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Teresa During Fantasy Football Season,
Unless you lost Internet over the
past four months and/or were incarcerated in one of those prisons where you
can’t speak to anyone, text anyone, or deal drugs you all know I graduated from
grad school in June. This Labor day while I basked in the Tahoe sun and
listened to patrons discuss their serendipitous, $100,000 radical inclusion
Burning Man vacation I came to the realization that this was the first time in
my adult life where, for the most part, I didn’t miss being a student. The one thing I missed out on was having the
chance to research the unknown parts in some of my passions. For me, I’ve always loved traveling but have
never ventured over to Africa.
If you pick up a Jared Diamond book
you’ll discover that the continent of Africa is the domicile to 25% of the
languages spoken on this earth, the birthplace of some of the world’s best
coffee, and home to ten out of twelve of the fastest growing economies. So why has this entire continent, with so
many diverse and vibrant cultures, been relegated to a monolithic idea of an
area perpetually engulfed with massive poverty, stagnant growth, and a forever
war torn area?
There’s no arguing that a large part
of Africa has suffered through decades of mismanagement aid projects, self
induced massive inflation, and brutally corrupt leaders. But if you’re looking
for a blog post feigning some kind of insight into the depths of despair third
world patrons go through on a daily basis, this isn’t one of them. Instead, I
traveled to Uganda, Tanzania, and Kenya to gain a better understanding of the rapid
industrial expansion Africa is experiencing.
My first stop was Uganda. My mother always said there are two distinct
parameters to evaluate the greatness of a nation. How many Bollywood movies
they watch and how much their citizens want to give back to their country. Uganda didn’t disappoint in either
measurement. For starters, it was a joy to meet so many citizens sharing the
same joy brought on by international films filled with long drawn out musicals
with the archaic plot line of whether the man from the poor family gets the
girl from the super rich family (Spoiler: He gets the girl). But beyond our
Bollywood bonding, I was amazed by how the big cities of Uganda had a United
Nations vibe where immigrants from Canada, South Africa, and parts of Europe
all called this East Africa nation their home.
Their reason? One fellow who I sat
next to on the airplane, who we’ll call “Annoying”, stated that he moved from
Toronto to Kampala, Uganda because he could make a direct impact immediately,
but also because he didn’t have to do it at a break neck pace. Mr. Annoying,
along with citizens from England and South Africa, flocked to Uganda because
they could start small business like a Mexican restaurant or a bakery because
capital was cheap, but they didn’t have to work the strenuous 15-hour days a
western entrepreneur had to if he/she had to start a business in North
America.
In my next stops in Tanzania and
Kenya I once again ran into numerous former Western citizens up rooting their
life because they feel Africa is the next economic frontier. An ex-Wall Street
banker I met at a bar in Nairobi, Kenya explained his passion for investing and
seeing companies grow. He felt that with anyone with a large amount of capital
should come to Africa for its low barrier to start a business and cheap cost of
labor (he was, though, disappointed by the difficulty of getting cocaine). By
no means are foreign investments a rarity these days. In the March 2nd,
2013 edition of The Economist recent data shows that in the past five years, no
other continent has received as much foreign direct investment as Africa.
Furthermore, over 5,000 citizens from all over the world have come to Africa in
the past decade to start a business.
But, make no mistake; local citizens
have been the main fuel that has spurred this break-neck financial expansion
occurring in East Africa. Over the past three years, Uganda, Kenya, and
Tanzania have grown at an average rate of 5% and roughly 90% of that growth has
come from domestic citizens. On each of my stops I attended an entrepreneur and
venture capital conference. As a Silicon Valley native, I was expecting these
conferences to be comprised of Tyrion Lannister size hipster male tech workers
presenting software and apps to mask their poor self esteem, third grade level
social skills, and the fact that the only girl they’ve seen naked was when they
walked in on their mom during one winter break in college.
This was far from the case. I had
the pleasure of meeting countless individuals working on issues such as water
rights, female access to education, and improving quality products for
farmers. Many people were baffled that
so much money in America was being thrown into technology companies. I met a
man, in Zanzibar, Tanzania, who was setting up an easier way for motorcycle
drivers to lease their bikes for much cheaper.
In many parts of Africa most people get around on the backs of
motorcycles (an experience that makes you fear for you life, but is incredibly
cheap and efficient). He said, “I am amazed at the talent that in the American
tech community. They have the ability to solve some of the biggest problems,
but many choose to focus on trivial matters that have a minute impact on the
world. I think this is a wasted opportunity. It’s my privilege to create a
business that can help so many people in my country, and that’s the only way I
look at my business. Many people all
around the world wish they had the same community and resources that reside in
Silicon Valley.”
While the inner nerd in me was
mesmerized by the economic transformation occurring in Africa, the time I spent
on checking out the sites in East Africa was just as mind blowing. This blog
post is already too long to go into detail about the amazing environmental
landscape I had the privilege to see, but if one is looking for natural
forestry and aquatic beauty then they should consider a trip to Africa. There
are no words that can explain the awesomeness of a safari (or as I like to call
it a “Shofari”). The people who you meet that are committed to protecting the
wildlife are heroes. Sitting down over
tea with Safari guides, who have been giving tours for over thirty years, was
just as interesting as seeing that one wild animal holding Barack Obama’s birth
certificate. Having the opportunity to
raft the Nile over one weekend was a dream I had since I was in third
grade. Even as the number one Tahoe fan,
I had never seen a body of water so pristine and blue.
And just like every country in the
world, besides China, people will blow you away with their kindness. Regardless, of economic stature, the people I
met in all three countries I visited were honored to have visitors. To the
fault of my own, I ended up in the tourist’s nightmare where I was alone at
night walking back to my hotel. Not once did I ever feel threatened and not
once did a person ever ask for money after helping with directions. Many justified their philanthropic gesture by
explained they were happy to have people visit and taking money was thug-life
behavior deterring future tourists. In the over thirty countries I’ve visited
I’ve never encountered this kind of benevolent behavior.
Perhaps the most surprising fact was
the agony that I thought many Africans experienced was never apparent. They never felt sorry for themselves for
living through a brutal dictatorship, like many had in Uganda. Nor did the
citizens of Tanzania want any sympathy from the outside world over the countless
times large multinational oil companies pillaged their resources and left them
with less then their fair share. I had
the opportunity to attend a number of culture shows and art exhibits. The
people of East Africa were proud of their heritage and culture and were
incredibly enthusiastic about sharing it with strangers.
I can say I met over two hundred
people on this trip. The only time I met so many people in such a short amount
of time when I was a volunteer in Las Vegas on The President’s 2012 re-election
campaign. If you gave me an assignment asking me to give you a list of the
different thing these two groups wanted in life I would fail. These were people
just like you and me (but taller, better skin, and probably better basketball
players). Whether it was my driver or the police officer I had to bribe, all of
them had the same “American” dream of sending their kids to college, having a
safe environment for their family, and having the desire to leave this earth a
better place than why they arrived.
If you don’t believe me, that’s
fine, I get it. For far too long we in the Western world have only been given
images of Africa in despair and not of rapid development. But if you have time and money, be a student
and take some time to learn about an area in the world that should be getting
far more attention and respect that it has in the past.
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