Many people live without running water or electricity in remote, dusty villages. Many more subsist on a dollar (or less) a day.Several years ago when my husband & I were still running safari camps here in Tanzania (we were not yet married then), he took one of our overseas guests and her son to our camp airstrip for their flight out after their 3 day stay with us & just as this lady was about to board the ‘plane, she turned to my husband and said “I don’t know how you can live in a country like this. Amongst all this poverty, disease and filth. I don’t know how you can expect, or even want, your fiancée to live with you like this either”. My husband was gob smacked ….. speechless …. and insulted. (I’m not even sure exactly what he said to her !)
Just after I had my daughter, one of my family members asked me something along the lines of “What are you going to do when she gets older and sees all this poverty around her ? What are you going to say to her ? How do you explain that to a child ?” I had never thought about it before, I had never considered it to be a problem – my answer was a defensive one, but it did get me thinking …
I was born in Africa and I have grown up seeing poverty around me my whole life. I know that there is poverty in some form everywhere in the world, but I think that the difference here is that none of it is hidden. The poverty here is on every street corner … along every road you drive … in the eyes of most people you look into each day. Africa thrusts poverty in your face and forces you to breathe it in. She never lets you forget it. She will not let you look the other way.
Have I learnt to accept and live with the poverty ? Yes, I have. As harsh as that sounds. But I have not become resilient to it. At least I hope I haven’t. There is little I alone can do to solve the poverty problem in this country as a whole (which, I must just add, is not as bad as the poverty in many other African countries), but there is a lot I can do to solve the immediate poverty around me. Which is what I (we) try to do … by helping our staff and their immediate families financially, by supporting as many people here as we can, by improving the living conditions of people on the farm, by supplying water points for local villagers to come and get water from, by letting people bring their livestock in to graze on portions of the farm during times of drought … and by teaching my daughter, even as young as she is, that she is lucky to have what she has and that because she has so much, she can help those who have so little.
Is this a harsh lesson for a 3 1/2 year old to learn ? Is this one I should even be teaching her at this age ? Yes, I think that it is. Because I am (gently and age appropriately) teaching her compassion for her fellow man, courage to face the not-so-nice things in life head on and gratefulness for what she has. What’s that old saying again ? “If you know better, you do better”. It’s a harsh world out there and by sheltering her from the truth (especially a truth so blatant) I feel that I will only be harming her in the long run.
I’m proud to be an African, and I want her to grow up being proud that she is, too. Warts and all, this is Africa - our Africa and these, too, are our problems. Problems that need to be solved.... and there’s no denying that.
Just after I had my daughter, one of my family members asked me something along the lines of “What are you going to do when she gets older and sees all this poverty around her ? What are you going to say to her ? How do you explain that to a child ?” I had never thought about it before, I had never considered it to be a problem – my answer was a defensive one, but it did get me thinking …
I was born in Africa and I have grown up seeing poverty around me my whole life. I know that there is poverty in some form everywhere in the world, but I think that the difference here is that none of it is hidden. The poverty here is on every street corner … along every road you drive … in the eyes of most people you look into each day. Africa thrusts poverty in your face and forces you to breathe it in. She never lets you forget it. She will not let you look the other way.
Have I learnt to accept and live with the poverty ? Yes, I have. As harsh as that sounds. But I have not become resilient to it. At least I hope I haven’t. There is little I alone can do to solve the poverty problem in this country as a whole (which, I must just add, is not as bad as the poverty in many other African countries), but there is a lot I can do to solve the immediate poverty around me. Which is what I (we) try to do … by helping our staff and their immediate families financially, by supporting as many people here as we can, by improving the living conditions of people on the farm, by supplying water points for local villagers to come and get water from, by letting people bring their livestock in to graze on portions of the farm during times of drought … and by teaching my daughter, even as young as she is, that she is lucky to have what she has and that because she has so much, she can help those who have so little.
Is this a harsh lesson for a 3 1/2 year old to learn ? Is this one I should even be teaching her at this age ? Yes, I think that it is. Because I am (gently and age appropriately) teaching her compassion for her fellow man, courage to face the not-so-nice things in life head on and gratefulness for what she has. What’s that old saying again ? “If you know better, you do better”. It’s a harsh world out there and by sheltering her from the truth (especially a truth so blatant) I feel that I will only be harming her in the long run.
I’m proud to be an African, and I want her to grow up being proud that she is, too. Warts and all, this is Africa - our Africa and these, too, are our problems. Problems that need to be solved.... and there’s no denying that.
Reuters online published this post on 27th June '08. Click here if you'd like to see it.
