Giving Up..

Watching a nun decked out in her garb while carrying a Sacramento Kings backpack, I couldn’t help but smile and think that I will miss Africa for the next three months. The last four months here have been very hard, but at the same time I am very grateful for this time. During the past four months I have been able to do some very interesting research which in my idealistic world will contribute to increasing global health system’s efficiency. I have made friends, learned some French and learned a lot about global health systems.

In a way I am giving up because I signed on to be here from June-April. However, for my own mental health I needed to take a break for these next three months. I will be returning in January and staying for 3-4 more months at that time. My American drive to be productive makes it a lot harder because a lot of the work I was doing was on the computer and could be done in Florida. It is really hard to give up on something that I wanted to do and to see my own limitations. I am not usually one to quit, but I think the process of leaving is a humbling experience as well as explaining it over and over during the next few months.

I am currently sitting in Nairobi second-guessing my decision to leave and wondering if I could have forced myself through another 6 months in the country. However, when I take a deep breath and am honest with myself, I realize that I am not invincible and I need other people. I think the hardest part of the past four months is that I have been in essential isolation for at least 75% of the time. Much of this wasn’t my choice which made it even harder. I was getting some good ideas for a book and I wrote the first few chapters, but I would rather sacrifice a Dostoyevsky-esque novel for peace of mind and relationships.

I will miss Africa. I think part of it is because it is easy to idealize what you don’t have and I am sure that home will become less desirable than it seems right now. However, sometimes you have a gut feeling that you should do something and the fact that all of the appropriate authorities agreed seems to be further confirmation. I will miss the staring, the “good morning’s” at 9 PM, the crowded buses, Bugesera, observing the health system and becoming friends with a few people in Nyamata. However, the fact that I will be returning in a few months assuages my guilt and right now I am looking forward to being home.

 

Poverty has no future

Poverty has no Future

 

No! This rant is not going to be an optimistic panegyric about the hopeful expectation of eradicating, eliminating, obliterating (or any other dramatic, euphonious word) poverty. Rather, this may turn out to be a castigation of the structures that enhance poverty as well as a reproach to those who intensify poverty’s effects—the poor.

Yes, the poor. Of course it is not popular to criticize the poor; but, many of the problems that affect them are initiated by their own poor (get it?) choices. I am hesitant to lay full blame on the poor for their situation, but I also believe that it is more humanizing to give them credit for their situation rather than treating them as if they were mere victims of circumstance. The structures that purport to further development have, without a doubt, advanced the misguided priorities of many of the poor; however, ultimately the poor must decide for themselves.

Before I go much further I should define what I mean by poor. In Africa we have those who live on less than $1 dollar a day and their immense poverty forces them into a battle for survival. However, there is another class of poor who make around $5-10 dollars a day ($1,826-$3,653) and are able to make decisions about their future. When I refer to the poor, I am referring to the latter category.

Materialism is rampant amongst the poor. Of course, you wouldn’t think that someone who is making $10 per day would have many options, but then again, you would be wrong. Living in the heart of Africa with an archetypal African has given me a lot perspective which is hard to gain from reading the bleeding heart stories that come out of the NGO’s and Multi-National aid efforts.

Celestine is a typical “middle-class” African—poor. He works at the hospital as a nurse, rents a comfortable house and is soon to be engaged and married (Apparently that happens in tandem here). The last month of living with him has led me to understand that the poor can be materialistic in many of the same ways as we are in the West. Example: Celestine has told me repeatedly that it is imperative for him to buy a radio before he gets married. This seems like a rather simple item to purchase until you understand that he wants to buy a stereo system that costs around $600. Keep in mind that he makes around $3,500 per year, thus this purchase would be approximately 17% of his annual income. He has implored me on numerous occasions to bring him a radio from the USA when I come back from Christmas (ok, flying home for Christmas is about 60% of his annual salary).

We live in a house that is a lot nicer than most of the people around us. Celestine uses approximately 50% of his monthly salary to rent this house that is too big for him, but is impressive to his many friends who come to visit us. Of course this has lead to his impotence to save any money or to plan for the future. Due to the exorbitant expenditures that are expected of a groom, he feels the pressure to spend approximately $5,000- $7,000 dollars for his wedding. So do you take a loan for your wedding? YES!!! (This rings true with my own experience of American weddings).

Materialism is something that has been infused in our psyche and it may be something that we inherit at birth whether we want it or not. Celestine lives each day without any savings and he spends generously on his friends as he has money. This is one part of the African materialism that I think we would do well to learn from—being generous and valuing relationships, but I will save that for another rant. He will expend all of his energy and resources for a television, radio, or even his wedding, but will have a hard time buying food for his new wife. The image of success is much more important than reality.

When I say poverty has no future, I mean exactly that. The poor who have an infusion of materialism refuse to think about the future because the most important thing is to look good today. Granted, I think the provision of aid and other mechanisms have contributed to this mindset as well as the short life expectancy which has potential to reinforce a tendency to live from “paycheck to paycheck.” However, the majority of the responsibility for these decisions falls squarely on those who make them—the poor.

Like Chuck Paluhnik and later Brad Pitt in the guise of Tyler Durden who was really the imagination of Ed Norton’s character said, “We work jobs we hate to buy shit we don’t need.”

Sounds a lot like us huh?