KYETUME, Uganda—After living in and traveling through Libya and Tunisia, where my paternal relatives are from, I accurately expected that rural, sub-Saharan Africa wouldn’t exactly be the mirror image of life in Cambridge, Mass. But what has struck me considerably about Uganda in the past several weeks has not been the random and frequent brownouts or the latrine we have to squat in every day. Instead, at the non-governmental organization where I’m working, I have been most struck—and irritated—by some native Ugandans’ acceptance of inefficiency for no reason other than T. I. A.—“This is Africa.”

Last Thursday, I helped drain a swamp that a village community uses for drinking and bathing water. The rainy season will start sometime next month, and so the villagers asked us to help clear out the feet-deep layers of sludge at the bottom in order for clean rainwater to accumulate.

When the NGO’s project leaders handed us worn-out jerrycans, shovels, and hoes to do the physically-grueling work, which lasted two days in total, I felt that invoking T. I. A. to cope with the situation—which the project leader did—was entirely reasonable. After all, no one would have had the right to complain that a shiny, yellow Caterpillar bulldozer didn’t pull up to the swamp alongside dump trucks and vacuum-powered electric hoses to get the job done within a few hours.

But when the project leader later told me that it was “impossible” for an African to adhere to schedules or to make plans ahead of time, when she said that it was “foolish” to set up an interview with the director of a microfinance program because “if it needs to happen, then it will happen on its own,” and when she concluded that the explanation was “This is Africa,” I refused to tolerate that excuse. Instead, I became incensed.

On the surface, my project leader had implicitly endorsed the stereotype of the “lazy African.” Her conclusions reeked of the historically racist beliefs that the African lacks discipline, is simple-minded, and relegates his or her fate to outside sources. (Enter everyone from missionaries to hegemonic Western powers right about now.)

Assuming that most people understand the moral implications of her excuse—regarding the African as a subpar human being with inferior mental capacities—I won’t argue why I find such an implicit characterization both inflammatory, especially as the son of a North African, and dehumanizing. What makes the characterization worse, however, is that my project leader is an intelligent graduate of Makerere University—the most prestigious institution of its kind in Uganda—who is considering furthering her education at the London School of Economics and says her ultimate goal is to work in policy.

As an educated woman, my project leader would no doubt find it far from “impossible” to keep to a schedule. But more importantly, she should also be able to perceive the other consequence that her mindset breeds: dependency.

There’s a difference between blaming slow progress on a legitimate lack of resources and excusing yourself for being “unable” to perform a task that requires little more than brainpower, simply because you’re African. If the fact that people come from this continent precludes them from being able to work efficiently and independently—following deadlines, organizing lists, and thinking through problems instead of allowing them to sort themselves out, for example—then who will do that sort of necessary work for the African people? The evangelical missionary? The corrupt politician? The outside philanthropist? The perhaps too-eager Harvard student? Whomever it happens to be, it won’t be the Africans themselves.

In June, while researching in Amsterdam, I had the opportunity to speak with journalist Linda Polman, the author of We Did Nothing: Why the Truth Doesn’t Always Come Out When the UN Goes In. Polman, who has reported on UN peacekeeping missions in war zones ranging from Haiti to Somalia, is critical of NGOs, especially when they’re charged with distributing urgently needed humanitarian aid. After publishing her latest book, With Friends Like These: Behind the Scenes of the Emergency Aid Industry, Polman said she’s earned the ire of some of these organizations. It makes sense why: She advocates completely cutting off funding to NGOs that distribute humanitarian aid, as the aid they distribute too often falls into the hands of the perpetrators—not the victims—of violence.

But it’s not just the issue of aid allocation that warrants a cessation of unconditional funding to NGOs, Polman said. She added that the “old” dependency argument—that, during peace time, assistance from NGOs often inhibits its recipients from becoming independent and self-sufficient—is a damaging effect of funding these organizations, as well.

As I nag daily at my project leader, urging her to dispense with her preconceptions, Polman’s argument seems applicable. Do my educated Ugandan colleagues at the NGO refuse to commit themselves to a minimal standard of efficiency because they know their slack will be picked up by one of the American, Australian, or Canadian workers here, or compensated for by funding from an international donor? This could be the case, considering that I eventually scheduled the interview with the microfinance director myself, without my project leader’s help.

Rather than pulling a Polman and simply refusing to invest my “intellectual” resources in the NGO, I think I’ve found a possible solution to my current dilemma. For my next project, I’m not teaming up with another Western worker. Instead, I’m helping design curricula for a local high school with a senior who attends it.

And as she works efficiently on deadline, the student will help introduce my project leader to a new version of T. I. A.—one that boasts, even among Africans, that something like This is Achievable.


Ahmed N. Mabruk ’11, a Crimson news writer, is a history concentrator in Mather House.