good news for people who love bad news
Warning: Serious post ahead. Frivolous updates on motorcycle training will resume later this week.
The following was sent to me yesterday; it's from a fellow VSO teacher who also works in the Dodoma region.
We had Form IV student last year, named Mohamed Ally, a
common name here. He scored a Division Two in his final
results which meant that he could have gone on to do
anything he wanted to further his education, the sky was
the limit for him. He was interested in medicine, and I
used to see him up early at about 5am studying.
He was head boy, but not a particularly effective one
because he was too nice a guy, but he was highly popular
nevertheless.
After the holidays we received news from Moshi, where he
lived near Kilimanjaro, that he had died from cerebral
malaria. Seems he knew it was coming too, that it was too
serious to be treated.
Sometimes in life, you just wonder why these things happen
to good people. Why not to the Saddams, or the Paul
Bernardos of this world? I guess that's just life, but I
felt that someone outside of his immediate circle should
know that he lived, tried hard to have a good life, and just
didn't make it. The saying "There but for the grace of God
go I" does come to mind.
I wish I could say that these things are unusual here, but that's the frustrating thing about it; death by malaria isn't unusual at all, (the CDC estimates that one Tanzanian dies of malaria every 5 minutes) even though the disease is fully treatable and (for the most part) preventable. So much death and disease here could be remedied with just a little more money, more medicine, more education...but you have to sit back and watch this happen time and time again because the resources just aren't there. Watching it all unfold...well, it changes you. I was recently reading a very pro-socialist, down with the state, overthrow the system type article, and made it about halfway through, before I wanted to hurl it across the room. Because what happens if you overthrow the system here? Well, you're going to lose the tenuous social services in place; your educated health professionals, including all of your educated foreign workers, will flee the country; your supply lines letting in much needed medications will be disruped and in most places halted, and your foreign aid will be frozen. Ultimately, more people will die, and needless deaths are one thing Tanzania already has far, far too much of. So you can keep your Che Guevera's, riding around, "liberating" countries and then skipping town when the action's over. You can keep your political debates, your revolutionary marching songs, your marxist propaganda. Hell, you can keep all of your political theory. Because none of it's going to do anything for the kids dying of malaria here, and none of its going to stop fully one-third of my students from the ravages of AIDS. I'm becoming what I hate, a one-issue voter, but I'll shake hands with any devil (McDonalds, Walmart, even George W himself) if he can do something to alleviate the never-ending hardship over here. Jeffery Sachs had it right in his book "The End of Poverty;" (a great read despite all the name dropping,"so I was having lunch at the Kremlin the other day," comments) eliminating extreme poverty should be a priority for all nations. And don't get me wrong, I know the World Bank/IMF's success rate in "developing" countries, I too have strong, strong doubts about encouraging the growth of a capitalist dominated economic and political structure here. But fighting "the man" here will only hurt Tanzania's children, and while Nyerere's years had many positive benefits, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see the improvement in both economics/health since trade liberalization and privatization. Don't worry, I'm not going all hard-core capitalist on you, I guess I'm just feeling a certain disgust towards the hard-left segment of the population who has yet to step foot in an African country, but feels perfectly okay using them as guinea pigs to fine tune their socialist theories.
Okay, I'm moving on, that's enough self-rightousness for one day. Things are good here. Really. More updates soon, (love)
kt
The following was sent to me yesterday; it's from a fellow VSO teacher who also works in the Dodoma region.
We had Form IV student last year, named Mohamed Ally, a
common name here. He scored a Division Two in his final
results which meant that he could have gone on to do
anything he wanted to further his education, the sky was
the limit for him. He was interested in medicine, and I
used to see him up early at about 5am studying.
He was head boy, but not a particularly effective one
because he was too nice a guy, but he was highly popular
nevertheless.
After the holidays we received news from Moshi, where he
lived near Kilimanjaro, that he had died from cerebral
malaria. Seems he knew it was coming too, that it was too
serious to be treated.
Sometimes in life, you just wonder why these things happen
to good people. Why not to the Saddams, or the Paul
Bernardos of this world? I guess that's just life, but I
felt that someone outside of his immediate circle should
know that he lived, tried hard to have a good life, and just
didn't make it. The saying "There but for the grace of God
go I" does come to mind.
I wish I could say that these things are unusual here, but that's the frustrating thing about it; death by malaria isn't unusual at all, (the CDC estimates that one Tanzanian dies of malaria every 5 minutes) even though the disease is fully treatable and (for the most part) preventable. So much death and disease here could be remedied with just a little more money, more medicine, more education...but you have to sit back and watch this happen time and time again because the resources just aren't there. Watching it all unfold...well, it changes you. I was recently reading a very pro-socialist, down with the state, overthrow the system type article, and made it about halfway through, before I wanted to hurl it across the room. Because what happens if you overthrow the system here? Well, you're going to lose the tenuous social services in place; your educated health professionals, including all of your educated foreign workers, will flee the country; your supply lines letting in much needed medications will be disruped and in most places halted, and your foreign aid will be frozen. Ultimately, more people will die, and needless deaths are one thing Tanzania already has far, far too much of. So you can keep your Che Guevera's, riding around, "liberating" countries and then skipping town when the action's over. You can keep your political debates, your revolutionary marching songs, your marxist propaganda. Hell, you can keep all of your political theory. Because none of it's going to do anything for the kids dying of malaria here, and none of its going to stop fully one-third of my students from the ravages of AIDS. I'm becoming what I hate, a one-issue voter, but I'll shake hands with any devil (McDonalds, Walmart, even George W himself) if he can do something to alleviate the never-ending hardship over here. Jeffery Sachs had it right in his book "The End of Poverty;" (a great read despite all the name dropping,"so I was having lunch at the Kremlin the other day," comments) eliminating extreme poverty should be a priority for all nations. And don't get me wrong, I know the World Bank/IMF's success rate in "developing" countries, I too have strong, strong doubts about encouraging the growth of a capitalist dominated economic and political structure here. But fighting "the man" here will only hurt Tanzania's children, and while Nyerere's years had many positive benefits, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see the improvement in both economics/health since trade liberalization and privatization. Don't worry, I'm not going all hard-core capitalist on you, I guess I'm just feeling a certain disgust towards the hard-left segment of the population who has yet to step foot in an African country, but feels perfectly okay using them as guinea pigs to fine tune their socialist theories.
Okay, I'm moving on, that's enough self-rightousness for one day. Things are good here. Really. More updates soon, (love)
kt
posted by Katie at 10:44 AM
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