Friday, 27 June 1986: Pessimistic North Americans Discuss Rural African Development

August 5, 2:30PM, Hillcrest Community, Halfway House, South Africa 

On my arrival in Lusaka, Zambia on June 26, I met a tall, intriguing, gorgeous woman in the customs line at the airport.  Heather is an American who works for Save the Children Foundation, an international aid organization.  I asked her to have dinner with me the following night and she accepted.  While the dinner with Heather had no romantic outcome, I did have a very informative conversation with her and her three Canadian and American colleagues that she invited to join us.  And it gave me an excuse to skip the Rotary Ball.  For some reason, my discomfort in social situations seems to be directly proportional to the degree of formality involved.  Perhaps I’ve lived in Colorado too long.  Perhaps, I’ve concluded that too many people in tuxes and formal gowns act like arrogant assholes.       

On the way over to the Ridgeway Hotel where Heather was staying, I asked the Zambian cabbie, out of curiosity, how much it would it would cost me to party with a local lady for an hour or so.  At first he didn’t understand, so I got more explicit, “you know, fucky-fucky…get laid”.  Oh yes, well he figured he could find me someone for 20 or 30 kwacha (US$2.67 to $4.00).  I was really only interested in learning the price, but this guy really started the hard sell.  He was going to drop back by the Ridgeway in a couple hours to see how my “date” had turned out.  I finally convinced him not to waste his time.  

I knew the evening with Heather would probably go nowhere when I discovered she had set up a double date of sorts for drinks at the Ridgeway.  I was introduced to Mike and his wife who were around 30 and agricultural advisors on an aid program.  I learned that Heather is based in Westport, Connecticut but travels around Africa to set up and check on community development programs. Turns out, she has a master’s in agriculture. 

After the first round of gin and tonics for Mike and I (the women stuck to soda water), we were joined by Mary, another American who works for Save the Children.  She is a cute, petite blonde with glasses who works with her husband (who wasn’t along for the evening) in a village near the Zambezi River.

It was somewhat depressing talking to these people about rural development prospects in Africa.  As a matter of fact, I’m not sure why they are doing it.  I asked my usual question, “Is there a role for the white man in Africa?”  While I had received qualified to enthusiastic “yeses” when I posed this question to British expatriates in Botswana and Zimbabwe, these four pretty much agreed that, no, there isn’t.  Africa will be much better off once the whites all go home and leave the Africans to sort out their own futures.  They did make some good points.  Heather noted the ugliness of American foreign aid in the way she sees it applied: always with political strings attached.  In other words, American aid is simply an instrument of American foreign policy with its emphasis on what it contributes to us winning the East-West power struggle with the Soviets.  It’s not about helping people improve their lives just for its own sake.  Was she being overly cynical?

Mike spoke soberly about an idealist he knew who had devoted 30 years of his life to African development only to eventually realize that it had all been a waste of time.  He felt it is necessary to keep the realities of Africa in mind when trying to make a contribution.  Otherwise you wake up very disillusioned down the road. 

And what are these realities?  One of my companions pointed out that four countries in this region have the potential to feed the entire African continent because of their rich soils and generally abundant rainfall.  But the political, social, and economic climates in these countries make that a seemingly impossible dream.  I was surprised to hear that there has actually been a rural population decrease in Zambia over the past few years.  This is due to the vast number of rural people who migrate to cities like Lusaka, crowd their perimeters in squatter camps, are unable to find work, and no longer are even able to feed themselves.  There are attempts to try to get people back to the land, but the lure of the city lights thwarts these efforts.  The sharp devaluation of the kwacha in the past couple years (which would have enabled me to buy some local sex for only US$4.00 and resulting inflation have hurt the urban poor who have seen no commensurate increases in their paychecks, assuming they even get one.  Of course, a subsistence farmer would feel less pinch from the economic situation, but if he depended on a cash income from selling some of his crop, he would be screwed. 

I wondered why small famers couldn’t plant more crops given the large amount of unused or underused land in Zambia.  Mary pointed out that farmers in her village have difficulty handling the crops they do produce.  They have to work nonstop through the night to harvest a crop once it is ready or baboons eat or destroy a good portion of it.  So, forget about them trying to grow more.

They noted that family planning is a joke in Africa.  Children are the greatest source of pride and happiness for an African.  Besides, children take care of you when you grow old.  I let them know that I consider it foolish to send medical aid to Africa to assist the people with “death control” if they are unwilling to accept birth control along with it.  I wondered if Africa needs a drastic population policy such as China’s one child policy.  One of my companions pointed out that the “one-child policy” in China isn’t working all that well.  Families there want sons so female infanticide is on the rise in China and the male/female demographics are getting all screwed up. 

A couple of unpleasant notes on African health problems came up.  There is a strain of malaria going around that is resistant to the standard pills.  I first heard this from these three and it was confirmed last week by Peter, an American writer I met in Cape Town who’d gotten this resistant malaria (in Malawi or Tanzania).  Worse news is the peril of getting injections in some African countries like Zaire or Burundi.   They apparently use the same needles over and over in those places without sterilization.  We know what that means in an area which some researchers are saying was the cradle of AIDS.  Mary suggested that travelers in places like Zaire should either carry their own needles or suffer with whatever they need a shot for.  I wonder if gangrene is preferable to AIDS.

 

These government brochures were passed out on the streets of Gaborone, Botswana while I was there.  The brochure told how AIDS is contracted and how to avoid it.  Sadly, many Batswana have died from AIDS.  

 

In summary, I wonder if these Canadians and Americans were showing healthy skepticism and realism about Africa or were they too negative as a result of “burn-out”.  A little of both, I suppose.  But I came to one conclusion from this conversation which contrasts with those I’ve had with British people working in Africa.  The British have been in Africa for more than 150 years.  They understand its realities, its limitations, and its opportunities much better than we North Americans do.  Americans didn’t know shit about Africa until bunches of them started coming over here in the 1960s after the founding of the Peace Corps.  And, face it, a number of early Peace Corps programs were a flop as were a number of American aid programs.  In my opinion, it was a case of trying to apply American solutions to African problems.  Like, what good is it to supply African farmers with tractors if the local fuel distribution system and roads are so poor that they can’t get fuel to keep them running, if they can’t get spare parts when they break down, or if there are no local mechanics who know how to fix them.  Does it make more sense to provide the African farmer with a good, simple steel plow that he can pull with his oxen?  Unfortunately, Americans have become disillusioned over our failures in Africa.  They want to write off the continent.

Steel plows or tractors?  Source:  https://www.fastcompany.com/90227534/hello-tractor-and-john-deere-bring-10000-tractors-to-africa

Instead, I feel we should lower our expectations and come to Africa with the hope of learning something.  If we can make a contribution in the process, great. I also think we could learn a lot from the British.  They were certainly far from perfect colonial masters, but they’ve continued to stay involved in Africa in a big way.  Much of this involvement has been in the form of British civil servants who are employed by African governments, or private/governmental consortiums like the Botswana Development Corporation which manages hotels, businesses, and projects other than mining.  

Ultimately, African development is up to the Africans.  We can help if they say, “Could you do this for us?” or better yet, “Could you show us how to do this?”  But it’s ludicrous for us to impose our own solutions.