Rural life in Africa

For those of us living in the 1st world, we take our life for granted with its comfort and ease that we enjoy. Sure, we work hard and pay high taxes to achieve that lifestyle, and suffer hidden costs to our health like stress related ailments. Washing our dirty laundry is one such chore that we’ve made easy by inventing washing machine that do most of the hard work for us, but of course we have to pay for that luxury, by buying the machine, building a laundry room in your house, installing plumbing to connect it, not to mention power and sewage connections which all have a cost, so you have to work longer and harder to have that luxury. And is it really a luxury? It’s still physical labor, mundane, boring, time consuming. From the outside looking in, it looks luxurious if you don’t have access to it.

To the rural indigenous people who live a 3rd world existence, it looks luxurious, just pick up your clothes out of the hamper and walk to the laundry room, drop in the clothes, pour in some detergent, turn on the machine, and walk away to relax in the front room and watch tv. Let the machine do the work. Easy. Not really, as I have described, the back story takes work and energy to get there. Life is expensive in the 1st world, and there is no guarantee that your job will always be there. You could get laid off, your investments could evaporate in a split second of bad news and now you have to work longer and harder to get it back. Hidden costs. You feel like a hamster on a treadmill, running, running.

Now you look at the 3rd world life and think, they have it easy. Rural living, no hidden costs, live for free in the bush next to a river, grow your own food, hunt and trap your own meat, fish, enjoy a natural, clean life. No stress. No taxes.no commute to a job, no car repairs, maintainence costs, insurance bills. How wonderful. Not really. There are no paying jobs out there, but lots of back breaking work. Just look at the people doing their laundry in the river. It’s hard work, bending over, standing in the water on hard rocks, hands wet and scrubbed raw. Sure, they are outside in the clean air, in the sun, being with their neighbors and friends, talking, gossiping, singing, it kind of sounds idyllic. The river and the water is free, and except for the soap you have to buy it doesn’t cost to do the laundry. But what if there is a drought? The water goes away, the river is no more, and now you can’t wash your clothes, or have drinking water. Stress. Of a different kind.

‘From the outside looking in, rural living looks good and healthy, but it has just as much stress and worry as city life. You have to pay for the convenience of easy living, in 1st world city life, and suffer with stress and ill health as a result, but just as city life looks luxurious and carefree to outsiders looking in, rural 3rd world living is stressful in a different way.

‘I live in the 1st world, in a rural setting, in California, so I know first hand what it is like. I have also lived in Africa and have seen how the indigenous people live in a rural setting, and I have personal black friends who live rural, in Zimbabwe, so I know first hand how they live as well. Both lifestyles have its pluses, and it’s negatives.

just enjoy and love the life you have.