Politically correct or culturally sensitive?

You may wonder why I haven't mentioned by name any of the African countries I allude to here. Well, let's say I am a seriously deranged person, who has suffered several traumatic experiences of citizens of the said countries accusing me, because I dared describing a situation as I lived and felt it, of hating their country and its inhabitants.

My experience is that people have culturally-ingrained traits, on top of their individual personalities. There may be rogues in "the friendliest country in West Africa" (I'm told it's Burkina Faso), but overall, all people I know who visited, stayed and even lived for some time there have very mild comments about the country and its inhabitants. On the contrary, when I told people (even expatriate citizens of my current host country) about my intention to move there, they told me "you will suffer". And indeed, I do, although I must hasten to say that I've also made what I hope will prove very long-term friends.

Discovering someone else's culture doesn't mean that you have to forsake yours, live like them or espouse their views. This opinion might be misinterpreted for despise or hatred, especially by people who know no other culture than theirs and genuinely believe there is nothing or not much "wrong" with it. It is possible they are perfectly right. The issue is not that one culture is "good" and another "wrong". One is mine and another is not. There is no judgment in this, just bare, sometimes unsavoury, facts.

Like "integration". Nice dream. Even a utopian like me had to stop believing in that. Being allegedly bi-cultural, I am supposed to be the perfect synthesis of both my father's and my mother's cultures. Stop dreaming. If you see me from afar in a crowd, you'll immediately spot me as the "odd one" in the picture. Too tall, slim, fair-skinned for the African countries where I live; too tall and dark-skinned for the European country where I was born and brought up. And that's even before I move or utter a single word.

Inside, I feel like a zebra. Outside, I look like a zebra whose stripes were blurred by someone who carelessly wiped my coat while it was still wet.