There has been some talk of Obama’s trip to Africa. I was in Africa when he was inaugurated, and the general feeling was that all their Christmases had come at once. It was about that time that we were having some difficulty with both power and running water.
Sometimes the water would cut out because the ablutions used by the African troops were routinely abused and the broken plumbing would leak all the water out of the tank that supplied our part of the compound. The other time we would lose running water was when we would lose power. When the power went out, so did the pump for the water, so that was a two-for. Now, I realise that not showering for a few days is hardly deserving of a VC out of petty cash, but it was a pain in the proverbial because we were entirely self-sufficient for rationing. Cooking our own food meant that we was some small measure of quality control for what went into our mouths, at least from the point that the ingredients came into our possession. It also meant the usual domestic by-product of meal production – dishes. After a while with no water, we would start to run out of clean dishes to cook and eat with.
After nearly a week of very intermittent water supply, one of the German police I lived with had had enough. He marched over to the camp manager’s office to give him a good old Teutonic performance counselling session. Having delivered his opinion of the situation and the competence of those who were responsible for its remedy, the local just smiled and said “Everything will be OK now, Obama is President and he will fix everything.”
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5 comments:
Two words - "cargo cult".
The amazing thing was that it wasn't some guy who cleaned the lavs, he was an educated, English speaking guy. It was just astounding how fervently he BELIEVED that it was true. Somehow, Obama was so omnipotent that he would; while healing the world, cooling the planet, and stopping the rise of the oceans, take time out of his busy day to fix the water shortage we had in Bumf*ck Africa. It was so certain that he didn't need to do anything to fix the problem himself.
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My brother in law is up in PNG on a teaching gig. I'm sure he well knows the pidgin for "white man will fix it".
It must be an eternal frustration for those of a conservative mindset to be confronted with belief in change. The first step in any change for the better is the belief that it is possible.
Interesting description of the African as "educated, English speaking.." In contrast no doubt to the rest of the "lesser breeds outside the law".
Also interesting to note the obvious respect you feel ("Bumf*ck Africa") for the country of your last posting. Hopefully your sense of superiority wasn't obvious to those you were assisting.
This guy was getting paid good money to make sure that the 500 odd people who lived in the camp for which he was responsible had access to trivial little things like water. When confronted with a failure on his part to provide said triviality, his response was that all would be OK because Obama would fix it. That wasn’t his long term hope for the future. That was his plan for getting the water running again.
As for the reference to Bumf*ck Africa, it really was smack in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by desert with no rail, one road, and an airstrip. It was hardly number one priority on the US administration’s to-do list in the week of the inauguration.
His ability to speak English is most definitely a sign of his education. While that does not immediately disqualify someone who doesn’t speak English from being described as well educated, it is an indicator in a country where English is not spoken that this guy was able to do so. How that equates to anyone else being outside the law, you’ll have to enlighten me.
As for a sense of superiority, it was my experience that the reverse was true. In a 90% African manned mission (2% European or “Anglosphere” and 8% other – Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Indonesian, Thai etc), people of lighter complexion were not the “establishment”. Planning input was often dismissed as “not the African way” and allowances were made for Africans that were not made for anyone else. We were also often viewed as an easy mark for exploitation. Random Africans (deployed troops from other countries - not locals) would wander into our accommodation asking for our food, clothes, shoes etc, and were quite put out when they were declined. In fact, when I left the number of white faces was rapidly diminishing as the government made every effort to ensure that those pesky western democracies weren’t going to interfere in their nasty little war.
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