When an African parent decides to tell you the story of how a Leopard ate their dog

A Canadian of African origin has inspired a thread of comments on Twitter about the relationship of African parents and their children. 

The tweep who identifies herself as Lana @lanauzi on Monday, February 15 tweeted, “African dads won’t tell u much about their childhood & then mention a random insane story every 4 months.” 

https://twitter.com/lanauzi/status/1361063256723316736?s=20

She went on to share a reminiscence from her father that seemed to fall out of the blue, “No one:/ My dad: once my friends and I ate a rat because we were starving at the border of sudan and ethiopia.” 

This inspired another tweep who seems to hail from South Sudan called Alek Akot to share too, “Me: *watches Harry Potter and the Prisoner from Azkaban*/ My mom: You know, I had to hide underneath dead bodies in the forest, when I was 15 to avoid Arab soldiers.” 

A child of immigrant parents from the African continent called C @claresajoyce then remembered the time her mother casually informed her that, “My mom: you know during the war while crossing the borders I had you in my arms & the other two poeple i was traveling with got shot right in front of me but they spared me because of my beauty.” 

The thread seemed to inspire more people to recall dropped out of heaven stories their usually taciturn parents of African background have shared. 

Michelle A. Chikaonda @machikaonda remembered the time when she was considering a pet. She tweeted, “Me: Maybe we could get a dog!/ Malawian Dad: I had a pet dog when I was a child--very loyal, never left my side. One day we were walking home from the fields, and I heard a "whoosh!" next to me. I looked--my dog was gone. Taken by a leopard. I never got another dog.” 

Her father was not done with amazing incidents from a past his child can barely relate to, “Yet my Dad, for his part, always used to tell us how *his* mother once encountered a lion on her way back from the maize mill, and walked backward the rest of the way home. "You *never* break eye contact with a lion," he would say. Stories for every generation.” 

In yet another throwaway important anecdote Utchey Gutchey @blessingnnamdi shared, “Like when pops told me he was there when the infamous Abagana massacre happened, and even stumbled upon a white man's finger that had been severed from the body. He put it inside his pocket and forgot it there o only for his mom to see it days later after d smell full everywhere.” 

From a continent that has experienced a lot of conflict, another who identified themselves as @MyshkinFool remembered the time when, “In fairness, my dad is 83 and only last year he told a story about driving a dead body around for a whole weekend when he was in the Air Force because he couldn't find a mortuary to take it to. He told this story in the same way he would have have mentioned that the traffic was heavy on the way over. I should probably add that he was driving an air force ambulance and he wasn't just a collector of corpses. He was also 19 when it happened.”