Corruption
Posted By Sika on February 11, 2008
Some people, when they think of Africa, think of corruption. Corruption of government, corruption of life, in ways big and small. Corruption is both bigger and smaller than you’d suppose. It can be ingrained, although some “corruption” is not viewed as such when we do it*. On a daily basis, corruption usually doesn’t come into play. Sometimes one needs to grease the palms of the roadblock police. And more serious bribery does become necessary in more serious situations. But overall, day to day, corruption is this subtle, seemingly randomly defined, and uncommon thing.
Except for ESCOM. ESCOM is the electrical company here. You may recall that The Nkhoma nursing school had been waiting for nearly a year for 8 houses to get electricity. There were wires going to the houses, but ESCOM didn’t have time to put in the meter boxes. At least not without a little money to encourage them to remember.
Namikango Orphan Care, one of the secondary projects I am working on, wanted to set up an electric maize mill and so asked ESCOM to give them a quote on bringing electricity out to them (currently it’s 2 km away). ESCOM wouldn’t even give them a quote without a bribe to move things along.
After I got back to Zomba from the U.S., I was pleasantly surprised that the power was only going out about once a week, instead of the 2-4 times a week it was going out previously. And when it did go out, it was usually only for 45 minutes or so—not so long that I couldn’t finish dinner if it got interrupted by a sudden bout of darkness.
One night, sitting on the porch and chatting with Derek, the candlelight flickering by our waiting to be cooked hamburgers, I realized that I live in the city, and in the city there should be consistent power. I understand when the power goes out during a storm, but when the power goes out just ‘cause it’s 7:15, that is insane. And the fact that my first reaction is to be happy that the power didn’t go out at 6:15 and will probably be back on before 8:15 just means that ESCOM has successfully indoctrinated me into low expectations.
It actually reminds me a bit of American politics: Create expectations so low, and abuse your position so badly that when you make the effort to become just marginally less abusive everyone will be so grateful that things are better that they won’t realize that things are still bad. I find myself being grateful that I don’t have to cook dinner on the instant that I get home just in case they power goes out. And then I feel like an idiot for being grateful for something I should be able to expect as routine. Much like I feel grateful when American politicians actually, y’know protect the rights of American citizens, and then realize how complacent and sheep-like I have become, have been trained to be.
*For example, among PCVs it is widely viewed as corruption, or at the very least irritating as all get out that people won’t come to trainings unless there is an allowance. It irritates me, too. And then I realized that most of the trainings I’ve been to have been paid for by my work, with the time paid for by my work, and with lunch included. How dare I judge people who have less than I and can’t afford to make do with even less than that. Which is not to say that I condone it; I don’t, and the insistence on allowances gets in the way of progress and changes the focus from learning to making a buck. But I am not, we are not, superior to other people because we have the wherewithal to make these decisions and actions easier.
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