Offsetting Thirst Through Gatorade Shipments
March 24th, 2007 by AndrewMy cynical friend Pavel suggested I write something about how we can offset thirst in the global south by shipping in Gatorade (or possibly Mountain Dew). After all, extreme poverty requires eXtreme refreshment! While his tongue may need to be surgically removed from his cheek one of these days, he does make a good ironic point about some of the stupid arrangements for global aid we have.
Often the things that we offer represent a fundamental misunderstanding of the conditions and needs of the people we’re trying to help. Expensive equipment, generators, vehicles, and any other complex systems that work so well in the West just don’t have the infrastructure to support them. Computers don’t tend to work so well when you don’t have consistent electricity from any source, on or off the grid. A generator doesn’t work when you don’t have easy access to fuel, or maintenance items to support it. When one little part breaks, you often render the entire thing useless because there’s no way to replace it. When my brother went to teach in Uganda, he made a point of limiting the amount of school equipment (simple stuff like paper and pencils that you take for granted) he took with him because you set up a dependence that isn’t sustainable - it’ll be gone shortly after he is, and they’ll be back to square one.
What we need to send isn’t stuff, it’s processes. Instead of sending a refrigerator, we should tell people how to make a pot-in-pot refrigerator themselves. Instead of a complicated UV-sterilization system that requires electricity, put some pop bottles on a black roof and use nature’s UV rays. AIDS drugs are one thing, but widespread education about condoms helps nip the problem in the bud. There’s an awful lot of stuff that can be done simply and cheaply that doesn’t require our traditional ideas of infrastructure. It just requires a different way of looking at it - instead of being the great white saviours from the west, we’re helping providing the means for them to bring about change themselves.
March 26th, 2007 at 2:59 am
Obviously we send mountain dew.
And you don’t see the problem in writing about being culturally sensitive and then in the same breath talk about condoms?
We can’t even get all white ppl to agree on those, you think you’re gonna get Afrika in?
March 26th, 2007 at 3:53 pm
Just because Catholics are backwards and out of touch with the reality that people like to fuck doesn’t mean teaching people how to prevent AIDS is a bad (or insensitive) thing to do. Maybe while we’re teaching people about HIV and condoms we should also teach them that putting faith in a white god who promotes abstinence is a bad idea. Teaching is not culturally insensitive, but judging people is, by us or by Christians. People in the western world are finally coming around to the idea there is no god, hopefully poor Africans can start as well.
March 26th, 2007 at 3:54 pm
Oh, and I agree that mountain dew is superior to gatorade in every way. It’s way more extreme.
March 26th, 2007 at 9:27 pm
…well said?
I don’t think that there’s a significant moral opposition to condoms in most parts of Africa (or India, or China, or Russia, or any of the other HIV hotbeds). I suspect a lot of it is just ignorance or misconceptions - either way, once you’re educated you can make the decision for yourself.
March 26th, 2007 at 10:00 pm
I think there might be a fair bit of moral opposition. Christian missionaries are pretty good at converting their heathens.
March 27th, 2007 at 5:32 pm
Speaking from a little bit of experience, as I am the brother who went to “Teach in Uganda” (didn’t do a WHOLE lot of good, I don’t think, but I learned a lot), I have a few things to say about condom use in Africa.
For one thing, it’s difficult - condoms cost money. They are extremely cheap in Africa - government subsidized - and I believe there are places that you can get some for free, but that is a small stumbling block. As Andrew mentioned, the overwhelming majority of problems behind condom use are caused by ignorance and misconceptions about condoms and HIV AIDS.
The few groups of high school kids that I had the opportunity to talk to about AIDS (or, in some cases, that I had the opportunity to witness someone else talk at in Luganda about AIDS) were very receptive. There was very little moral opposition from what I could see, but there were a lot of misconceptions (AIDS only exists in Africa, condoms have HIV in them, as well as some that I didn’t personally witness: you can cure AIDS through sex with a virgin, or by taking a shower, as a high-ranking South African politician publically announced about a year ago). I’ve even heard of cases where someone’s idea of “using a condom” was to put it on a banana before sex, as is often shown in demonstrations…
Uganda is considered by a lot of the international community to be fairly “ahead” when it comes to the AIDS game. That is, they have been pushing the “ABC” (Abstinence/Be Faithful/Condomise) campaign for decades, now. Uganda is a pretty Christian country, too. However, every Ugandan I’ve spoken to about AIDS knows that it needs to be stopped in any way possible. Most are very receptive to condom education. And those who educate are not naive enough to think that kids aren’t going to screw at the first chance they get.
The shitty thing is that by many accounts we’re already too late. A huge portion of Africa (and, indeed, much of the developing world) is already infected with AIDS, and a massive swath of the productive population has already been wiped out by the disease. This means that thousands of children have been orphaned, none of whom can afford school fees (let alone decent food). Even if they manage to avoid AIDS themselves, the lack of education (even around the home - such as in cooking or farming techniques) is just as damaging. It’s pretty dire.
No sense to give up hope - if anything, the urgency means that efforts need to be continually ramped up. And not fucked up by the President and his Wife, who have decided to reduce/refuse aid for countries that decide to mention condoms on their anti-AIDS ads… Bleh.
March 27th, 2007 at 6:19 pm
[...] Note: This post was snagged from the comments of this post, for those of you who haven’t read the discussion. [...]
March 28th, 2007 at 12:24 pm
Quote:
“I don’t think that there’s a significant moral opposition to condoms in most parts of Africa …. I suspect a lot of it is just ignorance or misconceptions - either way, once you’re educated you can make the decision for yourself.”
Well you’ve sort of missed the point yet somehow nailed it in the same sentence. There is no “Africa” for all intents and purposes, right? We’re talking about thousands of different distinct cultures with god knows how many religions and cultural practices - many that have still been entirely unexplored in Western literature.
There is a good deal of ignorance, like you said, and that often leads to one basic emotion: Fear. A good deal of “African cultures” (whatever that means) are entirely closed to the idea of foreign intervention in their schools. While the source of this fear can come from a good deal of different places (corruption, warlords trying to breed ignorance, mistrust of the white devil from hundreds of years of stupid missionaries, etc) some secluded (or even socially isolationist) societies demand the exclusion of “white teachers” from their communities - as is their sovereign right, no?
Saying stuff like “a little knowledge and you’ll be fine” is also pretty unrealistic - look at the misconceptions that have popped up even from the “educated” members of these communities - without even a basic understanding of biology or science or kin or anatomy or SOMETHING a good deal of this sexual education is no different than the naive Catholic missionaries that basically espouse “do as I say, even if you don’t fully comprehend it”. Until a solid general education becomes standard in these depressingly underdeveloped regions they’ll never really “absorb” the information they’re being inundated with. It’s a complex problem.
Thankfully I’m comfortably apathetic.
March 29th, 2007 at 5:35 pm
Very good point regarding the relative uselessness of “Africa” as a catch-all phrase. Although, there is an Africa as much as there is a Europe or an Asia (which, I guess, isn’t much). Many of the countries in the continent face a lot of identical problems. If it wasn’t so late right now I’d try and say more, but I pretty much agree with most of what you said, actually. Especially the bit about how it’s a complex problem (which is, I suppose, how I can say what I said and still agree with you.)
Except for the apathetic business. That’s gotta go. There’s too many smart people out there who are apathetic. (Cause or effect?)