My Geography Class and Cristiano Ronaldo’s “Coming to South Africa”! [video]

In secondary school, Mazi Orji, the man who taught us Geography in Secondary Technical School Ovim, forced us to know the world’s countries and their capitals. He demanded the maps of Chicago, Boston, London and those special places in the world. And the textbook we used – Human and Physical Geography – which WAEC recommended, was written by Goh Cheng Leong, possibly a professor in America. Indeed, it was like a class in Baltimore!

In the map reading section of Geography, they presented the contours of the Everest, Mississippi River, etc and largely nothing about Africa. Magically, we knew so much about America and Europe, including the weather system, that we came up with codes: Summer JJA, Autumn SON, Winter DJF and Spring MAM (those codes represent the first alphabets of the months; you needed those codes to know the months. For harmattan and rainfall seasons – our weather cycle in Nigeria – no one had that in the syllabus).

So, I was very happy that Cristiano Ronaldo had a similar experience: they possibly taught him more about Africa than Europe and  Saudi Arabia, offering equal opportunity flip: “Cristiano Ronaldo has just completed a move to Saudi Arabian club Al Nassr, but made a slip up during his official presentation in Riyadh on Tuesday when mistakenly saying he had “come to South Africa.” Lol. Yes, it is news!

We wish CR more goals as he begins his journey in Saudi Arabia. This is beyond football, Saudi has one of the world’s leading image makers money can buy. But he needs to attend more Geography classes. Mazi Orji is available!

Perhaps the Portugal great was disorientated by the whirlwind nature of his arrival at his new club, which saw him fly out to Saudi on Monday night, before undergoing a medical the next morning and then being greeted by thousands of cheering fans at Al Nassr’s Mrsool Park stadium.

“For me it is not the end of my career to come to South Africa,” Ronaldo said at a news conference before stepping out on the field at the 25,000 capacity stadium. “I really don’t worry about what people say. I took my decision and I have responsibility to change that, but for me I’m really, really happy to be here.”

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