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Carlos

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Unfair life

We had our Microsoft offsite event this weekend. This is where Microsoft | Services gets together at a remote location. The remote location of choice this year was Zambia. This was the one of the highlights in my life to date. We had a mixture of staying in the Royal Livingstone hotel (which is probably one of the best hotels I have stayed in), the warm and wonderful people and the awesome white water rafting. All of which was an experience to never forget.

The white water rafting was especially difficult for me as I am by no means an adrenaline junky, but this year being the year where I try new things out and having to stick with my team (including my boss) was a challenge. I can honestly say that it was unbelievable, the scenery what beautiful the company was awesome and I now see the value of doing team building events. I met people I never knew and I bonded with people that I thought I knew. For me personally I crossed many boundaries that I had as a person and it was very valuable to me. I ended up being one of the guys on the raft always wanting to go straight into the middle of the white water. My poor boss, she was always threatening me with my career if I did so ;). After the second rapid she was forced off the raft as we almost flipped the raft or should I rather say the rapid almost flipped the raft. We had to paddle and pick her up way down the river, at which point one could see she was panicky. I would have been too, the rapids really throw you around and take you under. Anyway she got back and having the robust personality that she does carried on with us (still threatening me with my career if I did anything like that again).

Then came me finally meeting and talking to Services practice manager Kevin, he is always quite in the office but once I got to know him immediate respect was shown. He is truly a great person understanding and caring for his employee’s. I mean one thing that blew me over was that I choose canoeing as my activity but at the last moment I wanted to go white water rafting. He swapped his place for mine even though I knew he wanted to go white water rafting. In the grand scheme of things I m just another consultant but he showed me in that little instance how much he cared and that means a lot to people!

Now my title is a bit vague as this looks like I had the time of my life, but I would like to take a moment to explain to you all why.

There are few things in life that really affect me and one of them is human suffering. I cant stand it and I can not stand the sight of it and when you cross the borders from Zambia into Zimbabwe or when you are outside your little cocoon at the Royal Livingston hotel, you notice the suffering and hardship and it does nothing less than give you a big lump in your throat.

You always feel helpless and somewhat responsible for suffering and at that moment the sheer beauty of both Zambia and Zimbabwe disappears and one realizes what you have back home.

My main worry is buying a house but I can afford a house. These peoples main worry is living basic human needs. One wonders if governments and world leaders have any hearts sometimes.

I left Zambia with mixed feelings, I made so many more friends and bonded with my current friends but still think about the poverty in those countries.

Without getting political I really think that the world neglects these people and they have so much to offer. The people selling artifacts next to the road could really do a good job in our sales office as no matter how many times you say no I watch softie after softie either paying up for something or trading clothes or caps for some artifacts.

I noticed that clothing and shoes was more important to them than money and that’s desperate. If in my life time one day I can be in a position to help people like that I will and that’s one extra respect point to Bill Gates from me, he spends millions if not billions on African countries like that. I ask you reading this, if you where in Bill’s shoes would you do the same?

Later
C

Posted: Monday, February 06, 2006 1:26 PM by carlos
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Comments

tomek said:

When I read it I had a though - "How often You are thinking that a person You are considering as your fiend has the same thoughts separately?"
I'm thinking about it from some time and the worst thing is that I can't see a point or way in which we can help these people quickly develop to some better level of life. I'm observing a lot of movements among the politics and moves like additional tax for air ticket which as they said will be spent to help africa but I'm not sure if it would help. I'm having strange thoughts sometimes like when I'm taking shower and sudanly I think that I waste a lot of water to take shower and somebody elsewhere has to travel a half a dy to get so little of it to sourvive.

I saw lately a movie "Constant gardner" and this also moves me - how many of such things happens there where no one has control over industry and people are very poor. I don't know - this bothers me a lot, and what is bothering me even more is thought that we can do so little to help these people. But maybe if a lot of peoples wiil do "a little" this will make "huge" change in some time.

One thing is obvious for me - we should still have such diferences between our life and these peoples in mind, and we should make sometime even small decissions which may influence their life. If we know that some company is playing not fair in Africa or Asia why we should want to pay for their goods?

Should we feel bad about such differances?? I think not, as long as we remeber that there are others and sometimes we have to support them. Maybe even not in Africa or Asia but more often in our neighborhood. I know that this all sounds like commonplace but this is a way i think, and trying to do sometimes. Becouse only the peoples can make a difference for other peoples.
# February 6, 2006 12:14 PM

carlos said:

So here is the thing Tomek, I understand you 100% and I think more than often these "Taxes" are used to fund the same people that are busy inflicting danger and poverty on the people we feel sorry for.

I use to donate 10% of my salary to a good organization and haven’t yet done it since I started working for the big M, however I will and probably increase it to.

I was thinking to myself after the white water rafting R100 to me is two rounds of golf, where as R100 to someone in Zambia is more than three months of pay.

It is so rural there that people fish to eat everyday, and I know that sounds weird but I mean they don’t have any tools, it reminds me of something out of discovery.

My 10% might not make a difference but I know the organization I pay it to will give it to someone as they have a program for you to monitor your payments.

I just felt like sometimes life can be so unfair on people and I for one have been probably one of the luckiest people in the world. I believe there is a balance in everything and if you keep on taking from the world then the world one day will take from you. It's the balance of life.

In South Africa there is alot of suffering but where I was up in Africa its a different suffering. People here have a choice, they have a sane government, people up there have no choice and up in the rich peoples place its who can take more for them self’s, this bothers me to no end.

It was bothering me and at the moment I am alone in the place I am staying and I had to let it out.

You my friend will always be the warm and wonderful person that I have come to know.

Keep well and thanks for the comment
C
# February 6, 2006 12:28 PM

Deji said:

Very deep thought, Carlos.

I want to say that you are not alone in this. Many of us worry about this all the time, too. When I first started thinking about this, I used to go from disbelief to anger to frustration to more anger and then overwhelming frustration and confusion and back to anger trying to grapple with the incomprehensible dichotomy between the extreme abject poverty and the wanton riches in the human race.

Of course, there will always be disparity in the distribution of resources (wealth) in any part of the world. But the vast differences between the two extremes is very hard to comprehend or accept in any rational way.

What can you or I do? You and I are not wealthy by any definition. Even if we were, can we cure all the poverties in the world? No. take the example of your 10% contributions. How much of that 10% reaches the people that really NEED and DESERVE it? I don't know about the organization that you send the contributions to, but statistically, I'd say that very little of your contribution gets to the needy, and that very little that gets to them is highly unlikely to lift them out of their current situations in a meaningful way. I hope I am wrong on this point. But what makes me really angry is that a significant portion of that contribution is going to someone else's coffers (foreign bank account, foreign properties in choice locations, etc) and that is not what you intended to see happen when you made your contributions.

Does this mean we should all give up and just stand back? NO. What I do is try to DIRECTLY help someone whenever and wherever I can. I resolved to not feed the corruption in our society by sending money and materials to people who are ruining the societies in the first place. I don't know much about Zambia, but where I come from (Nigeria), I know that if wealth is distributed equitably, there will be so much less poverty in that society than there is today. Nigeria is a wealthy country, but the wealth is circulated among few corrupt officials who are entrusted (or, rather, who have entrusted themselves) with the task of managing that wealth. A rich country squanders its wealth through inordinate corruption, siphone the wealth out of the country, put it in another country (thereby increasing that other country's wealth), then turn around and borrow money from that other country (thereby mortgaging its own future) and again steal that borrowed money and reinvest it in the other country again and again. It's a vicious cycle, and your 10% contribution (or even Bill Gates' billions) will not do much good for as long as that corrupt situation persists.

It's hard not to get political in this case. It's hard to keep your sanity and live your life. It's hard not to get discouraged and furstrated and angry and feel helpless. It's hard to not go crazy. But, again, we all need to remember that these countries are not in and of themselves poor countries. It's the institutionalized mismanagement and corruption and gree and lack of leadership that impoverishes them. How do we redress that? Tough question. If you have a good idea, I am willing to listen. In the meantime, I encourage you to live your life, help whoever you can help directly, and don't feel guilty that you are able to afford the things that you can today.
# March 7, 2006 10:33 AM
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