Africa Characterology – for Beginners and Advanced
The Life and a Little Bit of Characterology – or Africa for the one with strong nerves and advanced levels:
the middle class’ house here are crowded with huge armchairs and furniture of the ’70s. It feels like grandma’s house, stuffs, teddy bears, plates, lace-works. Besides these the kitchen is too empty. Day by day they buy a little bit of oil, a little bit of rice, corn, beans and sugar. Women spend their days washing clothes, dishes and in the army they spend it with uninterrupted cleaning the same way they used to do it at home. Most of the time they’re capable of travelling home from the city only to wash their teeth because they consider it very important how the outside word sees them. But they don’t spend to much energy for having an operative tap in the kitchen, a good clench, water or a tack in the bathroom where you can hang your clothes.
The place of the clench is there but the clench is missing. At the TV you can see mostly talk-shows. If by mistake there is a movie per week, it is recommended the whole previous week and even three minutes before the movie they’re screening short intros followed by 3 minutes of commercials. In Africa the soap operas imported from Nigeria are keeping the people in front of the television. These are also the main theme at the kitchen table discussions. In the news we can here the motivating speeches of politicians. It seems that not even this unanimous program is attracting people to books. If someone wants to start a failed bussines it should open a book store in Africa. Not even the schools have books and what is more, children graduate high school without ever having a book. As my discertion, it is a serious symptom if not even a college graduate has some books on its shelf.
Although a borning civilization this one is dissapearing the same way the interest for the world is. Okay, the “How to get rich at any price” opens their eyes and ears but not their knowledge. People just exist but the problem is they’re not in the right place. New times, old songs. I don’t mean the music but the mentality I’ve talked about so much. They want jeeps and modern life but all these without (efficient) work. They want modern life’s achievments (car, house, restaurant, beer) with the old way of life (i do nothing). They do nothing to get things, they only expect because they deserve to get because they are Mandela/Nyerere etc. At least they are free, I mean they think they’re free but their limitation is even higher than before. The challenge of the new world is here, they want it but they don’t know it. They struggle with this now.
What’s for sure this will last more than two generations. Sometimes I’ve met brilliant minds who are able to think in the European way but unfortunately they are just islands because anything they want to change about this situation it is too far. In the circle of college graduates only 0.01% can think and plan efficiently, understand the problems, observe the situation and solve it – this is what people with a diploma said during some discussions. Skills can not develop because of the conditions which surrounds them from their childhood: lack of toys, care and posing problems. At the school they’re made to understand, teaching them the answers like they are some parrots and not letting space for the new songs. Their knowledge is boxed like this forever. This is more than just limitation. It is only good luck if someone has the opportunity to go to Europe and see that there are other ways of solving the problems and working. It is a huge waste of energy for those few who try to maintain a project. They work only until they get foreign money because inside the borders not just that people don’t support them but they don’t even understand their mentality. From this point only the enthusiasm could hold the case, but as we know this does not exist in Africa. Here the only motivation is money. If someone does something does it for interest. Money: this is new, this is prefered.
Ideas? These doesn’t exist, they sell them during elections. Exactly, their choice for the future, for their future. But slowly there is nothing more to sell. Work is missing from the labor force, crops are missing from their soil. Africa understands only what is necessary when it sees the whip. Thinking away is hopeless. They are stocked in the present.
There were situations when someone tried to show an example thinking this is the last thing Africans need. All this ended with the man being robbed and outcasted. After this the few enthusiastic person automatically segregated because they have realized that in their countries the situation is hopeless. They started to care only for themselves. No combinations with the others. This is how intellectual islands exist, if have the possibility they send their children to study in foreign countries or private schools where (good) teachers come from foreign countries. And when they become leaders of course they don’t care of the people anymore because those already robbed and outcasted them. They live here, but live their own way. Because they don’t trust their own system (why would they trust it?) even their money goes to some other countries.
This is also a problem, the things that we got used to during the decades – education, mentality example – here is missing. Everything has its roots in education. They need motivation to learn, to want to learn! In the childhood we only have motivation from parents and society but of course this is specific only for those few from the “islands”. It is also hard when a white family adopts an african, as a friend of mine did. You can’t erase the past (and let’s don’t even talk about the old mentality). Generations are needed to erase the past and reach the changes like the enthusiasm for work or even understanding the democracy. It’s a strong teacher the one who uses (and understands) old examples to create the new way of thinking for these children. This kind of teacher is one in a million. But why the attitudes of using coca-cola were so easy to learn??
During my travels and hitchhiking I’ve met a lot of people who studied or saw Europe and you can easily observe that they are different. The eaxemple they have seen, even if its human side is not very acceptable, but it is the result of infrastructure and the standard of living. They return to Africa beliving there are other ways of doing things (better, faster, efficiently). They fight wih themselves and change their lives at least on a financial level. They get a job more easily, but the inside remains the old, but this doesn’t matter too much. Every day they eat corn flour prepared with water and roasted meat. They fail in the big city life, squat in the toilet, but at least on the level of work (morality) and money something changed in their lives. But what about the others? They will get here or they will not. There’s no need to care about them. They’ve been good until now and it won’t be different from now on neither. Now that there is electricity the music is loud, they have food and have water in the fount. The time between these activities is spent with nothing because they have nothing better to do. From Semmelweis to now there is no need for women to die when they give birth and thanks to the vaccines and the founts built up with foreign money not every second children dies anymore. This way the population = problem grows. But they did not build the infrastructure, the agriculture, industry and the most needed education system. So the situation in Africa is (and will remain) unchanged. Our teams (enthusiastic European volunteers) are fighting but is totally hopeless.
If you have anything to say I am waiting for your comments.
What do you think it is different? What are the basics?
Did I tell something new? What?
Vandorboy reports right from Honduras
