‘YOU take minibuses?!?!?’

I was waiting for my radio broadcaster friend outside of British Council at the City Centre when a boy (about 15 years old) came up to me to ‘practise his English’. Oh I was glad to help as I had nothing to do anyway why not just have a chat.

But practising English was just a camouflage – within 3 minutes he asked for 100kwacha (about 40p) from me for his ailing ‘neighbour’. Hmm that’s interesting – usually people just ask for money by extending their hands ‘money, money, give me money’; but this one was ‘professional’ – he had special tactic.. usually I would just ignore them (giving money is BAD practice – never do so as this will create more dependency on mzungus to bring more money.. I will write about this soon) but this time I had time so I chose to continue the conversation instead.

‘Hey young man, listen here, you’re smart, you speak good English, you can get a job and you can earn money for your family. If today I give you money, what do you do tomorrow? Ask for more money from me?’

Now he was confused. Perhaps he never thought I would speak to him this way. And perhaps he thought I didn’t understand his request so he repeated what he wanted – well it was merely 100kwacha from a rich mzungu (and why bother to argue!!)!

But I think he didn’t understand me – so I repeated what I said by stressing on ‘you speak GOOD English’ (as I’m not sure if he’s smart or not, speaking good English was the only fair judgement I could give). And this time he blinked at the statement – ‘I speak good English? You CAN understand me??? YOU CAN UNDERSTAND ME???’

Of course I can understand you! Oh my god! And I took it further to reason with him –
‘Young man (as if I am so old!), you see, not all mzungus are rich – I’m also like you, I also take minibuses – look at my shoes (I pointed to my sport shoes which were full of dust – which is something you don’t see on people who use only cars), I also walk like you; I am NOT different from YOU!’

And he was stunned for 2 seconds. ‘You take minibus? YOU take minibus?! YOU.. TAKE.. MINIBUS??!??’

I am not exaggerating – he repeated the question THREE times. As if I am from Mars.

Oh then I seized the opportunity – I am desperate at making these people realise they’re not of any lower status than the mzungus! The reason why poor countries continue to be poor is because we never have the confidence that we are as good as the rich ones! This is so wrong!

‘YES! I TAKE MINIBUSES! You see, we are the same! If I work to get money, you also can do this – you see, you speak good English, you can get a job and you can earn money! One day you’ll be successful! And how rich you are is not about how much money you earn, if I earn 50,000kwacha a month I still can be poorer than you even if you earn 5,000kwacha a month – it’s about how you spend your money!’

Unfortunately this interesting conversation was interrupted by my friend who wasn’t patient enough for me to continue preaching. I was dragged away before I finished my preaching – and the boy was desperate.. I think he re-gained his ‘consciousness’ (which was to get money, not preaching from me) and went back to his begging mood ‘100kwacha! Madam! 100kwacha!’

Aaarrrrgghh!!