Africa is uncivilized, dangerous, wild, poor, sick, AIDS stricken, hungry. Africa needs help from the West to stay alive. Africans are welcoming the Westerns with open arms to quench their thirst for new knowledge and skills. These are some of the things that I heard about “The Dark Continent “ before I got a chance to see it with my own eyes.
Being guilty of blindly adopting the global main-stream view on Africa, characterized by pure ignorance and false knowledge, my experience of living and working in Uganda completely changed my perspectives about the continent and rightfully so humbled me. What I found was a far cry from the picture that I formed in the West. I think it is more accurate to presume that the majority of the world has little idea of what Africa is. Without a clear vision and understanding of Africa’s reason d’etre, it is almost impossible to portray it without some bias, wrongly seeded fears and prejudges.
My direct experiences and encounters with the country and its people made me paint a not so straightforward picture of the African reality. The African reality, it turns out, is twisted, contradictory, and non-linear. The major revelations that descended upon me while in Uganda include issues on agriculture, foreign aid, education, and religion.
1. Idling rural population
After having interviewed 150 farmers and visiting more than 80 villages in central Uganda, I saw one thing that was in common – idling rural population. Many men of all ages were already intoxicated at ten in the morning. Women were reclining on hand-made mats on their porches and having yet another tea break well before noon. The youth were playing pool or just loitering around a village doing exactly nothing. It was shocking to see the level of inactivity and apathy inhabiting the villages.
These villages show that Ugandan life, malnourished, orphaned, uneducated, and destitute, was an order of the day. When offered help in a form of knowledge, it was turned down, ignored or even upsetting to some as knowledge carries little importance. One cannot eat or buy things with knowledge. The rewards of immediacy are more desired than a long-lasting change as hopelessness coupled with the uncertainly of tomorrow compels people to live one day at a time.
2. Foreign aid does not work
Exuberantly large amounts of foreign aid have been wasted without any meaningful change. New practices, knowledge, technologies and services, that were supposed to transform the continent into flourishing industrial economies, have not lived up to their expectations – they are not being adopted. As soon as a development project leaves, it’s a matter of time before its benefits are irreversibly erased and the old order of things installs and prevails.
The problem lies in the outsiders trying to fix African problems with the tools and thinking that are created by and for the West. Outsider solutions do not consider local climate, culture, traditions, mindset, work ethic, values, and attitudes. This explains Westerners’ frustration with the lack of initiative and the inability of the natives to think beyond today and outside one’s village.
Another issue with the foreign aid is its geographic distribution. In Uganda, I never saw a UN or USAID or any other foreign aid vehicle in remote, isolated villages that truly need help. I’ve been to villages where I was the first white person to visit and as such, people asked me for help. AIDS orphans, education, jobs, agricultural inputs are just a few issues with which I was asked to help. But I did see foreign aid vehicles in urban areas, which tells me that the help is being concentrated in the wrong places, in the places that are more comfortable to foreign aid workers.
3. Lack of education
The majority of farmers are barely educated which comes with a lot of burden, a burden that is even unregistered by the farmers themselves. Uneducated farmers are unable to connect changing biophysical conditions of their land and region to poor crop yields; nonexistent infrastructure to marketing and sells; better lives to savings and new investments; poor post harvest handling to food security. The lack of education affects farmers on every single level and puts a wall between them and the outside world.
To say that an educated person is a solution to agricultural development is wrong because the current educational system is poorly designed.
Even the educated ones lack self-initiative to be creative and to circumnavigate the challenges of ever day life. In Africa the role of education is to make people obedient and subservient through physical and emotional abuse. In schools the wrong answers earn you canning and mockery. People learn not to speak up and accept everything as is. This partially explains why many activities, even the ones that bring little or no benefit at all, are still being practiced. The lack of education propels the believes in witchcraft, superstition, gender inequality, hierarchical systems, justified male dominance.
4. Missionaries are not helping Africa
After visiting Acholiland, northern Uganda, and talking to Karamojon people I learnt that the missionaries encouraged people to abandon their customs and language in favor of western tradition. The people resisted and preserved their identities to this day. Their societies are still governed by oral laws that promote communal cooperation and strengthening of social ties. The communities that I visited are completely self-sufficient and derive their livehoods not only from agricultural activities but also from making crafts and dancing for tourists.
Missionaries contribute to the problem of abandoned children. First, they are heavily involved in building orphanages and baby homes all over the country, which makes it easier for Ugandan women to abandon unwanted children. I had a friend in Uganda who worked for a U.K non-profit that promoted fostering of children by Ugandan families. Without the pretense of being a perfect solution, this approach to the problem seems much more sustainable than building institutions that encourage abandoning of children and have no plan for those children after they reach 18 years of age.
Second, the missionaries give free things to the Ugandans, which undermines their ethical grounds and creates a sense of entitlement. I was approached on numerous occasions by adults as well as children asking me for money. No meeting or training can be organized without bribing Ugandans with free sodas or biscuits.
Third, missionaries promote the already fanatically religious society where every action or inaction is explained as a will of God. A 40-plus woman is pregnant with a child number twelve because it is a will of God. A person is infected with HIV because it is a will of God. A child never went to school because it is a will of God. I had to lie about my religiosity to ‘blend in’ and to maintain my circle of friends.
Fourth, missionaries promote hatred in Uganda by contributing to the marginalization of homosexuals. Not long ago an American missionary helped sponsor a bill in Uganda imposing death penalty for homosexuality. This is a violation of human rights on an international level and goes against everything a religion should stand for.
5. Climate change is real
Because the majority of the country is cash-poor subsistence farmers, one bad rainy season is enough to create hunger and poverty. It is as simple as it gets – no harvest means no food, no money, no education. My Ugandan friend’s native forest was burned by his fellow villagers to create a pasture for cows. The drought left no grass for the livestock compelling the villagers to ruin other people’s property. Wetlands are also being converted to agricultural lands in a hope of better yields and easily available water for irrigation.
Illegal and massive deforestation and wetland drainage are the two biggest environmental disasters that are both a cause and result of climate change.
6. VolunTourism is thriving in Uganda
Uganda hosts many volunteers from the West. The Dutch outnumber all other nationalities and come for a few weeks or months to help with rural development projects. Since I stayed at a guesthouse I came across many of them. One of their biggest concerns is not being able to do enough for the communities in a short period of time. These ‘white saviors’ have an illusion that coming to Africa for a few weeks will change people’s lives forever. The reality is that those small short-term projects probably contribute to nothing but a sense of entitlement that the missionaries initially installed.
7. Uganda is full of contradictions
Uganda is a society of paradoxes. It is uber religious and superstitious. It is lazy and hardworking. It is well-fed and malnourished. It is free and authoritarian. It is kind and evil. It is warm and cold. It is traditional and modern. It’s up to each person to decide how they want to see and experience it. Personally, I was addicted to the traditional Africa with its cannibalism, witchcraft, traditional healers and child sacrifice.
Before visiting Africa, the continent seemed distant, exotic, and unpredictable but now I understand more why things are the way they are. Everything just makes more sense now. Getting to know Africa is like deciphering a riddle – you can’t stop until you get it.
Nataliya is a third year PhD student at Iowa State University studying Sustainable Agriculture & Biorenewable Resources and Technology. She was born in Belarus and moved to the U.S. at the age of 15. Between then and now she's lived on three continents in five different countries. She found her passion for smallholder agriculture while doing data collection for her research in Uganda between 2015 and 2016. Now she is looking forward to finishing her degree and moving back to Africa where she hopes to teach and start social enterprises. Find out more at https://ugandaandmore.wordpress.com/
