I hated it. Let me get this emotion out of the way in case you can’t decipher it throughout the rest of the text. I tried learning the African countries and their capitals and, wait for it, their currencies also, in the year 2023 or 2024. Nope, it was definitely 2023.
Why I decided to learn their currencies, I don’t know because, sincerely, it’s not even something that is relevant. It’s just like learning who discovered Mungo Park or something like that. How does that help anything? But at least it’s nice to know the African countries and capitals, as I am an African. once again, the question is: why did I add currencies? I don’t know.
Fast forward three years later, assuming I tried this in 2023, and I had the idea again to learn African countries and capitals minus, in capital letters, their currencies. I put this where I put things I’d love to do but aren’t urgent, and went on my merry way.
Before I continue, what was my result from trying to learn the African countries three years prior? Well, I think I got far because I had the guts to present it to a family member who, surprise surprise, was not impressed at all. Well, whatever.
Back to 2026. I was going through this idea dump site when I saw “learn African countries and capitals.” I was going to ignore it and continue looking for something else, something easier, when the disciplined part of me rose up to the occasion, pushed the less disciplined side out of the way, took centre stage, and I grudgingly decided to learn the African countries and capitals.
But this time around, I was older and definitely wiser. I divided it into seven. I learned seven countries per day. I tried the sing-song thing for the first day and it worked. I can still remember the sing-songy way I did it. But after that, it was over. I just did it. I did it cold turkey. Learned it by heart.
I divided Africa into four using the UN, United Nations categorisation. There was East first, then West, then North, South, and Central Africa. It was not a fun thing to do. No, it wasn’t at all. I didn’t look forward to learning it. But I just had to raw dog my way through it all.
What really, really, really got me pissed off were the spellings of the capitals of some countries. Oh my goodness. My dearest Ivory Coast slash Côte d’Ivoire. What in the world is Yamoussoukro? This one was even a bit easier because I’d learned it prior. Burkina Faso, Ouagadougou, was even simple. Yes, annoying, but simple because the spellings were made up of plenty of O’s and U’s and they just had to be together always, so it was easy for me.
But countries like Namibia, which was Windhoek, and Mauritania, which was Nouakchott. Oh my goodness. Nouakchott was just annoying. In fact, to be able to remember it, I would always think of Noah building the ark while wearing shorts. That was just my way of remembering it. Even the spelling was complicated. But in the end, I overcame.
The simplest country to learn its capital was Tunisia because I simply had to remove the “i” and the “a.” Thank you, Tunisia.
As I said earlier, it wasn’t fun at all. But what makes this especially memorable is the fact that I took something that was difficult and annoying to do and came out triumphant. And I think that’s where my joy comes from.
I also practised a lot. Whenever I wasn’t doing anything, I would just go through the countries in my head. I also asked friends and family to ask me random countries and I’d give them the capital, and vice versa. I tried doing this with AI and the frustration was just not worth it at all. So I’d either just say it myself or ask someone to quiz me on it.
In case you somehow stumbled on this and you want to see a live recording of my sister asking me about the countries and capitals, then you can listen to the full podcast episode below.
Thanks for reading.