Lessons

And so we come to the end...


When I was travelling in Asia, every time my friend and I shouldered our wardrobe sized backpacks to set off somewhere new he would always ask "What have we learned?". Back then it was generally a list of misdemeanours - "Don't try and fit eight people in a Bangkok tuk-tuk" and so on and so on."  

Several years on, whilst there are similar lessons learned here in Africa, there should probably be a more profound point to all this shouldn't there? So as I sit here in Dar Es Salaam airport waiting for my flight home, here are some of my lessons learned:

Lesson one: Things move "pole pole" in Africa

Pole pole (pronounced poe-lay poe-lay) is Kiswahili for slowly slowly, or bit by bit. I think for many East Africans this typifies life here. Everything is slow, from the bus leaving four hours later than you expect because it wasn't quite full to a meeting arranged for 8am that eventually begins at 1 in the afternoon without a flicker of an apology.

Like most elements of East African life there are both down and up sides to this. When I was in Uganda, teenage boys looking for work would walk for two hours from the local town to use the centre's printers for their CVs and applications, only to find that the printer had no ink. Or paper. Or the power was out. Or someone had lost the key to the computer room. So they would turn around, their whole day wasted effectively and return the next day. This is just one example of thousands where time is wasted and talent is not properly developed.

On a country level it means that there are huge inefficiencies in the way developing countries operate. Consider the capital city of any European country having no power or water three days. There would be riots! Yet here this is relatively normal, meaning again things take so much longer to get done and businesses suffer.

At an individual and family level there are some upsides though for the pole pole approach to life. Parents have more time to spend with their children, friends have longer with each other, and everyone has more time to think. In Zanzibar they serve spiced coffee and ginger tea by the corners of the roads in Stone Town. Every night men gather on these corners, many of whom sit on the curbs smoking and looking into the middle distance.

I join them and realise that taking time out of your day to really think about your life, what you experienced that day, whether you are happy or not, and other big questions like what you should do is very powerful. Each African that I spoke to had a different philosophy about life which is certainly a good thing, and probably at least partly due to the time they have to spend thinking.

Lesson two: Corruption is killing this region

In Kenya I watched a policeman stopping cars and motorbike taxis on a bridge between the mainland and the island I was living on. In broad daylight, from each vehicle he would draw between 50 and 100 shillings from the driver - the equivalent of about 50p. Essentially this is legitimised robbery, for which the drivers have no recourse.

Also in Kenya I meet Evans, an intelligent guy around 20 years old who had been head boy at his high school. As well as an outstanding academic record, Evans was also a champion sprinter, and practiced boxing, kick boxing and karate. His dream was to be in the army, and frankly any army in the world would be lucky to have a soldier like him. In the UK, we would bite his hand off for a signature to join, yet in Kenya the official in charge of selection requires a bribe of over $1,000 for an applicant to be successful.

With the country now at war in Southern Somalia, this means that the army does not have the best possible soldiers, and risks unnecessary casualties because the selection policy is based on who has money to bribe rather than merit.

At government level a review of the civil service found that 2,500 employees were not just under qualified, bit completely unqualified to do their jobs. Again, this is because of bribery and nepotism.

Widespread fraud and theft hinder development. The Kenyan government recently had to refund aid money to DfID, UNICEF, USAID and other grant making organisations following a scandal where millions of dollars worth of aid money meant for education was stolen by the same department responsible for administering it.

The story is a tale across the region, and is the rust ruining the government machine. At a country level, this means that development and progress is hindered because a country will not make the best use of its people's talents and thwarting attempts to support development.

The answer to this is support organisations at grass root level to tackle corruption and demand that government and personnel act ethically and responsibly. Additionally a free and independent media is crucial to act as a check and balance against theft from the country's people, and we should be supporting organisations who help maintain freedom of speech.

Lesson three: Different attitudes to life and death

In my first week in Uganda Witness, a four year old girl studying at the local school, died whilst crossing a busy road in torrential rain.

At the time I was struck by the difference in reactions to this tragedy between Western volunteers and locals. Africans have a different perception of life, I think, because they surrounded by death all the time. With so many children falling from diseases like malaria, extremely high HIV/AIDs rates leaving vast numbers of orphans, low life expectancy and difficulties accessing healthcare in rural areas, is it any wonder that death simply becomes a normal part of life?

Of course this is desperately sad, in particular when deaths are so avoidable as in Witness's case and so many others like hers. When I met her mother, I would have done anything to bring her back, and that experience has spurred me to do what I can to support organisations which will prevent deaths like these in the future.

Funerals in East Africa tend to be big community affairs, more of a celebration than a mourning. In Kenya a highly regarded ambassador from the region died, and the funeral was the social event of the month for the entire island. In this way his life was celebrated in the best possible way, with several hundred people dancing.

This celebration of life is a big trend which I've seen here which I'll talk more about in lesson six.

Lesson four: Uncomfortable journeys are sometimes the best

Matatus (or dallah dallahs if you're in Tanzania) are shared taxis, the dominant transport form in East Africa. They are small minibuses with seats for about 12 people, and very cheap. Brightly decorated (mostly shouting support for a premier league team) they mostly have tupac blaring out of a massive sound system which is less than pleasant at 7am before you've even had a cup of coffee.

Although officially only able to accommodate 12 people, my record stands at 26 which included a man with two other men on his lap, several breast feeding women and a loose chicken.

On a journey from Ngorogor to Arusha in Tanzania, I crammed into a space which presumably the engineers at Toyota had envisaged being used as a cup holder. Squashed between the driver - a rotund woman who looked a bit like Missy Elliot and had a cool red cap - and a woman with her baby on her lap, we hurtled through the open plains as the sun set behind us painting the rolling hills, base of the mountains and road ahead of us in a stunning purple. It's one of the most spectacular landscapes I've ever seen.

I think what made this scene so beautiful was that you had to struggle through it.  Looking back on it, when I arrived at Arusha it wasn't the pain and discomfort of sitting like a contortionist for four hours that I remember, but the incredible scenery seen in the ways that locals see it every day.

Lesson five: A positive vision of East Africa

War, famine, disease, hunger - these are what the Western media portrays Africa as. A desperate place with no hope, and in serious need of support without which the entire continent would collapse.

As a fundraiser I have contributed to these stereotypes in my own work. Unfortunately responses are better to have a shocking image of a baby with flies all over his face than to have a positive image of a child receiving her school diploma.

There is a very different side of Africa though which rarely gets airplay at home. Bright, passionate, highly educated Africans with ideas and enterprise. I meet journalists, academics, entrepreneurs, doctors, artists, musicians all of whom are exceptionally talented. They talk passionately about their ideas for the future, and how frustrating it can be to work through layers of bureaucracy and corruption.

The challenge for so many African countries is how to encourage their talent to stay, with limited opportunities compared to American and Europe, it is these people who will take the development of their countries to the next level, not NGOs or foreign governments and their aid money.

In Kenya I meet a local government official who shares this view, and is beginning to seek funding for centres of excellence to be set up throughout the region. Organisations like his should provide the fuel to fire growth and progress in countries throughout Africa.

Lesson six: Living in the present

Poverty, lack of jobs, poor education, disease and corruption all restrict the choices that Africans have to make changes to the way they live. Life can be extremely hard and surrounded by tragedy. Funerals become normal and there is an acceptance that life is short.

For many, like the motorbike taxi drivers living from fare to fare, or the fishermen who struggle every day to bring in enough catch to provide food for their families,  it is very difficult to plan for the future.

Whilst I wish that more Africans would save and plan, in particular rather than drinking local beer which is a huge problem across all of the countries I visited, their is some wisdom in living in the present.

All of the people that I met, every single one recognised what was good about his or her life, and to appreciate what they have and who they have in their lives. The genuine joy that comes with infectious laughter, or their desire to dance at any opportunity was amazing to be around.

To live in the present means not to either yearn for the past, or obsess with a particular future. To enjoy the pure moments around us all the time, that don't cost a lot of money, and that are common to all of us, wherever we come from.

This is the single most important lesson for me. To not only see what has always been in front of me, but to actively seek out more genuine experiences from my life because I can. Because I am blessed with that choice.

If something in your life is making you unhappy, then you have the power to change it. If you have always had the urge to achieve something, or try something new, then do it. If you are presented with a safe choice and something new, then choose something new - this is what life is. Our collective experiences. In the main we are blessed with choices in the West, we just need to think and question ourselves to realise what they are.

A simple piece of research into what people perceived the meaning of life found that life was essentially two things. The things you did and the people you met. That's it. So enjoy both, now, in the present rather than wishing we were somewhere else or worrying about what other people might think or say.

I have had the pleasure of meeting some amazing people over the last three months, they have taught me so much about the simple but essential truths in life. They have helped me rediscover something that was lost in me, a curiosity about people and how they live and a thirst to discover and understand and to help. 

There are huge problems in this region and I fully plan to come back here soon to work in the field, and to continue with some of the work I've started. I am back in the UK for four to six months, before I plan to leave the UK permanently.

Thanks for reading. Hopefully you haven't choked on all the clichés.