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Two years down, how much longer?Now that I embark on my third complete year in Zambia it's time to reflect and look forward. The book has been nearing completion for so long now that I am beginning to realise that it may never actually be finished, Every single day brings something new, an insight or a confusion that rocks my previous thoughts and ideas and invalidates my theories. In the last year, the member of staff I had considered the most intelligent and rational went completely off the rails when he accused a workmate of bringing down a witch's curse upon him. He is on remand now, believed by the police to be the brains behind an armed robbery at my camp. Old hands here nod wisely and say "It's always the one you think you can trust" in a sad sense affirming their belief and sense of impending doom for progress in the Dark Continent. Stuck in the all-day traffic jams in the thriving capital, Lusaka, it is hard to believe that this is a poor country but that is one of the peculiarities of a nation whose gross domestic product is more than one quarter made up in foreign aid money. Actually, according to the World Bank seventeen of every twenty people here live below the poverty line. For me, flip flopping between two completely diverse existences in Lusaka and the GMA has been impossible to reconcile and make sense. A development aid worker is driving his shiny white four-wheel drive along the rough road in the valley. He stops when he sees a man sitting under a shady tree smoking a rolled up cigarette of home grown tobacco. It is the aid worker's first month and he is taking time out to look around the countryside. "Tell me, my friend", the white man asks, "it is ten o'clock in the morning why are you sitting here like a lazy man?" The man lifts his hand to show three large bream on a string. "I already have my dinner so I am resting." The aid worker thinks he can advise the local and carries on. "But, surely you can catch more fish and sell them to make some money. Then you can buy a nice boat and nets and even employ men to catch fish for you. Then you will be rich and can sit and rest in the shade all day long." "But, Bwana", replies the fisherman, "I am already sitting and resting in the shade." The above is not my story. It is an apocryphal tale told around the bars and dinner tables where the aid workers congregate in town. Most people chuckle and continue with their steak but this tale has haunted me for most of the year and its dilemma has ruined my book. So now I look forward to my third year in a state of limbo. The Department of Immigration has not yet approved my self-employment permit and I therefore cannot sign the employment contracts for all the new staff at Community Camp or commit cash towards the refurbishment. It may be that the Department's decision will go against me and I will have to resort to a back-up plan. A negative decision would make no sense to my mind but I am not privy to the board's reasoning. I want to get this new project up and running, I want to build my house of mud bricks. I want to stay... |
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© Afrikeye 1999 - 2007 (certain items under permission of original copyright owner) |
