What Have We Done for Them Lately?

One of the most gratifying and surprising discoveries of our trip has been learning about the kind of work that Zambians do to help Zambians. Let me begin by saying- they do a lot, I mean A LOT- which flies directly in the face of arguments claiming that the only way Africa will develop (or the jobless in America will get jobs or the homeless get homes etc) is when the people learn to help themselves. I guess the point is that clearly, both systemic reform of the (global) economy (ie, the system of rules in which you try to get a job or a home or develop your country) and the commitment of “disadvantaged” people are both necessary. More on global reform later… back to the real stars of this blog entry, Zambians.

In particular, we are both impressed by two of our friends. One is graduating from the University of Zambia this December with extremely high grades and a major in Psychology. Jacqueline is 26, smart, funny, informed, and a single mother of a beautiful 5-year-old boy. Despite the difficulties of single parenthood, she has gotten through school and is looking for a job… and looking… and looking. Jackie has very little chance of finding a job or having any income for the 14-18 months, despite the fact that she is smart and qualified enough to go to grad school in the US- even to apply for a Rhodes Scholarship at Oxford (not that she had even considered or been told of these options)! She explains that her only chance at a job is with the government as a teacher in a secondary school or community college, a job for which she will train for 6 weeks after graduation. She will hear whether she has been hired after 8-12 months, report to her post and then wait another 3-6 months to be put on the payroll. In the meantime, she keeps herself busy raising her son, studying for final exams, preparing for her teacher training and volunteering. Jackie primarily volunteers as an AIDS testing counselor, although she has also volunteered as a teacher and with the homeless and orphans. At the AIDS clinic, her job is to talk to people when they decide they may want to get tested for AIDS, help them make that decision, and then counsel them when they get the results- positive or negative. From the stories she shares, this is a pretty grueling process and a very demanding job- especially for a volunteer.

(We’ll get back to Jackie’s stories and more general attitudes about AIDS in another blog entry because awareness of this pandemic has colored many of the exchanges we have had with the majority of you both before and during our trip. We’ve been asking a lot of questions and in our next blog entry, we figured we’d share our findings.)

I commented to Sean before we left that he would find plenty to do in Africa because NGOs are as common on the continent as McDonalds or Burger King in the US (or, if you live in Chicago, as common as Walgreens and CVS). There is literally one on every corner- and usually a few more than that. NGOs are non-governmental organizations that do humanitarian work, usually on a non-profit basis, across the world… this is a surprisingly large sector of the global workforce, especially when you count volunteers. A few examples include Habitat for Humanity or Doctors without Borders. Many NGOs are small and work at a very local level with a small community of people. These ubiquitous NGOs are staffed by both paid ex-pats with some kind of specialized skills or qualifications and locals- usually on a volunteer basis.

When we arrived and Sean began to probe around for some volunteer work with local NGOs he met Billy. Billy is 24, and a university graduate. He lives in Lusaka and spends almost all of his time working for multiple NGOs - mostly on a volunteer basis. Let me repeat that. He spends his time not looking for ways to make an extra thousand kwacha or two (25-50 cents- remember, the kwacha was equal to the GB pound only 41 years ago and now it is 7600 kwacha to the pound!!) but spends it doing work with Habitat for Humanity, screening applicants and organizing financial backers for the builds. He also works doing the very hard manual labor of building the cinder block homes- the ones that Sean talks about that the volunteers from local businesses and embassies don’t quite get done in their annual half day of volunteer work. Billy also gets paid a small wage helping to organize a new NGO that works with orphans (and streetkids who bust in on the events), building relationships and skillsets to help them reintegrate into society. Billy basically lives hand to mouth, staying with family and paying for some food, but when he has extra time, he shares it with others who he considers worse off than himself because they don’t have family to live with or a home to stay in.

In the US, Billy, as a worker living a hand to mouth existence, would be eligible for programs run by NGOs who help such people have the chance to finish high school or technical training and get ahead, save for the American dream of a small home or even for retirement or access to medical care. Jackie would be eligible for special scholarships and internships and would probably find a job. They would also be eligible for government programs. But here, they both choose to be on the side that gives. The amazing part is that there seems to be a whole youth movement oriented towards volunteering- a kind of “national service by choice” among those in their 20s who are unable to get a job. They expect themselves and others to spend a large proportion of their work hours helping people in their community.

Sean and I talk about Billy and Jackie a lot and we are impressed. I spend my time researching- reconstructing the history of an African community because I have the time and skill and members of that community have neither. Supposedly, I am preserving the culture of a people who are not able to do it themselves. Winning a $33K government grant forces the US government to invest that much more into the Zambian economy- and it is a lot more because it is helping each research assistant get through another few months. But this dissertation will help me get a job and its publication will help me get a raise, so I get more out of it than any African who ancestors were those who actually created the world I am trying to recreate. Perhaps what I am able to contribute is a sense of respect for the people I am learning from during my research. In my research, I don’t treat them as victims or the needy; I am the needy student and they are the teacher and they are tickled pink that some random American wants to learn about their specialized knowledge. In fact, they feel that it is entirely appropriate that Americans should know the history, culture and language of a small African tribe- after all, as they remind me, they know the history, culture and language of my tribe. In fact, most Zambians know more about US geography, economy and history than many of my freshman at Northwestern University.

Sean works side by side with Billy a few days a week. He is also creating a short documentary film for Habitat to use to woo new donors and volunteers. I suppose it will go on his CV, but the real benefit stays here as a new home for another family- or for several more families. Billy will make sure of that.

When people like Jackie and Billy ask about canceling The Debt and providing AIDS funds that are not linked to promoting abstinence but also condom use, etc., I think that they are justified in asking what we’ve done for them lately because they are doing a heck of a lot with what little they have.
· $100 will feed 100+ orphans and street children a meal at one of the sessions Sean and Billy work at (Action for Children).
· $12 will provide ARVs (medications) for a month for an HIV positive person.
· $4000 will build a new house with Habitat for Humanity.
· $4 will buy a mosquito net to prevent malaria for the life of the net. Then again, $2 will buy the medicine necessary to cure malaria. But people don’t have the extra cash laying around for such expenses- medicine, food, housing.
When Billy or Jackie tell us these things, tell us these low costs, tell us how the volunteer workers mean that there is no overhead, you can understand why there are so many NGOs that function here and make a difference.

But with all this effort, all this energy, there must be other reasons that Africa remains undeveloped; it certainly can’t just be that people here don’t care or won’t change. It can’t just be corrupt politicians because there are court cases everyday in the news, in which politicians are being prosecuted by the Anti-Corruption Coalition (just ask Sean who has a habit of stopping by the High Court of the Republic of Zambia… for directions- so embarrassing!) The cause must be complicated and it must have something to do with a long history of economies oriented towards exporting raw goods and importing manufactured goods made with their own raw goods in Western countries; it must have something to do with “fair-weather fair trade policies” (like the US government keeping corn and wheat prices low by subsidizing US farmers and US farming corporations- prices so low even an African farmer, if he could get his crops to the US, could not live off the profit- but, hurrah for the South American cotton farmers who took the US to the World Trade Organization, which found the US guilty of inhibiting free trade!); it must have something to do with debt because most third-world governments have been spending more in loan interest payments TO rich countries than they have been receiving in loans to develop FROM rich countries- yes, that is the rich countries profiting off the poor ones (probably not the original intention and hence the movement for debt relief that gathered force in 2001).

Jackie and Billy are up against a lot. What have we done for them lately? Well, we shared what little we have done (Sean certainly more than me!). Maybe you don’t work 30 hours a week helping the poor in Africa like Jackie and Billy (and sometimes Sean) do. Maybe you don’t donate money unless there is a movement for a specific need like tsunamis and hurricanes. After all, it is pretty hard to give to a cause that is constant and seemingly impenetrable like AIDS and malaria and homelessness- it feels like you are just throwing money out the window even though you are saving a life. Anyway, should Africa feature on the radar screen of an average American’s set of interests and concerns? Who gets to decide how Africa is portrayed- Africans? NGOs soliciting donations in advertisements? Media? Or ignorance.

All that aside, you certainly did make it through this very long entry and maybe learned something you didn’t know before- about Africa or about mundane things like buying bread and drinking fair trade coffee. More importantly, maybe it gave you hope that by the choices and actions of her people, Africa is not the Hopeless Continent, or even a Dark one.

And maybe that inspired you to realize the incredible power of your own choices and actions. That is to say, when you learn about these Zambians who, by our standards, have nothing but do so much, don’t you suddenly feel like you can do a lot?