the third and most insidious expat disease is:
is...I'm afraid to spell that word,
but is: racism.
there are two different shape of racism.
The first one, and the most simple to explain, is the racism against institutions. If you work in Tibet you end up hating Chinese government, that all see and preview, and if you work in Palestine, at the end you hate the government that prevent you to give basic service to women and children.
The second one is more difficult to explain. Maybe because, fortunately, I'd never fell in that trap.
Let me try to explain: you come from a so called developed country. You have social security, free education, democracy, newspapers, hundred of choice for university, motorbike with compulsory helmet, traffic lights, and credible policemen. And you have the right of all this.
You arrive to a country where there is not even water. Where communities are left alone to solve their basic problems because government cannot, economically, take care of them.
And then you start to visit the communities to identify the felt needs, and they tell you they are missing water. And in the meanwhile it's raining cats and dogs.
And so you simply ask: why you do not put a bucket now, to harvest enough water at least to cook and wash dishes today?
And the answer is: Ahhhh!
But then they don't.
Why?
Why the hell Masaai do not put a fucking bucket to collect water when it's raining?
The fact is they are not really waiting for the Mzungu to come like an Harry Potter and waving the stick, solving the problem.
The fact is that life is like this.
Always been.
Since centuries ago.
And whites are coming spreading incomprehensive circumlocutions about cooperation and community building.
And if at the end, they have a tap close to their house, they say: thanks god. Of course, thanks to the NGO, but thank god who brought the NGO to us.
This kind of racism, the one who make you think that some communities are hopeless, usually come to people who lived for more than ten years in the same developing country, in this case, in my mind, Tanzania.
They see the infinitive possibilities they have, and they see them not taking advance from them.
You loose hope, and you start to hate them for what they are loosing.
I saw a girl, the day before resign, saying 'bloody monkeys' to a community. She was definitely burned out, and,
she was crying.
She could not understand.
For me, I was lucky.
I understood all the day I saw a woman deliver a couple of twins in a Masaai hut.
They called me to drive her to an hospital because she was too far in pain.
I was waiting out of the hut, at 6 in the morning, and then the father came to tell me that was all gone, and everything went good, and I could go to work.
The thing that surprised me?
She never screamed.
is...I'm afraid to spell that word,
but is: racism.
there are two different shape of racism.
The first one, and the most simple to explain, is the racism against institutions. If you work in Tibet you end up hating Chinese government, that all see and preview, and if you work in Palestine, at the end you hate the government that prevent you to give basic service to women and children.
The second one is more difficult to explain. Maybe because, fortunately, I'd never fell in that trap.
Let me try to explain: you come from a so called developed country. You have social security, free education, democracy, newspapers, hundred of choice for university, motorbike with compulsory helmet, traffic lights, and credible policemen. And you have the right of all this.
You arrive to a country where there is not even water. Where communities are left alone to solve their basic problems because government cannot, economically, take care of them.
And then you start to visit the communities to identify the felt needs, and they tell you they are missing water. And in the meanwhile it's raining cats and dogs.
And so you simply ask: why you do not put a bucket now, to harvest enough water at least to cook and wash dishes today?
And the answer is: Ahhhh!
But then they don't.
Why?
Why the hell Masaai do not put a fucking bucket to collect water when it's raining?
The fact is they are not really waiting for the Mzungu to come like an Harry Potter and waving the stick, solving the problem.
The fact is that life is like this.
Always been.
Since centuries ago.
And if at the end, they have a tap close to their house, they say: thanks god. Of course, thanks to the NGO, but thank god who brought the NGO to us.
This kind of racism, the one who make you think that some communities are hopeless, usually come to people who lived for more than ten years in the same developing country, in this case, in my mind, Tanzania.
They see the infinitive possibilities they have, and they see them not taking advance from them.
You loose hope, and you start to hate them for what they are loosing.
I saw a girl, the day before resign, saying 'bloody monkeys' to a community. She was definitely burned out, and,
she was crying.
She could not understand.
For me, I was lucky.
I understood all the day I saw a woman deliver a couple of twins in a Masaai hut.
They called me to drive her to an hospital because she was too far in pain.
I was waiting out of the hut, at 6 in the morning, and then the father came to tell me that was all gone, and everything went good, and I could go to work.
The thing that surprised me?
She never screamed.
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| first bucket of water celebration |
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