Having lived in Uganda for all of 4 months at this point, I don’t exactly feel qualified to generalize too much about all things Ugandan (or African!). But I have some inescapable observations that I do want to share, when I reflect on over 9 years in Cambodia (and interacting with many Asians) So, without further ado, here I have
A few observations on the differences between Asia and Africa:
A Cambodian (Khmer) lady with the traditional headscarf (Kroma)
AFRICANS can sing (and dance) like nobody else on earth. ASIANS, well, they are like everyone else on earth. Cambodia in particular has relatively few talented musicians and little musical history that remains, thanks to the cultural loss suffered from the Khmer Rouge years. In Cambodia, we had one (sort-of) guitar player among our 70ish staff, and any expat staff who could play often did not want to because their attempts to create steady rhythms would be drowned out by the cornucopia of conflicting rhythms of the staff. But even singing in churches in North America and Europe or Latin America is a bit lame after experiencing it in Uganda. And here in Uganda, they tell me “No, you need to go to Congo – that is where they can really sing!”
ASIA is about very indirect, “read between the lines” communication. Asians value preserving relationship over speaking truth (and in many ways, I have come to value their value!) AFRICA, on the other hand, is much more direct in communication than are Asians, though still indirect compared to Americans & Northern Europeans (& West Africans are more direct than East Africans). I remember when an African told me that he did not like how I had drawn up the agenda for a meeting we were having. Coming right from Asia, I was a bit shocked at being told that to my face! But I quickly remembered and said to myself “Toto, we’re not in Kansas (or Asia!) any more!” and then I was fine again with direct feedback (and I then adjusted the rest of the agenda!).
ASIAN women are tiny, very thin. AFRICAN women are rarely tiny, not often thin. Asian women value long, straight, black hair. African women do wild, fun, crazy things with their (anything but straight) hair. African men and women wear more vibrant colors than their Asian counterparts.
A young Ugandan women in her tribal headdress, photo courtesy of Wikipedia.
In ASIA, at least in Cambodia and among Cambodians, there is a lot of dependence on Western money. But this dependency is a bit more hidden, it does not show too quickly or easily. Whereas in AFRICA there is a clearly entrenched social system built around westerners and their money. Ugandans more directly ask for money, and seem to have more expectations that foreigners will bring jobs and benefits. I have had many, many Ugandans come to our door asking to be our car washer, our gardener, our guard, our de-bugger, our garbage collector, etc. That is, I think, a good think on the whole – it’s entrepreneurialism at work! But yes, I get the feeling that we are expected to give a little job to everyone in the neighborhood. In nine years in Cambodia, I think I had one boy ask if he could cut our grass for money – and he asked me after he has known our family for a little while. Part of that is indirectness, part of that may be a lack of entrepreneurialism, but I think part of it is that African have a long history and memory of White foreigners and missionaries (and more recently, Charity organizations) among them in a way that many parts of Asia do not. So it feels like more of a “system” here in Uganda than it did in Cambodia.
AFRICA has a very real collective identity that has at least some hold on the imagination of many Africans, whether Ugandan or Nigerian, Igbo or Luo. It used to upset me a great deal when non-Africans talked about “Africa” as if it were a country or single place. And while I still cringe at that sometimes, I also recognize that “Africa” is a powerful concept of brotherhood to Africans in a way that ASIA will never be to Cambodians and Indians.
CAMBODIA is poor, ranked 69 out of 104 poorer “developing” countries according to this measure. UGANDA, however, is poorer, ranked 91 out of 104. Uganda and it’s capital city feels like Cambodia did when we first arrived there in 2002 when more streets were unpaved, the houses were shabbier, and the general color of most everything in the city was dust brown. Uganda, though, has green countryside and wonderful weather. Cambodia had hot weather. And humid. Or very hot and very humid weather. But at the same time, Ugandan institutions often seem to me to be stronger, though I need more time to really come to a firm conclusion on that one.
UGANDA suffers from a lot of corruption at all levels of government. Even so, it is somewhat less corrupt (though still second-to-worst or worst in East Africa) than Cambodia, according to our experience and also by ranking 140 our of 175 by Transparency International’s perceived corruption index. CAMBODIA ranks twenty nations lower, coming in at 160 out of 175 nations. If traffic police pull you over in Uganda (they have done so to us) they will not ask directly for a bribe (even though this is a more “direct” culture) and they do not want you to get out of the car (because, if money were to change hands, nobody sees it when it happens inside the car). In Cambodia, police would (after a bit) just straight up ask me for money (or a beer), and lorries/trucks would often not bother to stop at major intersections on the city, but instead just slow down, roll down the window, and hand over the “standard fee” to the traffic police like relay runners passing the baton.
I don’t want to delve too deep when my first-hand experience of Africa is still pretty shallow, but south of the Sahara AFRICA has a pretty Christianized culture which covers over a deep-seated animistic worldview (42% Catholic, 42% Protestant-mostly Anglican, 12% Muslim). The Christian Church – particularly the Catholic and Anglican (Church of Uganda) churches are influential and connected. And that, as you can imagine, has many “pluses” as well as some significant “minuses” as far as the advancement of the Gospel is concerned. In Cambodia and in many parts of ASIA the culture is a very animistic-Buddhist one, which covers over a deep-seated animistic (in Cambodia, a Hindu) worldview (93% Buddhist, 3% Muslim, 2% Christian in Cambodia). Drawing conclusions about a culture’s worldview should be done carefully and thoughtfully, so as I gain more first-hand experience living in Africa I look forward to coming back to this question in the future…. I will say, though, that I suspect that I will have learned more about my own worldview from my life in Cambodia, than I probably will in Uganda. More than anything, that has to do with the fact that Cambodia was my first extended encounter with another way of looking at the world. I cannot replicate that first encounter here in Uganda. But also, Cambodia has an Asian perspective that is, at it’s core, simply more eastern than Uganda. Some of those fundamental differences between Western and Eastern ways of framing the world are laid bare in a great book called The Geography of Thought.
SIMILARITIES? Many, many. On the “up” side, the people of Uganda and Cambodia are both very friendly, helpful, and hospitable to strangers. Both are very eager to learn. Both are young countries (by average age), and as such they almost throb with energy and vitality! Simply wonderful, beautiful people. On the down side, though, both countries share a long, sad history of self-inflicted wounds from bad governance and leadership. Stability has come through an authoritarian, long-serving leader who rules over (and above) a weak democracy, and who show no sign of going anywhere anytime soon.