Seeing Beyond the Labels

Shot by me during the trip. Where? Possibly a city before Accra. When? Lmaooo, I dunno!

A blog version of Ope-dayo’s speech delivered physically on his lesson from the SLAC Tour at Surulere Toastmasters Club on Apr 19, 2026.

Protocols

If you meet me for the first time, you don’t know my name, I haven’t said a word, and my dressing doesn’t give anything away… Which tribe would you assume I’m from? And more importantly, how do you really know where anyone is from?

July 1st, 2024, was a typical travel day for me. The kind where you pack late at night…wake up early… rush out of the house… and arrive slightly out of breath, hoping you didn’t miss your bus.

I was on my way to Jos, my first time travelling into the core North, if we don’t count Ilorin, which borders my hometown. Nothing special. Until something unexpected happened, a few passengers were chatting and tried to involve me. But everything I heard sounded unfamiliar. Then one of them said,

“You understand Hausa, right?”

Not because I spoke. Not because I introduced myself. But simply because “I looked Hausa,” he said.

That was new. A few years earlier, the label was different: “You look Igbo” was what I often heard as an undergraduate in Ife. Same person. Different assumptions. And in that moment, I realised sometimes what we think we see and use to make life-changing or threatening decisions are just assumptions/societal labels that we don’t bother to think about.

Side Track: This is mainly because we rely on what Daniel Kahneman called System 1 Thinking in his book “Thinking, Fast and Slow.” (See Insights into the Mind: Reviewing ‘Thinking, Fast and Slow’ by Daniel Kahneman | by Courtney Simms | Medium) Or actually get the book and read 🌚

That experience connects to a number of my experiences during the SLAC tour, a trip organized by Surulere Toastmasters Club from Surulere to Lomé, Accra, and Cotonou in 8 days or so.

SLAC Tour Announcement Flier

About 18 of us. Different people. Different backgrounds. Many are meeting for the first time. But very quickly, something became clear: We were more alike than different.

Same humour.

Same complaints.

Same fatigue from constantly being on the move.

And yes, the same hunger.

Not just for food…but for growth, for experience, for becoming more.

The SLAC Tour started with something much more interesting but scary for me. Not that I planned it; it just happened. I was one of the three who ended up at the back in a gang famously called the “luggage crew”. Our assignment? Make sure the bags don’t suddenly land on our heads.

Because one wrong move…and a Ghana-Must-Go bag will reset your destiny. Then, someone stepped up. Same situation. Same bags. But the way they arranged everything? Calm. Efficient. Almost effortless. It was like they had done it many times before… and this was just another day.

Can you guess if this person is from Lagos or not? [Work with either response] Now, you might be surprised that not only is the person not from Lagos, but the person is a woman! Immediately, she became the de facto leader of the luggage crew for me. That experience was shockingly interesting.

Because, like many people, I assumed that a woman cannot be that adept at loading and offloading. It made me wonder: why do we often underestimate or shut people down simply because they don’t look, dress, or think like we want or expect them to?

If only we could travel more, we would learn to see beyond the labels more. Talking of travelling, when you do, try not to get lost.

One of SLAC Tour’s most important tests came when we got lost in Cotonou in the early hours of the first day of the Vodun Festival. Not slightly lost. Properly lost. We lost so much that some of us were moving farther away from a few others than getting closer to them. Remember, we were in a French-speaking country, so naturally, one would assume communication would be difficult. At that point, it didn’t matter who was Yoruba, from Surulere TMC or Lagos. Our gender wasn’t even a concern. All that mattered was: “Can you get help?”

Surprisingly, the more we tried… the more we realised: Many people understood English. Some even spoke Yoruba. But you wouldn’t know…until you actually speak or ask rather than assume they are all French speakers. So we switched. Everyone’s English. A Few People’s Yoruba. My Basic French, shout out to my (online) colleagues and lecturers at The Nigeria French Language Village (It’d possibly help you more than any streak you’re streaking).

So, we switched. Not to impress anyone… but to connect, to ask, to understand, and most importantly, to find our way back. Immediately, strangers became helpful. And what felt like confusion… started making sense. It taught me that, sometimes, the barrier is not people; it’s the assumptions we carry before we even try to know them. What if we hadn’t forgotten the assumption that they ONLY speak French?

C’est moi dans trois lieux differents pendant le Tour de SLAC

On that same trip, we met people from different parts of the world. Black Americans from Chicago. Asians and Whites from Australia. Some of whom were genuinely surprised that we spoke fluent English. Why? We were Blacks in a Francophone country in West Africa. At first, it sounds funny. But then it hits you: the same way you look at others and label them, others are also looking at and labeling you, often erroneously.

And that is the danger of labels: they limit how we see others and shape how others see us.

They are quick…but often wrong. Unsurprisingly, many of our assumptions and labels come from limited exposure. As Mark Twain said,

Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things can not be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.

Because when we step outside our familiar spaces. We begin to see people beyond labels. We learn and understand that:

Behind every accent…

Behind every appearance…

Behind every first impression…

Behind every story you’ve heard of a people…

There is just a human being who is more similar to you than different from you. That is the lesson travel keeps teaching me. And why I believe more people should travel. So, when are you going for your next trip?

Thank you.