Can you believe people think this happens in South Africa?
It's really surprising to hear what people say about South Africa and Africa as a whole, but this is taking it a little too far.
With the recent news of the lions escaping from the Kruger Park, the world has been talking and it seems the story has sparked the conversation of African misconceptions.
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In 2001, George W. Bush famously commented that "Africa is a nation that suffers from terrible disease", thereby reducing the planet's second-largest continent to a single country and so the myths go on.
Here are some of the common misconceptions.
Africa is a country not a continent
Africa is actually the second largest continent and is made up of 54 countries.
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Africa is a vast desert
Africa may house the Sahara desert that takes up only a third of the continent, but it is certainly not only desert land.
We all live in huts
Which in fact is the complete opposite. Due to the large amount of visual elements that dominate international media, people believe that all Africans live in mud huts and don't occupy some of the fastest growing cities in the world.
We have wild animals as pets
This is a common misconception and one that the lions seem to have brought up once again. No, in fact we don't all have a lion in our back yard.
African is a language
Sure, there are plenty of languages that spill over national boundaries, but African is just not one of the approximately 2,000 languages spoken on the continent.
The best thing about this is that we as South Africans aren't alone is this struggle. Cameroon sportsman Joel Embiid suffers from the same issue.
What misconceptions have you heard about South Africa and Africa?