The Good kind of Contol

Believe it or not somewhere in this mess there is a method. It’s my first job managing an entire project, making decisions, moving things. If I do not send out an email or call a meeting, nothing moves. 

At this present moment my life is surrounded by pressure, some bright days when I run off and hide in the comfort of my living room, watch my bell peppers and tomatoes grow and dream of a day when I will have my very own personal assistant. Isn't it interesting that human beings have a need to own things, people and animals? Someone I know often reiterates that Americans have a need more than any people to control something or anything. Whenever he sees people walking around with their dogs on a leash he compares it to being in Africa where the dogs run free and return when the sun sets. 

However, when you think about America, the idea of privacy has numerous facets to it. Privacy ranges from not evading another’s space on the bus, train and in one’s home; but when it comes to the media; what one does, writes, photography there is absolutely no privacy. In Africa, yes Africa that one big country, I said it – bite me! I hate borders – but this is a topic for another day. Well, in Africa, the notion of privacy is invisible. We do not think, talk or act it. When I was growing up, I got told off for things I was doing wrong by the neighbors and all my relatives, distant and near, people from church and even my own older siblings who sometimes took out a cane to discipline me. A child’s life is not their own or even their parents only.

Today I had a meeting with a partner firm I am working with and was pressing the need for privacy for refugees in a camp while we undertake the research project out there. The partner said to me, ‘the notion of privacy for refugees in a camp is absolutely different from what you are speaking of. In a camp xx refugees as old as my grandparents take a bath in the open, nothing is private,’ this not because they want to, but because its the hand they have been dealt. Maybe I'm stretching it when I make reference to refugees. Refugees are special in that they have no control whatsoever as to what has happened and what is happening to them. Non-refugees on the continent do have a sense of control over their lives but in a collective sense. We control our families, everyone chips in, many times my parents will call me to talk to a sibling or cousin about something they would rather have someone else say and my siblings will call me to speak to my parents about something that they are fed up of bringing up, relatives will ask my parents about me and throw in their ten cents about my unconventional lifestyle – why do I wear my hair like that? Why does she travel too much? Why doesn't she have any children yet?

My desire for a personal assistant, maybe an intern who can get all my work done, is evidence of my transition from the collective to the individual. I want to own something of my own, to say that I have someone who you can contact instead of coming straight to me; to get my work done so that I have less to do -to have the freedom to thrive without pressure. One of my girlfriends would say, this is a good control.