Loving Africa... but only with Africans

I’m laying in a long row of Zambian men. I’m sharing a blanket with my best Zambian friend, Chomba. On the other side of me is Mark and a stranger who didn’t bring bedding and begged Mark to share his twin-sized mattress. We all squished our foam mattresses together on the concrete floor of a converted shop under construction along the highway. This is what they call “the dorm”. When I arrived here in Kabwe, there was a crowd of white and African faces mixing at the giant Operation Mobilization conference center here in Zambia. Here at OM, 700 missionary types from Africa and the rest of the world converge for a 4-day hoopla they’re calling “Love Africa.” Our team was invited here to teach a series of 6 workshops on discipleship.

So I went to the reception and the woman there asked me if I wanted a guesthouse or the dorm. Since I had our Zambian team with me and the dorms were literally 1/5 the cost of the guesthouse, the choice seemed obvious. “So what will the cost be for an American?” I asked.

The woman looked at her price list and looked confused. “I don’t know,” she said. “Honestly we don’t have a price for that. Americans usually want to stay in the guest houses.” So after thinking it over for a moment she gave me the Zambian price: $30 for 3 days of room, board, and conference fees. No complaints there! So tonight as I left the main session, I walked past a nice coach bus filled with pensive white faces going to the guesthouses. I also walked past an open cargo truck filling up with dozens of Africans (not a white face among them) heading for my place. Classic.

So here I am, camping African style with only Africans. I was happy enough with the arrangement. White people in Africa make me anxious, after all. I never know how to respond to them or how they’ll respond to me. Call me a racist. I just don’t like being around them.

I have no criticism toward OM for what I’ve just experienced. I think they were being pragmatic when they realized that only the Africans would be willing to sleep in a bare concrete building under construction without bedding or working outlets. They did it this way to make it affordable. 

But I think it’s an interesting commentary on the state of the relationship between whites and blacks in Africa. Most westerners have good intentions coming to Africa, but very little stomach for the standard of living. Most westerners try to be modest, but have a baseline of creature comforts that naturally segregates us from our African friends. Don’t get me wrong. I like a good hotel with a hot shower! But when we come to Africa and just look at it from the outside, we miss out on so many crucial elements of community life here: laughter around a boiling pot of nshima, impromptu dance parties, and the ability to ask a stranger to share his mattress.

PS y'all: If you've been in the developing world and stayed in nice accommodations and feel a little judged by this, please don't! 95% of the time, that's exactly what I do. My point isn't to say we have no business in Africa if we're not living "African". My African friends would find that idea silly. My point is just that if we hope to develop deep friendships here, we need to at least understand what it feels like to need each other, to NOT have a back-up plan, or cash reserve, or extra blanket. In Africa, they don't have social security. They have each other. And I think that's a beautiful and necessary thing for us to understand and learn from, especially if we hope to have a mutual friendship with our African friends.