Tropical Gangsters by Robert Klitgaard

Author:Robert Klitgaard [Klitgaard, Robert]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2010-02-01T12:37:00+00:00

"This World Is Yours"

Every couple of weeks I saw Madre Josefina and the nuns at Basile. They still had no news from the Ministry of Education about our proposed international seminar for the kids. I drafted a new letter to the Minister of Education for Madre Josefina signature. It said, in effect, that she was delighted that the ministry had raised no objection to the seminar, which would therefore begin in one month's time. Make them say no instead of waiting for them to say yes: let's use bureaucratic inertia to our advantage.

She laughed. She signed. And we began planning the participation of Malabo's international community in weekly presentations to the students.

I visited possible presenters. The idea, I explained, was to share something about their culture, geography, or history, in any way they liked, but politics and ideology were off limits. People got excited. Visitors agreed to come from Nigeria, Finland, Cuba, Argentina, France, Spain, China, the Soviet Union, the United States (not me), and Germany. The Cameroonians did not respond, the North Koreans were too busy, and the English were unimpressed by the prospect. At the last minute, Madagascar fell through when Ana of the Hotel Jones contracted malaria.

The week before the series at Basile began, I did a warm-up session for the students. I wanted to tell them what this was all about, how it should be fun and not a chore, that they should ask questions. We met in an old classroom with dark and weathered desks and chairs, some light coming in from the windows, a blackboard, and a podium. The children ranged from twelve to eighteen, and 95 percent were girls (the boys were from Basile itself; the girls were boarders from all over the island). They sat two to a chair because two classes were combined. They looked down shyly at their folded hands. I introduced myself, made a few jokes, and said we were there to have fun, to get to know each other, and to learn. What did I hope they would learn? A little about three big lessons. First, what seems strange to you is not necessarily bad. Second, though the first thing you may notice is that groups of people differ, the more you know the more you realize that individuals differ much more, so you can never judge someone by what group he or she belongs to. Third, despite all the differences, we all have a lot in common. Like our hopes and laughter and anger and love.

Then we talked about how to ask questions of our guests. At the end I asked whether they had any questions for me.

There followed a long embarrassed silence. I waited. Finally, a girl rose and spoke so softly I could hardly hear her. She repeated, "What is your last name and how do you spell it?"

The next question was how old I was. Then how many brothers and sisters I had. There were questions about America: what kinds of foods we have, how many people there are, what is "abundant" there.

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