Laziness in Africa

I like to think that I'm pretty proactive. But the people I'm exposed to day-in and day-out in Abidjan blow me away. While I've had experience with the African stereotype of the lazy and corrupt politicians and the equally lazy and often drunk husbands, what so many people do to survive and create a better life for their family blows me away.

For your consideration:

1. While having a delicious lunch of roasted chicken, a child, who couldn't have been more that 10 years old, started shining my shoes. I actually had this done by another kid the other day, so I refused. He persevered. On his knees he crouched his head under the tiny table and brushed voraciously. He clearly really wanted to do this. I relented. He worked hard, scrunched in uncomfortable positions, pulling out his cute little shoe polish containers from a bag made of twine and a old sac of rice and did a pretty good job.

The whole idea of walking around all day looking for clients can't be much fun either. Asking busy people who try their best to ignore you to be inconvenienced. But these kids do it, tirelessly.

And the payoff? 50 CFA. Ten cents. I gave him double. He was grateful. But I still feel cheap. Also makes me feel lazy, and lucky, as I returned to my air conditioned office.

2. Street vending means something different in Africa. It is not about fancy trucks that serve the sidewalk bureaucrats during lunch hour. We're talking literally vending on the street, think k-mart meets frogger. Darting in between traffic with odds and ends, from hats to small chalkboards to newspapers to clothespins, selling a few items isn't about the risk of investing in inventory. It's about the risk of getting killed for a sale.

It's not passive hit or miss sales job. Show just the slightest interest and they will follow your car in a dead sprint. Give them the sign you want to buy and they will follow you through the stoplight, across the road and its 6 lanes of traffic. Not a picnic.

3. African women. Do I even need to go into this? Anyone who's had the opportunity to visit Africa knows that African women male David Petraeus look like a bum. There are the women sitting in front of hot coals in the often blistering Abidjan sun, shucking and grilling corn from dawn until dusk.

Perhaps the most thankless workers I've seen are women who every morning sweep the dust that accumulated the previous day off of the main roads. Not hard? The lucky ones have brooms with handles, most have pieces of straw bound together an have to hunch over all day. Still not impressed? Trying doing all of that with an infant on your back.

4. Nescafe mobile vendors have a pretty thankless job too. They guys (and they are exclusively guys) walk around with this cart full of hot water and instant coffee, serving the cities bureaucrats.

Small cups of strong, black instant coffee might not sound good to you. After getting a bit too used to fantastic espresso in DC's fancy coffee shops last fall (my favorite is Bourbon Coffee in Foggy Bottom, more coffee than bourbon, FYI) I was deeply skeptical. However, using just a second cup, these vendors perform an act of alchemy. They pour the coffee from cup to cup in long streams like they do in Morocco with mint tea, aerating the coffee and turning a simple cup of coffee-like swill into a frothy mixture that ressembles a latte. It's actually better than a lot of office coffee I've had sitting all day in coffee pots.

In conclusion: the net laziness of Africa will decrease when I head home in August.