In blogging terms, I’ve probably committed the ultimate negligence – abandonment of blog. What is the punishment for that? Hmm, I’m not sure, but admittedly with the new ‘dimension’ of preparing to build a life with JP, Lucyinafrica has taken a backseat to our blog, jpandlucy. But in any case, as I leave Africa not knowing when or if we’ll be back here one day, it seemed fitting that I bring to a close the blog that has been ‘Lucy in Africa’.
The best way I can think to do this is share a passage from a great book I just finished reading called “Last Orders at Harrods: An African Tale” by Michael Holman. The book, and this passage, really seem to hit the mark about a lot of the paradoxes in Africa today, particularly Kenya upon which it’s based, both in terms of the domestic dynamics and the effects of the western world’s meddling in their affairs for so long. The characters include the president of the fictional country Kuwisha, wisened street urchins, the mayor, the british high commission, an idealistic aid worker called Lucy (ha), a questioning British journalist called Pearson who fancies Lucy, and a middle-aged banker called Furniver who has thrown in the towel to ‘dreary’ English life and now lives amongst the slums running a microfinance cooperative and has a very proper romance with the main character, Charity Mupanga, a local widow who also lives in the biggest urban slum in the country, Kireba (based on the real life version in Nairobi, Kibera). Charity runs ‘Harrod’s International Bar (and Nightspot)’ as a rare homely, family-friendly eat-out spot in the slums, amongst numerous shadier joints, known for it’s dough balls and chicken necks. She embodies everything you could think of the upstanding modest citizen of goodwill, the type that is found in every society even if you have to look a little harder in some. Charity Mupanga’s late husband was a well loved Anglican bishop and this was one of the sermons of his that she recalls near the end of the book…
They say there are no atheists in the trenches of war. Perhaps that is why we so often thank God in Africa. Whether we live here, or whether we are regular visitors, we thank God, or Allah, for our many deliverances, with fervour and humility.
We thank God when we arrive safely at our destination, whether by car or train, or ferry or aircraft. We thank God that the car’s brakes did not fail during long journeys on Africa’s potholed roads; we are grateful that the driver spotted the lorry ahead travelling without taillights; and give thanks that the overloaded ferry did not sink.
We give especially heartfelt thanks when we arrive safely at our destination after travelling at night, unmolested by the armed robbers that make their living along the highway, who so often seem to be dressed in uniforms stolen from the army or the police force.
We live with risk, some more than others. But we all live with it, whether the risk of Aids, or the risk of a car accident because we lack spare parts, or the risk of malaria or even worse, catching malaria that has learnt to defy pills. We thank God when we have the energy to face the day, that we do not have bilharzia, or other intestinal worms and parasites that suck the vitality of their victims.
We thank God when a child enjoys a birthday, and we thank God if he or she survives the hazards of being young in Africa. We thank God if our children are lucky in Africa’s lottery. We thank God if they are not one of the three million children who die of preventable diseases before they reach five. We thank God if they emerge numerate and literate. We are particularly thankful if it is a girl who survives, because for her the hazards of life are much greater.
We do not despair, because that is a cardinal sin, and we try not to succumb to fatalism. But instead, if one is a Christian, one soon learns from the wisdom of another faith and utters the precautionary word that reminds one of human frailty: Inshallah – God willing.
We thank God for a decent meal, because most of the 600 million souls who live on our continent go without adequate nourishment. We thank God if we live in peace, because millions of us have lives made hell by war. We thank God if we have clean water to drink, because most of us do not, and we consider ourselves especially fortunate if we do not have to walk miles to fetch it.
We thank God if we are not a refugee, on a continent where so many millions have been forced to flee their homes, seeking sanctuary within or without the country that is home.
So in Africa we thank God, or Allah, with unusual frequency. And we are especially thankful if we end the day alive and well, with a meal in our stomachs, with a bed to sleep in, and our loved ones safe. No doubt this is because there are so few of us who are so fortunate.
In fact, as I read that over again, I think it’s a message that about sums up how I feel as I leave the African continent after a short few years. Without exception, JP and I have seen others live with those risks and often ourselves been closer than we’d like to those risks, and that leaves us simply grateful for the same things that people like Charity Mupanga and her late husband were grateful for.
JP and I have mused much about this concept of feeling a ‘connection’ to the continent of Africa – something a lot of guests like ourselves feel romantically compelled towards. Neither of us wanted to be unrealistic or wistful in claiming some kind of organic connection to Africa. It would be an insult to those who really do have that, and an arrogance to suggest that we ‘know’ Africa after such a short time. Indeed, as we leave, we’re conscious how little we really know in spite of what some might consider an impressive combined count of African nations where we’ve set foot – as if quantity counts for something. Nor do we come away loathing the continent, despite all the misery which constitutes the daily landscape and the seemingly impossible concoction of problems of a magnitude that even the greatest idealist is eventually discouraged into disillusion. We leave simply richer for the small wisdom and realism which time on these soils has afforded us – wisdom like the passage above – with the hope that we’ve managed to give back as much as we’ve received.
We leave with more questions and less answers than when we started, and somehow that’s ok because at the least the ones we do have are hopefully closer to the Truth. We leave with more frustration and less satisfaction that you’d expect, but at the end of the day, it’s a bit selfish to use those as measurements because they really relate to our own sense of achievement. We leave with a respect for the continent – for it’s infinite diversity, for it’s tenacity, for it’s natural beauty, for it’s chaos, for it’s drama, for it’s colour, for all that we never got to know – without trying to single it out as being any more violent and horrific than other places on earth, simply that the brutality is sometimes smellier and less well-dressed or well-organised, and in some ways more honest. We leave not knowing whether we’ll be back there in a few months, a few years, or perhaps never again. We never really asked to come here in the first place – in both cases, it was simply ‘where the work was’ where we felt we could engage in a greater cause. Like a family that you do not get to choose, we’ve found amidst those we’ve met both individuals whom we struggle to do more than despise and kindred spirits whose imprint in our lives will last forever even if we never have the good fortune to meet again.
So without wishing to make sweeping statements about ‘Africa’, I simply say a small thank you. First name only, and without commentary or too much thought, this is my small thank you to the ‘Africans’ of all colours that have taught me a thing or two in the last few years…Zator (RIP), Celia, Shravan, Assan, Amita, Mama, Eliane, Leo the Baobab, Papa Thomas, Beatrice the Rwandan, Fr Charles, Francisca & her husband, Madeleine and her little girl who went straight to be with her Maker, Christophe, Lyly, Augustin (RIP), Abdallah, Jean Pierre, Andre, Elisa, Jacques, my dear Mama Georgette & Sister Marie-Do, Sister Helen, the Bofoes – Emmanuel & Sister Mado, Maroa, Rita the accountant, Ce the wisest Guinean, Alexis my third husband, Jean Eric and his beautiful wife and their newborn, Damas and his wife and their little one who also went straight to God, Beau, Mireille, Claude, Pomme Rouge Patrick, Jean Jacques, Chantal the seamstress, ‘Aunty’ Lesley, Diane, Aaron, Ajith, Peter, Juma, Philip the mechanic, Akile, Ann, Collins, Kolang, Jean, Luolabel, Wheelie and Ating Bang Bang and her chicken.
All the individuals above, several who’ve met death’s door or close to it during the time I’ve known them, have inspired or touched me with one or several of the following…their cheerful spirit, brute determination, faithful service, resilience, Amazonian femininity, gentleness, gratefulness, stoic recovery, ambition, entrepreneurship, patriotism, defiance of the ‘institution’, humour, acceptance, humility and compassion, service to community, love of simplicity, beauty, lightheartedness, sense of adventure, spontaneity, conscientiousness, commitment, customer service, selflessness, courage, artistic conscience, frank realism (not cynicism), hospitality, sassiness, acceptance of frailty, determination to be one of the exceptions, patience, availability, skill & precision, politeness, faithfulness, sense of hope and generosity. Amidst those individuals, some have also hurt me with hard lessons about dishonesty, trust and transparency, but a little bit of perspective is enough to notice that “hurting people hurt people” as my Mum would say, and there’s a lesson in every one.
I won’t go further. It’s too easy to get wistful and emotional from the comfort of the lobby of the hotel in Johannesburg where I write this, with the novelty of cold toes from the winter chill. But maybe it’s worth just reading once more Bishop Mupanga’s sermon above…
© Lucy O’Donoghue 2011