Many times, a Westerner will come to Africa with the view
that he or she is the expert and others have to learn from them. Often times it is the locals who teach the
Westerner something.
When I was in Mozambique, the greetings protocol used to
make me INSANE. This especially happened
when I wanted to get something done. I
really didn’t care how your goats were, I wanted to get in, get what I wanted
from you and get out. There were important
things to do in Mozambique which didn’t involve sweating it out in some dark
meeting room.
However, time has changed my view on the protocol required
in African contexts. Yesterday is my
case in point. As many of you who have
followed me on Facebook or talked with me recently, you know that I am helping
out a Namibian friend here with the social media requirements of her
business. It’s proven a daunting
task. She’s sometimes very mistrusting
of people she doesn’t know (me) and technology she doesn’t completely
understand (Facebook). So it’s taken
almost a month to even get her to trust me.
Yesterday, we had 2 hours set aside to work on her Facebook
page and put together a fundraising campaign.
However, the first hour was spent just catching up. This is something that I only noticed later
worked very well for us. She now trusts
me so much that she is sending me her banking information to get her all set up
with the fundraising campaign. All we
had to do was ask each other how we were.
Interesting what happens when you slow down.
Ian
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