The God Complex

I imagine every westerner visiting Africa is guilty of this sin at one point or other. That is the impetuous need to interfere with other people’s lives in order to fix something, while being convinced that this is for the greater good of humanity, and that it is the right thing do.

I was in a taxi last night in Sierra Leone on the way back from the countryside. The taxi was shared by four random passengers, plus my piano, heading back to the capital. As we were reaching Freetown, after four hours of heated discussions about politics, football and refugee camps, one of the passengers started arguing with the driver as to where he wanted to be dropped off, the point of the argument being how much more he should have to pay. The drama eventually stopped, although an agreement had not been reached. The distressed passenger, who was sitting squeezed during the whole journey between the piano case and the front passenger seat, shared his problem with me: in order to reach his final destination he would have to jump on a motorbike (a popular, yet risky, means of public transport here) and that this would cost him another 2,000 Leones (about 50 cents), an amount that he didn’t have. My God Complex kicked in and I whispered to my friend Alusine, who comes from Freetown and was in the taxi with me at the time, to discreetly give the man the money necessary for him to reach his home safely. To my surprise Alusine refused. The man, who had overheard my whispering, got more frustrated and a further argument erupted between the taxi driver, Alusine and the penniless man, this time directed to me. We eventually dropped him off in the middle of the town, far from his destination. The rest of us in the taxi were pleased with the final outcome, while I was feeling guilty how a man the age of my father will get home in the middle of the night in Freetown, with all his luggage, and no money. I should have not worried about pride and just given him the money myself, rather than asking my friend to do this. If you have no money in a place like this it means you walk. There are no cash machines, nor “We welcome American Express” signs.

“He has money”, Alusine told me smiling, and the driver angrily agreed. “He is coming to Freetown to attend the president’s inauguration.” Yes, together with another 40,000 people I argued. “Besides,” they continued, “according to his words, he is connected to the vice president.” I couldn’t understand the argument. Even if all this is true, is it not possible that for whatever reason he didn’t have money on this particular evening? That is not important. These people, I was told, behave like this.  What about the taxi driver who was getting paid 80 dollars for the 24 hour hire and was standing on principle for the extra 50 cents to leave this man in the middle of nowhere? Apparently he is not one of these people, as he earns his 50 cents and doesn’t ask for it. This amount might not be a much for the white man but in Sierra Leone it is a lot.

I try to rationalise the outcome. I initially feel guilty for not having helped the man and for having avoided this whole situation, I then feel guilty for feeling guilty, and about my God Complex that dictated my behaviour in this foreign country, whose customs and behavioural nuances I can’t even begin to grasp although already on my second visit in a year. I want to believe that all of us would do the decent thing back home, not just in Africa, although I am not sure how many of us actually would do this, if the 50 cents were put into perspective to our reality and turned into 20 euro. But that would still not be enough to put into perspective fully, if you take into account the war in the past, the poverty in the present, the political innuendos, affiliations and stereotypes that define people here or the tribal and religious differences. I know all this, but I still cannot understand why everybody in the taxi apart from me thought that it was the right thing to leave a man without money to make his own way home. My God Complex keeps kicking me in the gut to tell me I should have paid the 50 cents for his motorbike ride home, and then given a lecture to the rest in the car why it was the right thing to do.

A few days ago I bought a new suit for my friend Alusine. We had been invited to a function at one of the embassies, and reasonably formal attire was required. After walking through shops in the market that sell everything from cell phones and live animals to furniture and charcoal, we found the shop that sells suits. After some serious bargaining, which includes yelling and several threats to leave, I gave Alusine the money and he walked out of the shop with the new clothes in a plastic bag.  Alusine never owned a suit before that day. “Now I will look like an important person”, he said with a huge smile on his face, although my God Complex can’t let me see who felt more important at that moment, he or me.