Amie in Africa Box Set 1

by Lucinda E Clarke

  “So, they don’t have to leave when they are sixteen or eighteen?” Amie was surprised.

  “As long as their parents can afford the fees, they can repeat school years as many times as they like.”

  It didn’t make sense to Amie. “But,” she persisted, “won’t the new class be full from the year before you know …”

  Ben shook his head. “No, learners drop out, and they leave room for the failed ones, as long as they can pay their fees. On sports days for the races we measure height, not ask about your age, and that makes it fairer for everyone don’t you think?”

  Why am I not surprised, thought Amie as they knocked on the door to what they hoped was the Headmaster’s study.

  “Come. Come!” shouted a voice from inside.

  Amie opened the door and peeped round it to see a short, rather plump man standing beside a wooden desk. In his hand he held a large cane and beside him stood a very small boy. Amie thought he didn’t look old enough to be in any high school.

  “Ah, the lady from the television! Welcome, welcome.” He turned to the child. “And let that be a lesson to you. Today you are saved by this kind lady, what are you going to say to her?”

  “Thank you, thank you, Missy,” said the child as he dashed out of the room bobbing up and down at the same time.

  “Sit down, sit down,” said the Headmaster hospitably. “Now how can I help you? How can I help?” he asked as Amie and Ben perched on the hard, wooden chairs on the other side of his desk.

  “We have come to film the Shova Shova Project,” said Amie.

  “Ah, we must have tea, tea for both of you, yes?”

  Amie wondered if he always said things twice. They nodded. Amie had learned it was considered rude to refuse any offer of food or drink.

  The Head got up and opened the door. “Tea for three, tea for three Mphula,” he shouted down the corridor. “Now, how can I help you?” he repeated as he sat down.

  “The Shova, Shova Project?” said Amie.

  “Ah, yes. The bicycles. Yes, of course, the bicycles. What do you want to know about them?”

  “We understand how the project works,” replied Amie, “and we understand you were allocated …” She consulted her notes “fifty bicycles and we would like to show the children using them to come to and from school, and maybe they can tell us how they don’t have to walk such long distances. And, we would also like to see one of the training classes, where the children are taught how to look after their bicycles and learn about road safety too.”

  The door opened and Mphula appeared precariously balancing a tray with three teas in rather dirty cups. Once she had placed the tray on the desk, the Head briskly ladled four heaped teaspoons of sugar into each cup before Amie could protest. Inwardly she groaned. How long would it take her to get used to the warm, sickly, strong tea all the locals obviously adored.

  “Yes, yes,” said the Head.

  “So, can you show us where the bicycles are and introduce us to the children who use them?”

  “Yes, yes.”

  Everyone sat in silence for a minute or two. Amie wondered if maybe the Head had not understood the question.

  Ben came to life and spoke to the Head in the local language. Amie had no idea what he said, but the Head jumped to his feet smiling from ear to ear and said, “Ah yes, I will take you to Mr Kumalo, he is in charge of the Shova, Shova project. Come, yes, he is in charge.”

  Amie and Ben followed him out into the corridor, almost running to keep up with him as he walked speedily down the corridor. It occurred to Amie this was the first time she had seen anyone move quickly since she’d arrived in Togodo.

  Mr Kumalo was a tall, slim man, and standing beside the short Headmaster, the image of Laurel and Hardy flitted through Amie’s mind. The Head left as quickly as he had come after very brief introductions.

  “The Shova Shova Project?” Amie waited for the response. “I believe you are the teacher in charge?”

  “Yes, that is correct.”

  “So, can you show us the bicycles so we can film them?”

  “Yes, of course,” Mr Kumalo smiled and called out one of the boys in the classroom. “This is Douglas, he will show you where they are.”

  Amie and Ben followed Douglas across the open playground to a store room at the far end of the buildings. Inside there were two bicycles. Both of them had flat tyres, and the front wheel on one of them was bent almost at right angles.

  Amie looked at them. “But where are the others? I thought the school had fifty of these bikes.”

  Douglas shrugged his shoulders. “Others gone,” he said.

  “Gone where?”

  Douglas shrugged his shoulders again.

  “Are there no more?” asked Ben.

  “No, this is all,” Douglas was obviously very uncomfortable giving them bad news.

  “And the reflective arm bands, and the safety helmets? Are they somewhere else?” Amie was getting nervous.

  Douglas reached in and picked up a cracked helmet from behind the bicycles and underneath were two dusty arm bands.

  Amie looked at Ben in horror. “What are we going to do?” she asked.

  “Make it up,” he said.

  “Make it up! How?”

  “We will just have to use these two bicycles and pretend.”

  For a brief moment Amie considered going back to Colonel Mbanzi, then she thought better of it. She didn’t relish the idea of telling him forty-eight bicycles had vanished from this, the best example of the project, and the two that remained were beyond repair.

  “I guess you’re right,” she said slowly. “I’ll just have to film carefully from um, different angles. I suppose we can pretend.”

  While Amie was wise enough to know they often cheated when filming commercials, and gave a one-sided view in many documentaries leaving out certain facts to make a point, she thought this must be a first. What she was going to show would be a complete lie from beginning to end.

  By the end of the day when the light had started to fade, she had recorded a variety of boys on bikes supposedly arriving at school. Medium and close up shots of them “cleaning” the bicycles, and a mock-up of a road safety lesson. She decided it would be easier to show this in the classroom, with chalk diagrams on the blackboard drawn by Amie herself, with a teacher pretending to explain the rules of the road. Later, she hoped to find a road safety manual in the book shop and insert a few shots of it as well.

  It wasn’t even easy to find candidates to pose as riders. While they were all keen to be seen on camera, not many of the children could ride a bike, even if the tyres were inflated and the wheels straightened out.

  Amie began to wonder if the whole project had been a scam, but a few of the children assured her that yes, at least six shiny new bicycles had been delivered and helmets as well, but where they were now, no one seemed to know.

  Amie asked if they knew which children had been given a bicycle so they could ride to and from school. A couple of names were mentioned. Could Amie talk to them? No, they were not at school any more. When had they left? The day after they had been presented with their new bicycles.

  So that answers that question, she thought as she tried to film various children on the two wrecked bicycles without actually showing the bicycles at all. She wondered what Dave the cameraman back in Castle Bridge would say if he arrived to film this. She thought it might be wiser not to mention the hiccups when she emailed home. Best not to let everyone know she was visually telling lies, not a very professional approach was it? She would tell Jonathon and a few others here and leave it at that. Maybe in years to come she could laugh at this, but not right now.

  It was hard work, and at the end of the day, Amie was exhausted. She had taken lots of general shots of the children playing outside and working in the classrooms. She was hoping that maybe if she scripted lots of general chatter about helping children to learn, now they could get to school more easily, she could extol the virtues of the government
’s Shova Shova scheme, and practically ignore the bicycles altogether.

  That night while waiting for Jonathon to get home she looked through the footage and logged the scenes she thought she could use. But she couldn’t shake off the feeling she was party to a pack of lies.

  Things didn’t get any easier in the following weeks either.

  A few days later Themba drove them to a rather dilapidated building on the outskirts of town, next to a small electrical substation.

  And this is the ‘state of the art’ electrical system thought Amie in horror. Again, they met the men in charge and as she filmed around the grubby and unkempt surroundings, she wondered if she could possibly Photoshop some of the shots. Walls which had once been white, now had the paint peeling off them and in places, large chunks of plaster threatened to descend on them at any minute. One thing was obvious, the Togodians did not believe in repairing or maintaining any of their installations.

  Even during the filming, there were two breakdowns in the electric supply and although Amie could continue to film as she was working with batteries, she didn’t want to show the personnel rushing backwards and forwards pressing switches and searching for broken cables while shouting and screaming at each other. As far as she could see, they were not at all embarrassed about the situation. Several of them grinned at her and waved to the camera, as they tried to rectify the faults. Again, she tried to get around the chaos by showing several workers in close up, hoping they would look as if they were concentrating and monitoring the supply instead of trying to reconnect it.

  The small industry chosen to show the advances electricity had brought to the business sector was a small breeze block garage where six women were using electric sewing machines.

  When the crew arrived, none of the women were actually sewing, they had no power. Mrs Mosswara the lady in charge complained bitterly about the constant power breaks.

  “I want machines you can work by hand!” she wailed. “Then we can work all day and not have to stop so often. But they tell us we must take these electrical machines which are not reliable.”

  “Yes, I understand,” commiserated Amie. “Is there no way you can exchange them for manual ones?”

  “Aieeeeeee. No! They said we are now a modern country and we must,” she paused, “what was it now?” she looked at the other women.

  “Move with the times,” answered another lady who looked totally fed up.

  “We make school uniforms and we have to finish over a hundred dresses by the end of the week, and what are we supposed to do when the machines stop?”

  “Yes, we have to come and work at night and at the weekends and leave our children so we can get all the dresses ready in time.”

  “And then the children get into mischief if we are not there to beat them when they do wrong.” The women all nodded their heads in agreement.

  And this is progress, thought Amie. Do they have any understanding of these problems in the government offices? Do they even care?

  While the men at the school and the electricity station had pretended everything was fine, Amie saw the women were not afraid to speak out and complain. But she doubted if they would actually say anything to any male government official.

  She took footage of the women and the sewing machines, choosing to show them arriving for work and then sitting down as if they were able to start sewing. They also found a small child, ripped her clothes off and put her in one of the school dresses to model for the cameras. Amie was amazed at the willingness of the women to act out parts and role play, with no signs of self-consciousness. They were completely at ease, and by the end of the afternoon, she felt she had made firm friends with the women at the sewing factory. Despite their problems, they were generally a cheerful bunch but one comment made Amie stop and think.

  “There is much unrest in the north,” said one of the women very quietly.

  “Is it serious?” asked Amie, lowering her voice to match.

  “Aieeeee who knows,” whispered the woman. “The north is very far away, but the tribe there does not like this government.”

  Amie wondered if she should mention this to Jonathon, but he had enough to worry about at work. It might not be wise to upset him unnecessarily.

  “Do you think there will be trouble from the north?” she asked Ben as Themba drove them back into town.

  “The tribes in the north have always been a problem,” he replied, shrugging his shoulders. “But what will they gain by making war on the government? There are not so many of them and what good would it do them? No, there is nothing to worry about.

  By chance, Amie caught a glimpse of Themba’s face in the rear-view mirror and it startled her. He was smirking as if he knew better than to believe a word Ben said.

  9 PROPAGANDA FOR THE TRADE FAIR

  It wasn’t until the following Saturday when Amie was having a coffee at the Club with Diana that she had a chance to discuss her experiences.

  “I’ve only filmed three of the projects, but they’re all a disaster,” she moaned. “I can make some sort of programme and get the point across in the audio, but honestly the pictures do not tell the same story at all.”

  “Sorry to laugh.” Diana was in stitches when Amie described the failed projects. “But I for one am not surprised. You will just have to do the best you can, deliver your ‘efforts’ to the colonel and then hope he’ll leave you alone from then on.”

  “I hope you’re right Diana. But one thing you told me I’ve now seen for myself. If this country is going to succeed it’s because the women are prepared to work and support their children and see they are educated.”

  “Yes, that goes for every African country we’ve lived in. But unfortunately, women are still very much second-class citizens and they’re still dominated by the men.”

  “I always took my independence for granted,” Amie said. “We expect our girls to be educated and able to have any career they want, and have an equal say with men. OK, I saw enough on television to realise it’s not the case everywhere, but seeing it in action where we live now, well that’s different.”

  “I agree, and at the same time, you learn not to speak too openly about any regime presently in power.”

  “I’ve already seen the corruption for myself,” said Amie. “They told me fifty new bicycles had been sent to the school yet only about six arrived, so quite a few disappeared somewhere along the way.”

  “Yes, resold I expect,” said Diana. “There’s always someone keen to add to his income any way he can.”

  “I think the bicycle project was a good idea, but what did it achieve? In fact, it made things worse! Some of the boys who were lent the bicycles haven’t been seen since, so far from making it easier to get an education, they’re getting no education at all. It’s so frustrating.”

  “Welcome to Africa.” Diana smiled. “But yes, I agree with you. Did I tell you about the water project in Zimbabwe?”

  “No.”

  “Foreign aid poured in and it was decided to erect large, steel, fresh water tanks in this one village, which had been built next to a road, but far from the river. The men’s decision of course, as it’s not considered important if the women and children have to walk long distances to collect water, but it is important to be near the road for the convenience of the men.”

  “Shame,” said Amie. “But I bet the women were pleased.”

  “Yes, they were. Now they only had to walk a few metres to fetch clean, potable water for their cooking, cleaning and washing. It made their lives much, much easier.”

  “At least that’s one success story,” Amie said with a smile.

  “Unfortunately, not. Within a week, the taps had been wrenched off the tanks and the water allowed to drain out. They were repaired and the water truck arrived and filled them again, but it was only a few days before they were vandalized again!”

  “But why!” exclaimed Amie “Couldn’t they see this was a benefit to everyone?”

  “But it wa
sn’t,” said Diana, “that was the whole point. It didn’t benefit the young men at all.”

  “Ah! They didn’t collect the water, did they? I’ve only ever seen women and children carrying water.”

  “True, in Africa that’s women’s work, but when the young girls had to go to the river to fetch water or to wash clothes, that was the time when the young men would court them and flirt with them. If the water supply was nearby, they didn’t have the same opportunity.” Diana paused, “So while there were benefits, there were also drawbacks as well. The foreign aid workers hadn’t done their homework, so they didn’t foresee any problems.”

  “Then, what was the answer?”

  “I can’t tell you what they should have done,” said Diana. “After repairing the tanks several times, all I can tell you is that in the end, everything went back to how it was before, a long trek down to the river.”

  “That’s so sad.” Amie hesitated for a moment then decided to confide in her new friend. “Diana, I heard there was trouble up north, have you heard anything?”

  “I know Richard was talking to someone the other night, and they seemed to be taking it seriously. Tribalism is the scourge of Africa, and there will always be jostling for power. Right now, the government is all made up of the Kawa, they are the biggest and brightest of the tribes. They will do everything in their power to keep the other tribes subservient. Most countries are a mixture of different tribes, which no one in Europe took into account when they drew the boundaries on a map to delineate the different territories. They were too intent in their rush to grab land in Africa.”

  “How did they decide where to draw those lines?” asked Amie. “That’s something they never mentioned in Geography or History lessons.”

  “They thought mountain ranges and rivers would make good boundaries,” replied Diana. “Did you know they drew the borderline between Kenya and Tanganyika, to accommodate Queen Victoria and the Kaiser, as they each wanted a ‘snow-capped’ mountain near the equator in their acquired empires?”