The three best books I have read that capture the sometimes ironic, self-serving, and neo-colonial aspects of development work in Africa are Acts of Faith by Philip Caputo, Mating by Norman Rush, and Whites by Norman Rush. All of these books are fictional and the authors are far more cynical than I am, but the stories are still unresistable and create characters that you will be sure you met that night a few weeks ago at Agenda (Monrovia) or the Hilton (Abuja).
I just finished Whites, which is a compilation of short stories, each focusing on a different type of expatriate in Botswana. The author was the former Peace Corps director in Botswana. I wanted to post some quotes from the book that I think any person who has spent time in Africa can relate to.
This is an excerpt from a story about a Botswanan boy who is searching for a job, and comes across an American couple who need household help but don’t like the idea of having a servant:
At once I spoke of work. I said I can do yard work. I said I was homeless…He said they must forever have no servants because of some very great beliefs.
This excerpt is intentionally racist–I don’t necessarily support any of these quotes, but especially this one. I still want to post it because the quote articulates the way that some people actually think:
So there was space. She could select. Gabarone was comfortable enough. And it was full of transient men: consultants, contractors, travelers of all kinds, seekers. Embassy men were assigned for two-year tours and knew they were going to be rotated away from the scene of the crime sooner rather than later. Wives were often absent. Either way they were slow to arrive or they were incessantly away on rest and recreation in the United States or the Repbulic of South Africa. For expatriate men, the local women were a question mark. Venereal disease was pandemic, and local attitudes toward birth control came close to being surreal. She had abstained from Batswana men. She knew why. The very attractive ones seemed hard to get at. There was a feeling of danger at the proposition, probably irrational. The surplus of more familiar white types was a simple fact.
I just like this quote:
Africa was humanity walking, or rather Africans walking. Whites rode.
Again, I’m not saying I agree with any of this, just food for thought:
“Answer this question. Do you like it in Africa?” She said she did. “But you can’t quite figure out why you like, am I right?” he asked. “Because, I mean, hell, it’s inconvenient. Gabarone is dead at night, the movies are ancient and all mutilated…But sill we like it here. Drought, poor people…We want to be here anyway, but we can’t figure out why. Except that one night I figured it out. It’s because it isn’t our country and we can’t help what happens. We can offer people advice and we get paid for it. We get good vacations, we eat off the top of the food chain, we get free housing. Hey!, but we’re not responsible for what happens if Africa goes to hell, because ‘we’ve done our best.’ Also, at the same time, we’re not responsible for what happens in America, etiher, really–because, hey!, we weren’t home when it happened.”
I loved reading the quotes from the books. You didn’t need the disclaimer.
Regards.