even worse, at a party after I was introduced to somebody, he asked, "Hey, I knew this guy from Ghana who lived in Philly, would you know him?" I replied, "I knew a Canadian family who lived in Nigeria would you know them?" I hear such lack of awareness in statements almost every day.

Other common misconceptions people have is the idea of Africa as a jungle or a desert. In reality, the savannah grasslands encompass more area than any other type of vegetation on the continent and even in the so-called jungle, what really exists is technically a tropical rain forest.

African vegetation ranges from the swamps of the Nile and Niger deltas to the deserts of the Sahara, Arabia, Namib and Kalahari. Its terrain varies from the flatlands of the savannah, to the East African rift valleys and to the Atlas, Cameroon and Futa Jalon Mountains.

Its climate varies from the hot Congo basin to the cooler Mediterranean climate in the north and the Kilimanjaro where it actually snows. From Cape Town in the south to Cairo in the north, from Dakar in the west to Mogadishu in the east, Africa is highlighted by diversity and change.

Worse misrepresentations and stereotypes than questions of terminology or size also exist. African people have been called uncivilized, primitive, jungle people and even cannibals or savages. However civilization, a word of Greek origin, means a group of people able to live together in peace and harmony, and incidentally it was first used to describe ancient Egyptians, who were African. So it can be argued that civilization originated in Africa.

There were great civilizations in Africa even before the Europeans got there. The Igbo people of Nigeria, my people and the Buganda of present day Uganda had a democratic system that was destroyed by European colonization and so-called civilization.

Yet these stereotypes persist in the West. For instance,I have been asked if Africans live in houses, "no" I answer, "they live in nests on tree tops." I have been asked what happens when we have a bad hunting season. I go to the grocery store, I tell them. Some students in a high school archery class expected me to be awesome at the sport, figuring I was a guru with the bow and arrow.

Wrong picture. Africans live in big cities, some like Dakar, Lagos, Cairo Tripoli, Kinshasha, Nairobi, Dar-es-Salam, Luanda, Johannesburg etc, are as big as the biggest cities in the United States. Africans drive cars -- not zebras -- to work in big firms or in ministries. Rather than dance around fires and throw spears for entertainment like you see on TV, they go to movies, nightclubs, pubs, watch soccer games or engage in cultural activities or ceremonies.

These misconceptions and stereotypes about Africa go back hundreds of years, when the Europeans first made contact. Before then, the Egyptians, Ethiopians, Cartheginians and other Africans were looked upon with great respect and admiration by the Arabs, Hebrews, Greeks, Romans and other people who made contact with them. But European sailors on the west coast of Africa seeing the thick vegetations assumed only bush men could live in the interior. These sailors went back to Europe and made up stories, with their vivid imaginations, of Amazon women in Dahomey and cannibal societies all over the continent. Later on more stories were made up to justify slavery. Of course Hollywood has had its impact with Tarzan movies, and many others. The trend in Hollywood seems to be to portray all African leaders as dictators.

The stereotyping and misrepresentation of Africa has occured for centuries and continues to occur. African ethnic groups have been reduced to tribes or clans, our Kings reduced to chiefs, our medicine men reduced to witch doctors, our languages reduced to dialects, armies to warriors and our people called a bunch of names. I could go on and on.

I hope I have given a more realistic picture of this great continent. But I encourage you to open your minds, read books or even fill that general education requirement by scheduling History 191 or other African courses. Even easier, check out the "Touch of Africa" an annual festivity here, showcasing African food, music and culture. This year it will be held in the HUB Ballroom on Feb. 29.