What I've been up to in New Zealand
25th March 2007
I remember talking to a young American girl on a taxi
whilst we heading through impoverished Africa. I was pointing out
how Africa would really benefit from things such as roads, electricity,
proper health care, education and so on (and on...). I thought it
would have a great affect on their economy. The would get some
disposable income and could even eventually afford some luxury goods.
She seemed to find the whole idea quite repulsive. She
thought it would be a shame if Africa lost its Africa-ness and became
just another western clone. She thought it would be much better
if Africa stuck to its traditional ways.
She was, in a word, wrong. It is almost like economy is a dirty word*. Africa needs a good economy.
But she does raise an interesting question. What would
Africa look like if all the plans right minded people had came to
fruition?
Would Africans be doing the things that I am doing now?
At the moment, I've been some doing several temporary jobs.
First at a recruiting agency, then to a funds management company,
and then back to the recruitment agency. The people I've worked with
have been lovely, but the work itself is fairly dull. I've been
ringing people up and either conducting phone interviews or
asking if they've had any change of circumstances that make require a
change in their will.
Now I could throw around terms like "Cubicle City" or
"Corporate Hell" at this point, but I don't think that would be very
fair. Those are all very negative terms.
One of the best ways to envision how an flourishing Africa
might look like would be to ask the Africans. I can
guarantee that if I told the ladies in www.GrassRootsUganda.com
that I could get them a phone job in a large high-rise building and
that they could guarantee an education and three meals a day for their
family, that just about all of them would take it. The "lucky"
ladies are merely extremely poor and are eeking out a meager living on
the farm. The "unlucky" ones are breaking rocks and dodging
bullets. Why wouldn't you take the office job?
I think my friends fear was grounded in Africa loosing in
Africa-ness, which I would agree would be a shame. But a thriving
economy can co-exist with a rich culture. They are not mutually
exclusive.
I did not particularly like my job. I am happy doing it
for a few weeks to raise some funds. It is a means to an end and
nothing more. It has reminded me that this is not what to do with
my life (emphasis on the word my). I've been at my most miserable in a "cubicle city" and my most happiest in places like Kitgum. So I am going to chose to live my life in places like Kitgum.
Incidentally, I also got into an argument over corruption with
the same American girl. She had just started working with a
poltician who, she said, wanted to import some goods for charity
orgainsations and do it himself so as to avoid beaurarcay. I said
it wasn't beaurarcy and was almost certainly corruption. She got
angry and gave me a big lecture about how this was a good politician
and I couldn't just assume he was corrupt. I pointed out that it
is just the way things work here. To thrive in a corrupt system,
you have to be corrupt yourself. This just made her angrier and I
was being somewhat judgemental.
I was interested to learn that she later resigned her
position. Rumour has it that when they were handling some
charitable donations he offered some of it to her "for all her hard
work".
* "Economy" isn't a dirty word, Blackadder. "Crevice" is a dirty word, but
"Economy" isn't
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Do you like the work that I am doing?
Wanna help in a real and tangible way?
Then visit GrassRootsUganda.com
and purchase some crafts made by Ugandan ladies. 100% of the profits
are returned to the ladies
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(c)
2005, 2006 and 2007 Malcolm Trevena.
All the stuff on this site is written by me, Malcolm Trevena. Feel free to
link to this page. Heck, you can even copy stuff from here if you
want. Just make sure you sight me as a reference.
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