expats I can’t stand

I was at a quiet motel-style place waiting for my field staff to come for the weekly meeting. An Asian looking guy with greying black hair came to my table and asked if he could sit down. I said of course. Always interested in why other people, but particularly non-business people looking Asians, are in Uganda, I asked what he was doing here. Turns out he’s from Ohio, USA, here on a two year Peace Corp volunteering trip. I meet lots of Peace Corp volunteers both here and in Tanzania, so I wasn’t surprised. He just finished his first year and was a bit sick, so they’re sending him to Kampala to get treated. Hence he was waiting for his transport at the motel.

He seemed visibly tired and worn out by his one year in a small town, working as a computer lab technician for the local school. He complained about “the Ugandan people” and how they didn’t seem to care. About how nothing moves and he constantly feels like he’s the only one trying to change anything. About how irrational things seem to be. Sometimes they weren’t able to print enough things for the students and none of the students complained. He said he would be so happy if even one of the students made a small complaint, to show that they actually cared and wanted what they deserve. He said that he was on a bus trip once where the driver ran over a cow and killed it. The cow herder didn’t even change his expression, let alone protest. He said that he just couldn’t understand how people could speak about death and going to funerals as such normal everyday occurrences, as normal as the weather. He felt like people in “this country” just didn’t do enough to improve their own lives. He was pretty fed up and was ready to go home.

These are not new complaints. I’ve heard them all before and at times, I’ve experienced them myself. But there was something about the way that this guy said it that really made me mad. The way he generalized the whole country with a few experiences. The way that he wasn’t willing to think about why people react a certain way, rather than just apply his own American cultural judgements. The way that he seemed genuinely unable to understand or step outside of those assumptions that he grew up with. Of course, I really don’t have much field cred, so maybe I’m not in the place to speak like a professional. But I don’t know what it was that made me so angry from within, but I had to (politely, of course) respond.

I spoke about how I also understood the feeling that it seems like you’re the only one trying to change anything. But really, if you work with a community, sooner or later, you’ll find people who are really enthusiastic for a change. At least in my experience, whether it is in Canada or in East Africa, communities are not homogeneous; there are the movers and shakers, and then there are those who don’t have the energy (probably with a very legitimate reason, like having too many family members to take care of) to contribute. Whether it was the dairy goat project, urban agriculture (even within the depths of the government bureaucracy, there were those super eager agriculture extension agents), or now with the microfinancing, I’ve seen people who take their own time and money to make things move. People who do way beyond what their work requires them, just to make sure that we can help make a change. I really doubt it is luck that I was able to participate in three different projects that were just better than all the others. I think what it takes is a positive mindset to actually find and support those people who can help things move.

I said that I hear people at the markets or on the taxis complaining all the time, not to mention the amount of complaining coming from our farmers. People do complain, in fact, I think it seems like it’s very much the culture to speak if you’re unhappy, whether you’re a man or a woman (which is huge). I said, but people here are very polite, especially with respect to hierarchy and guests. Your students aren’t complaining maybe because you are both a teacher and a foreign guest. It would be supremely impolite to complain.

And as for the funerals and the run over cow, these unfortunate events that I’m not accustomed to seem to happen so frequently here that it would be impossible to be upset every time. I’m not kidding, almost every week, I would hear about someone’s relative dying and that they have to rush off to a funeral. How can anybody function if they had to mourn for a month every time someone passed away in this context? What else can you do but move on with your life and treat it in a (to our eyes) desensitized way?

The more I am in the field, the more I understand the saying that if you don’t think something that some people are doing (especially as a “culture”) is rational, it is only because you don’t understand it enough. Everything our farmers do with regards to planting is rational. It’s just not the kind of rationality that I understand, yet. I think this applies to everything else I experience. It’s much better to at least try to think from other perspectives than to dismiss something as “irrational.” Not only do you learn more, you’ll also be less frustrated.

He didn’t seem too convinced. He did seem to give it some thought though. Maybe I left him with some food for thought. Or maybe he thought I was just crazy. Well, at least I tried to show how I think.

And you know the kicker to his complaints (that really made me mad)?

He said that he felt like Ugandan parents didn’t love their kids. (When he said this, I immediately flashed back to one of the farmers I saw yesterday who was hugging her kid and obviously showing the only kind of dotting love a parent can have unlimited amounts of.) He had some friends who were English and were teaching sign language at one of the Ugandan villages. He said that none of the parents wanted to learn how to say “I love you” or any of those affectionate phrases. They only wanted to know how to order their kids to do things. I had to suck in a few deep breathes, scared that I would come across as an angry bitch.

I said that yes, kids have a lot of responsibilities here. They have to take care of the younger ones and their parents expect them to really do the household chores. But that doesn’t mean they don’t love their kids. It’s just different expectations of what a kid’s life should be. And also, just because they don’t say “I love you” aloud, doesn’t mean they don’t love their kids or families like everyone else in the world. My parents are Chinese and they’ve never said I love you in Cantonese to me before. Heck, I think I’ve never said it to them. Maybe once in English. (I needed to use a different language to break through my cultural ties, even though I’m also Canadian!) I write in every email, but I’ve never had the courage to say it. That’s just how it is culturally and how I grew up. This doesn’t mean, in any way, that I love my parents less.

I don’t know. I’ve met many people who have been in “Africa” their first time and were overwhelmed by what they experienced. I’ve been there and I know how it feels. But I really can’t stand it when people are so deeply ethnocentric that they are unable or unwilling to step outside of their cultural assumptions. I really can’t stand that kind of expat complaining.

Maybe I’m overreacting. Maybe he really was just too sick and in a shitty mood. Goodness knows I’m also super shitty when I’m in a shitty mood. But still.