the africa i saw....

"Africa is neither all tragedy nor all renaissance. It is a diverse continent that's struggling to find its way in the global economy and has both of these extremes, but is much more in a middle place that looks like that field in Karatu: a wild, unregulated, informal, individual brand of capitalism, which we need to channel into formal companies that can grow and scale up, even with corrupt governance.

Africa needs many things, but most of all it needs capitalists who can start and run legal companies. More Bill Gateses, fewer foundations. People grow out of poverty when they create small businesses that employ their neighbors. Nothing else lasts."

-- Thomas Friedman, "Patient Capital for an Africa that Won't Wait", New York Times, April 20, 2007
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I remember a very interesting discussion with one of the supervisors in my study. We started talking about what she did in her free time to earn extra income, and she told us about how she smuggled men's suits and alcohol from Tanzania into Zambia and sold them at 600% or so profit. It involved a 24 hour commute one way -- taking a bus to the Tanzanian border, taking another bus to DarEs Salaam, buying the suits / alcohol, then using local connections to bypass the border control authorities (most of whom are underpaid and bribed very easily) and then take the bus back to Lusaka. It was a bit dangerous, but hey... making  a profit of $300 in one weekend trip is worth it in a country where average monthly income is about $100 (optimistically.)
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Another favorite memory: Walking through the Kamwala shops by myself or with my driver (acting as an informal bodyguard) looking at goods that were almost all manufactured by China. (Backpacks, shoes, electronics, clothes, more clothes, etc.) Zambian consumers love cheap Chinese goods overall, even if they are of very questionable quality. The Indian / Muslim / Zambian shopkeepers hate it.One Zambian shop worker came up to me and said "Look we are selling your things."
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