Fifty-(Two) Nifty United States?

I've recently uncovered a bizarre glitch in South Africa's education on world geography. My South African friends are often boasting (or whining) that Americans know very little about African history and geography. And, for the most part, I tend to agree with them. I honestly never remember learning a single thing about Africa in geography classes growing up, and the only part of African history that I remember learning was focused more on the history of American slaves. In high school, I remember watching the movie Roots and reading Things Fall Apart, a brilliant novel by Nigerian author Chinua Achebe. That was the extent of my African studies. So, I'm forced to agree with my South African friends about the ignorance of Americans when it comes to Africa.

At the same time, I like to flip the table on these same friends and grill them on American history and geography. While most Americans would probably recognize that they don't know much about Africa, several of my South African friends think they know everything about America, simply because of all the American movies they've watched and the fact that, even in Africa, America dominates the world news. What I've found is that most Africans are equally as ignorant in their knowledge of America.

Take one friend of mine (who, for his sake, will remain anonymous), who thought that Obama was the president of both North America and South America. I tried to explain to him that those were two entirely separate and VERY different continents, with many nations and many different presidents, but I quickly gave up as I realized how much his geography teachers had failed him.

And then, my personal favorite. This is a real conversation that I had with one of my South African friends...

How many states do you think there are in the United States of America?, I asked.

Fifty-two, Wayne boldly and confidently answered. I started cracking up laughing.

Nope. There's only fifty, I replied.

He started getting defensive.

No, man, there's fifty states on the mainland. You're probably forgetting about Alaska and Hawaii.

Again, his confidence was shocking, as he tried lecturing me in American geography. Our other South African friends chimed in, backing Wayne's answer. (Apparently they all had been taught in school that there were fifty-two states as well!).

Trust me, bro, I'm not forgetting about Alaska and Hawaii. There are forty-eight states on the mainland; Alaska and Hawaii make forty-nine and fifty.

I proceeded to explain that there was a reason we have FIFTY stars on our flag, and then I proudly burst into the chorus of the song FIFTY Nifty United States (anybody else remember learning that song in elementary school?).

But not to be outdone, Wayne responded with dry sarcasm:

Oh, now I remember. You have fifty states...plus Iraq and Afghanistan! That makes fifty-two!

Touché, my friend. Touché...

Breaking News: AC to the Max Goes International!

So I've always been a pretty globally-minded kind of guy, but my blog only recently decided to hit the international stage.  In the past couple weeks I have experienced a worldwide boom in blog readership.  Thanks to Google Analytics, I'm able to track the countries, states, and even cities where people are reading this blog. Here's a list of the countries where people have visited my blog, in order from most blog hits to least:

1. United States (duh)
2. Canada
3. United Kingdom
4. Australia
   
5. Italy
6. Poland
7. Germany
8. Mauritius (island off the eastern coast of Madagascar...I had to look it up, too)
9. Chile
10. Sudan
11. Brazil
12. Costa Rica
13. Argentina
14. Mexico
15. France
16. Macedonia
17. Slovenia

A few random thoughts as I have analyzed the data.  For obvious reasons, my top four countries are English-speaking nations. My blog has been read on every continent except Asia (not counting Antarctica, of course), which interestingly enough is where I have spent more of my world travels than any other place. I suppose I'll have to make an appeal for readership from my friends in China, India, and Bhutan. Western Europe is apparently in love with me, although I've never been there nor posted about that part of the world. I've had readership in one African nation (Sudan)...well...two if you include Mauritius, but I think that is more of an island nation without any continent affiliation.  My readership covers probably 85% of the Americas (I made that statistic up, but that doesn't mean it's not true!), thanks to readers in the big countries like the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Brazil, and Argentina.

The bottom line...my blog readership is going global! So join in the fun! If you are reading this blog from somewhere outside the U.S., leave me a comment! (Ok, U.S. readers...I won't be ethnodiscriminatory...you can comment, too!)