There is a familiar exchange across Africa that carries far more meaning than it appears. When someone asks, “How are you?” the answer is often simple, “I’m surviving.”
It is said casually, sometimes with a smile. But beneath it sits a layered truth. Surviving means things are not falling apart, yet they are not fully right either. It is an acknowledgment of pressure without inviting deeper interrogation. It is also a quiet agreement that the listener may not be ready for the whole truth.
