The Curse of Being Idle

In our compound resided a young man named Shadrack, age 30. We’ve known him for years. He eagerly helps us with all our various needs and in turn, we break up the monotony of his days. Shadrack is like countless, and I do mean countless millions of young men in Africa that long for productive lives, but have very little to occupy their time. In the world of no jobs and no opportunities, a day is long.When I first came to Africa, my naïve judgments trailing behind me, I thought, “No wonder this place is going nowhere! There are so many men just standing around doing nothing!” Little did I know. I came from a world where anyone that wanted it badly enough, could get a job. Not so in Shadrack’s world. In a world of such abject poverty, opportunity is as scarce as water. People have their shambas (gardens). Subsistence farming is what occupies the time of most adults, though when rain is scarce and ground as dry as it is right now, many don’t even bother planting. Any odd job - hauling supplies, helping a shopkeeper, making some charcoal, is snatched up in a minute by all the young men waiting in the wings to collect a few shillings to feed their families.“I don’t like being idle,” says Shadrack. “I finished secondary school. I wished to go on. I really wished to go on! But fees were a problem,” he says wistfully. Oh, the untapped talent I see every day! The creativity and brainpower left to flounder and wither in a world where there is so little stimulation for bright minds! I sit with Shadrack and we lament together.“But I have my flowers to watch,” says Shadrack. He is raising doves, chickens  and guinea fowls. He calls them his flowers. “I like to watch things grow," he says. “I love these birds. They are my children.” And he cares for his children well. He feasts his eyes on them, observes their every move. The doves coo softly. The guinea fowls move as a single organism, here, there, up on the roof, back in their cage. Their squawking is our signal that a day has begun.“What do you think of the new video den,” I ask Shadrack. The coming of electricity has brought a “video den” to town. It’s a huge tin can, all metal; the videos screaming out, echoing off the walls and into the village 24 hours a day. An unhealthy hotbed for Tuberculosis  and vice. “I don’t like that place,” says Shadrack. “What do I want with kicking and slashing? I want to see things grow.” I ask him what he thinks might counter the influence of the video den. He says he has started a youth group. He teaches these young men how to plant and nurture trees. “Come see them out back,” he says. “I love to start them. See what they become. The others do too.”Yesterday I talked to my daughter, who is still there in Kenya. Our cell phones connected us over the 12,000 miles. “I have to go, Mom.  Shadrack is having a funeral. Two of his chickens died and he’s taking it really hard.”When the world pictures African men, they often see them in camo, holding their AK47’s; the child soldiers made famous, the thugs, corrupt dictators, and Al Shabob in the news. I wish they could sit with Shadrack – watch his “flowers,” and be reminded that always, everywhere, there is the interplay of darkness and light in the world.