Kimberly is just trying to help Ifemelu feel comfortable in her home, but she nonetheless demonstrates her perception of Africa as an endless charity; indeed, she can hardly imagine going to Africa for any reason that isn’t charity related. The display makes Ifemelu uncomfortable, but it is only intensified when Ifemelu attends a party at Kimberly’s request and meets her parade of similarly well-off, guilt-ridden friends. 
Aside from one creepy man who leers at her and tells her how “gorgeous” African women are, all the conversation with Ifemelu centers on charity, and specifically how virtuous each white person is in helping to save poor Africa. And in Adichie’s eyes, when Africa isn’t desperate, it is a magical spiritual exotic earth mother, the fourth side of the incomplete story of Africa. 
But the “Mother Africa” perception is primarily associated with white people.  
Africans are connected to the earth through their food and their feet, relishing delicious organic produce and serenely feeling the dirt under their bare feet—never mind that they are also supposed to be starving and sad. Because each aspect purports to be representative of the “real Africa,” the sum Adichie presents is inherently contradictory. Only the final aspect of Western perception come close to being representative, and even that is deeply flawed. This is the perspective of the “informed” Westerner, who pulls out knowledge to impress Ifemelu and prove that they are not Western-centric. This perspective is based on some real knowledge of Africa, but more than that a desire to impress and intimidate. 
Laura, Kimberly’s sister, also overwhelms Ifemelu with facts about her own country, although with Laura her tone is vaguely malicious. 
Laura is aware of both the bad (the poverty) and the good (the education of its immigrants) of Nigeria, but, much like Don, her perception is flattened by her mysterious ulterior motive. Even those Americans who may know about Africa, Adichie suggests, are still unable to perceive it properly, and still lack some essential understanding or empathy. Together, all five aspects encompass the story of Africa that Adichie considers incomplete.
	Half of a Yellow Sun, while less replete with references to Western ignorance, is still furnished with several examples, although less relevant to Adichie’s context. 
But Richard’s “Africa” provides an interesting counterpoint. Before establishing himself in Nigeria with Kainene, he hardly seems to have an identity to himself, having merely defined himself as a “’non’-expatriate,” and only solidifies in relation to the Igbo-Ukwu roped pot that has lured him to Nigeria. 
And this love for the pots morphs into love for Kainene; his idealization of the pots and Kainene together are representative of his overall idealization of Nigeria. 
The Igbo past is “idyllic” to Richard, and he conflates Nigeria’s past with its present in his vision of an idyllic Biafra of which he is a full part. But even Richard’s idealization of Africa has a breaking point. 
Under extreme stress, Richard’s “idyllic” Nigeria collapses, only to find the seed of colonial-style racism in its place. In Richard, Adichie is putting forth a much more complicated relationship of a Westerner to Africa, in a depth not explored in Americanah. Here, Adichie is affirming that not every “story” of Africa is shallow or hostile—but it is likely, as is true with Richard, to still be flawed or incomplete.
