Brokenness

*From mid-December to mid-January my folks visited. Upon their return home, each is writing a post (or more?!) about some part of the experience. Here is my Pop.

 I am using this collection of letters as a noun.  I am not sure that it is actually a word.  Perhaps Zach can ask his Brit friends.  They may know something about the language.  To lend a bit of legitimacy to my comments, I (his father) and Carol (his wonderful mother ) spent a month in Malawi during December and January.  We visited Malawi, Zambia, and Zimbabwe with Zachary and Serena. I even sneaked into another central African republic but I am not revealing the name because it might bring about an international uproar.

Brokenness can be defined as seemingly constant, and certainly irritating, phenomena of everything in the society in some degree of disrepair.  Nothing is spared.  Bathrooms, automobiles, houses, roads, the electricity, etc.  You name it.  Because so many things are manufactured in Western countries it is often difficult, if not impossible, to fix them.  Zachary's car is a good example.  It seems to suffer from constant irritating problems.  There are funny noises here and there and idiosyncratic behaviors such as unplanned horn blowing!  It is a Honda so it ought to be well-made - but the irregularities continue.  Of course this may be due to the fact that it is Zach's car.  Ask him about the car he had in college. 

Although these kind of problems seem ubiquitous there is actually a hopeful side to the issue.  It is that there is an ingenious cadre of "fixers" who have sprung up the deal with the problems.  As we were blissfully motoring across Zambia a suspicious noise showed up in the front, right wheel of the car.  Of course we were in the middle of nowhere.  We debated whether to continue on in hopes of finding some kind of help or turning around and retracing our path.  Of course nobody likes the latter alternative.  Serena then suggested that we should continue on because if the town ahead is big enough to appear on the map it will have somebody who works on noises like ours.  So we continued on. When we arrived at the town we went to the only gas station and explained our situation.  They directed us across the street to a dirt lot filled with automobiles in various conditions and several fellows milling around among the derelict cars.  So that is where we went.  To shorten the story, the fellow took the wheel off, identified the problem, and fixed it!  Additionally, the cost was very modest and we were able to meet and interact with the local automobile mechanic and his friends, including the local teacher.

I suspect that the phenomena I have described is one residual effect of colonialism.  If there had been no colonial influence it is likely that the trappings of western society would only now be emerging in much of Africa.  But modernity has a constant presence.  The problem is that when the colonial powers left Africa there was a sudden and severe lack of expertise.   Hopefully that is being reversed.  In the meantime, if you visit Africa be prepared for the first contraption you encounter to be in some state of disrepair.  Don't let that stop you, however.  There is so much that is interesting and beautiful to justify the trip.