Africa And Our Family’s Shirley Temple Connection.

Before flying off to boarding school in Scotland at age seven, the first seven years of my life were spent in West Africa.

Because I was born at a very early age I don’t actually remember flying out to Africa as a baby but overall, I do recall some very good times…

In Sierra Leone we lived close to the ‘bush’ and we rescued many different critters including a wounded chimpanzee (which we named Chita) a deer, bush babies and the giant snakes and bird-eating spiders we saw on a regular basis would make Tarzan cringe…

At one time, my parents became concerned because I was happily speaking with the local kids in their language more than I was speaking English. You can see a photo above of a five year old Scott Oliver with his friends at school in Sierra Leone.

Mum and Dad were happy I had friends but I don’t think they were thrilled that they couldn’t understand a bloody word we were saying.

It is estimated that there are between 2,000 and 3,000 languages spoken on the African continent, with possibly as many as 8,000 dialects so you don’t have to move very far to hear people speaking a different language.

This all changed when we moved to Nigeria which is way bigger than Texas, a country of approximately 180,000,000 people (a larger population than Russia) with 500+ different languages just in this one country.

It’s surprising how many people are totally unaware of the size of Africa, did you know for example that the entire United States of America could fit into Africa three times?

It was in the mid-seventies when my parents were living in Ghana that they met the U.S. Ambassador Shirley Temple at a cocktail party in Accra. When telling the story my mother would smile and say that: “Oooch! Shirley Temple was just delightful,” but unfortunately I was in England at the time…

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Andrew Makarik

to@welovecostarica.com

Andrew Makarik is the main editor of WeLoveCostaRica, a fan of this sunny country. He is also a loving husband and a has a lovely daughter. By being a devoted family man and the biggest Costa Rica fan, he wants to make more people feel at home there. WeLoveCostaRica unites people and helps them find new home or a new travel destination. This website is a friendly community where everyone can find not only information, but also new friends and travel pals. Andrew is also passionate about IT and programming, so he himself maintains a friendly atmosphere in this cozy environment of WeLoveCostaRica.com.