I've been a bit stuck, these last few months. It's become a trap of writing nothing or exploring the same kinds of events over and over. I am grateful that I haven't become complacent. I'm left with finding simple ways to inject some humanity into my daily life---asking someone's name, sharing a windfall of avocados from my storm blown tree, offering a smile, a listening ear, complimenting a beautiful fabric. It's not that I don't want to do more...but effecting change in such a country is difficult, challenging at best.
I've been reading The Bottom Billion by Paul Collier and while filled with fascinating insight, he's yet to tackle what I consider the hardest question of all. I am only about half-way through this statistical analysis of why some of the poorest countries are not able to overcome their poverty and move into a truly developing model. I've yet to encounter his suggestions (promised in the later half of the book) and nothing he's written seems overly surprising. He does even concede, with regard to aid, that a major overhaul would be necessary albeit difficult due to the fact that "aid" is a business made up of people with careers who want accolades and advancements. That in itself is contradictory to their established goal of creating improvement and self sustaining change. Were countries to become truly self-sustaining, a lot of people would be looking for new employment. Perhaps their jobs could be reconfigured to address some of the new issues that might arise were most of the world to be functioning on a truly level playing field.
Collier does discuss some roles that international governments could play. He briefly alludes to the fact that some countries, particularly those in "landlocked, resource scarce" Africa, should perhaps never have been "allowed" to become countries in the first place. Being in economics, he does not delve into the bizarre history of how those countries were formed or why, but he brushes past this point rather quickly, noting that "what's done is done. It can't really be un-done" though it seems some in Africa might differ. As African countries are dividing themselves and overthrowing dictators, one might almost feel hopeful that change is in the air. What I am really waiting for Collier to get around to discussing is the idea that Western and developed countries have a huge stake in keeping African countries in their current position. It's not really in their best interest to have full functional, well running countries in control of the very resources they are making their living from. He doesn't seem to be acknowledging the fact that many coups and rebellions as well as dictators and military generals have been wholly supported, backed and put in place by the west. But there is still the second half of the book in which he might redeem himself.
I chose this book because, living here in Congo and being in love with Africa as I am, I continue to feel dismayed and hopeless by the cycles of poverty and lack of development I see. It never gets old. Which is why I am writing again of the things I see that turn my head and remain as images, starker than any film, playing over and over again long after I've returned to my house with running water and electricity. As I struggle to free an ice cube from its prison in the tray, my fingers fumbling, my mouth watering at the coolness it promises, this is what I see:
I see her laughing in the sunshine
Talking with a friend as they washed their clothes
Bright beautiful pagnes
Laid out to dry on the grass
I’ve gotten used to many things, here in Congo
The automatic weapon slung over the shoulder
Of a policeman
Though I can’t imagine what need he would ever have
As he directs a car backing out from its parking space
I wonder vaguely if it’s loaded
If he is ever tempted
But it’s become commonplace
My thoughts around it hazy, lazy drifting thoughts
It’s just the way things are, here in Congo
I chuckle at the prices I see in the supermarkets
$150 Lego sets, board games in the $75 range
Status symbols for those who can pay
Ten times the worth of something
Made to break
In a week
They'll be back
Conspiratorially I involve a clerk
In my disbelief
Really? Is that ketchup $13? Do people really buy it?
I shake my head, I can’t imagine
But then realize,
Despite his laugh and comical reassurances
(Yes, they do, they buy it. Is it too much?)
Everything in this store is too much
He probably doesn’t buy anything
I am too ashamed to purchase
The $3 version
Of tomatoes in a bottle
I hold my breath when I see the boys
Clinging to the windows
Hanging outside the moving vans
And when I ride on the smooth hard seats
All I can see
Is how easy it would be
To go flying out the unlatched door
If we took a curve too sharp or hit a bump
Or another car
But I know transportation is hard
To come by, here in Congo
There are so many more sights
I’ve come to see
But don’t really see
You could never get through the nights
If you really paid attention
To everything
All the children on the streets
And where they go at night
Or when it’s raining
It’s not easy to tell how many have homes
They are just escaping
And how many have only their brothers
On the road to shelter them
I play a guessing game
Older than my son?
Younger than my son?
I try to imagine how he would fare
But it doesn’t help with sleeping
Here in Congo
Today I saw her from the window
Laughing with a friend
As they washed their clothes
In a puddle by the road
Such a public puddle
On a city street
I couldn’t imagine how they set out that morning
With two buckets and some laundry
Headed for this particular spot
Where the rain had collected
As we rounded again a second time
The clothes laid out to dry on the grass
A naked baby girl stood in the road
Waiting for her turn
To be scrubbed clean
“Maybe they don’t have running water at home”
Came one casual comment
It seemed to me more like
It was the home they were missing
I can see that chubby little girl
With her bright and laughing momma
Standing in the road
By the puddle
And it’s something I can’t quite get used to
Here in Congo
