From Silicon Valley to Swaziland by Rick & Wendy Walleigh (read aloud txt) 📖

TIA, but Some Things Work Quite Well;

And Africans Can Be Very Resourceful

For those who haven’t seen the movie Blood Diamonds, TIA stands for “This Is Africa.” In the movie, the male hero, Leonardo di Caprio, who has grown up in Africa, uses TIA to inform the naive female journalist that things don’t work the same way in Africa as they do in the developed world. It’s sort of like Dorothy turning to Toto and saying, “Did you think you were still in Kansas?” In our journey, we encountered many versions of the same saying including, “Welcome to Africa,” “Welcome to Swaziland,” “Welcome to Uganda,” and the French version “C’est l’Afrique.” All of these were used at various times to explain why some process, equipment, or piece of infrastructure didn’t work as might be expected in the developed world. These phrases were often spoken with a shrug of the shoulders, a tone of resignation, and the unstated but implied question of, “Did you really expect it to be any different?” They were also spoken only to newcomers or visitors who have come to Africa with their unrealistic Western expectations of how things should work. The locals are never surprised. They know what to expect.

I never got comfortable with TIA and never developed a standard approach to dealing with it. I couldn’t consistently resolve my inner conflict, and maybe that was okay. Maybe a situational approach was appropriate, but it always made me uncomfortable. At times, I would become internally infuriated at things that didn’t work properly such as unashamedly poor customer services, bad infrastructure, shoddy products, etc. I knew that the whole acceptance of TIA in society had to change if the economy were to advance. On the other hand, I knew that the people I was dealing with directly had little or no power to makes things different, and that when I complained, I sounded like an elitist outsider who had no real understanding of reality. In work situations where I had some influence, I tried to coach and cajole people to fight the system of complacency and to make positive change. However, outside of work, I often just figuratively threw up my hands, tried not to get too upset, and as much as possible, went along with the flow.

Despite the prevalence of TIA, we were surprised numerous times when things in Africa worked quite well. At other times we were amazed at the resourcefulness of Africans in overcoming barriers and challenges. For example:

When Wendy first arrived in Kenya, I was shocked to see her being pushed out of the baggage area in a wheelchair. When she got to me, she explained that after I left the United States, she had hurt her ankle. She had gone to the doctor at Stanford University Health Center, and they had done an x-ray. The report came back that there was no sign of a break, so she must have sprained her ankle. Wendy explained that it continued to be quite painful, even with just walking. During one airport layover, she had to rush between terminals with a heavy carry-on, and she had really strained herself. Her ankle throbbed throughout the flight, so when she arrived in Nairobi, she requested a wheelchair.

Over the following weeks, she was able to walk, but her ankle still hurt, and she couldn’t do any strenuous activity. After more than a month, she finally saw a local doctor and explained what had happened. He ordered a CAT scan of her ankle, and the results came back that afternoon. She had a nondisplaced fracture of the fibula. The fracture was healing so there was nothing special to be done, but at least she knew the real story and didn’t have to feel that she was just being a wimp. As an aside, the bill for the doctor visit and the CAT scan came to about $120 in total. I’m sure the charges for similar services in the United States would be more than ten times that amount.

Wendy got a copy of her diagnosis and sent it back to the doctors at Stanford. They sent back a very defensive letter explaining how nondisplaced fractures are very hard to detect initially but can be more easily seen after calcium is built up during healing, etc. I’m sure all of that is true, but it was quite amusing that her ankle problem was correctly diagnosed in Africa after having been missed at one of the premier medical institutions in the United States.

Having lived all their lives with TIA, Africans become very creative and resourceful when confronting challenging situations. What in the West is called “thinking outside the box” is second nature to many Africans. For example, as we rode around Nairobi we noticed an innovative Kenyan deterrent to the type of auto parts theft we had seen in Maputo. On many cars, the registration number was sandblasted into the windows, mirrors, etc. It was a very ingenious solution and a value-added business! The world needs more of this type of creative thought.

However, my most memorable encounter with creative African thinking came one evening on a trip to the Nairobi airport with Bruce, the TechnoServe CEO, to catch an important international flight. South of Nairobi, the road to the airport is a four-lane divided highway and after rush hour traffic has subsided, the ride usually goes quickly. On this night, we hit severe traffic. The cause was unknown, but we suspected an accident. Traffic had not stopped completely, so we assumed that perhaps the police were directing one lane of traffic through the backup. As our car moved farther along, we noticed that other cars were passing us on the edge of the median, so thinking this might be the lane that was getting through, Tom, our driver, followed the other cars making a new lane of traffic. We later realized no traffic was getting through. The movement of cars was caused by the creative Kenyan drivers making two long lines of cars into five shorter lines with three lanes in the paved roadway and one each on the shoulder and the median.

At some point, drivers realized that no traffic was actually getting through, but a lot of people must have been really motivated to get to the airport. We were too, but we didn’t coach Tom; we just let him take initiative and be creative. Tom noticed that some other cars ahead of us were crossing the median to drive on the other edge, so he followed. The median was wide with two flat edges. In the middle was a deep gully for drainage. There was also a barrier of stone posts to prevent cars from crossing. Tom navigated the gully through a break in the barrier, and we found ourselves on the other side of the highway. We followed other cars along the flat part of the median on the other side, facing traffic! We were making progress toward our destination and the oncoming traffic didn’t seem too bothered by us, but the progress was very slow along the soft dirt. At some point, the cars ahead of us decided that there wasn’t too much oncoming traffic and that the oncoming cars could share the pavement with us. They pulled out into the oncoming traffic lane, and we followed! I was very happy that Tom only pulled out behind another car so that we wouldn’t be the ones to absorb the full impact of a head-on collision. As we proceeded down the highway, the oncoming traffic swerved to avoid the headlights speeding toward them. After a few miles, we passed the accident, which involved a huge truck totally blocking the road. There were a number of policemen standing around, but no one seemed to be making any effort to get traffic moving. Past the accident, we got back onto the proper side of the highway. We breathed easier and got to the airport well ahead of the departure time for our planes. Other people were stuck for much longer, but the jam had trapped so many people that all major international departures were delayed for at least an hour to prevent stranding so many passengers. These types of incidents always provided me with amusement as creative and sometimes subversive individuals overcame the oppression of the system. Despite my frustration with sometimes overwhelming TIA, I retained hope because of the incredible spirit and resourcefulness of some of the individuals we