I CAUGHT NUMBER
ONE
Because it is easy, anyone can find out about the American
president who said a man who believes money is everything could justifiably be
suspected of being capable of doing anything to get it. That quote just came to
my mind minutes ago because I was very close to doing just that a couple of
weeks ago at school when I witnessed a scene that could have got me some pounds
if I had a camera and got it on it.
Let me tell you the story the way you’d get it. I happen to be a regular reader of the BBC Focus on Africa magazine and you know how they tell you to get photos or stories that when they get published earn you some pounds. Of course I like money but not as much as you do. At first I didn’t give a hoot but after some time, I began to want to have their money. My first move was to send them one of my stories – a good one. And when I did, I waited for them to get back to me, and waited. Nothing.
Did they get it? I bet. I say that when I didn’t get a mail I can’t read from Mailer Daemon, and when a sent mail remains in my Sent box. Then at long last I got a reply in which they said something or other about the heading or subject of my mail. That it was supposed to have a particular subject heading so they can sort it, or file it, or reply to it, or use it easily. Just like you, I couldn’t understand because I assumed if you wrote a mail to an English magazine in their own language, they would read it and know what to do with it. And if they did they wouldn’t have to use their red tape. I came to believe they didn’t read it and I’m still waiting to get over that before I write them back.
On the other hand, I’ve been eyeing my sister’s digital camera for some time, trying to find what help it could be of if I went out every day with it taking shots of every spectacular scene that the BBC would like. The BBC can’t help but like pictures that show dirty, squalid, rustic, uncivilized scenes – that is, those that show Africa as they would rather have it be. No, you can’t blame them when it’s Africans that send them those photos; Africans like me who crave their money and wield a camera.
The scene I saw in a village very close to my hostel was that of a diminutive little girl in a dirty-coloured panties and her more diminutive wee sister carrying a diminutive little brown puppy on her shoulders like you would carry a sleeping baby. It struck me how very close to the ground they were as they walked down the tarmacked road to wherever they were headed. I suspected they were headed for the market down the road to sell the dog. I’m sure they could strike a good bargain – those kids; only that the way they carried the puppy tells they wouldn’t give it up for the world and all the stars put together. It was like the puppy was their third little sister so that it’s not just a dog but a member of the family.
I considered that this was African scene par excellence when I saw the apparently undernourished and growth-retarded children with their midget of a dog. I didn’t see the big picture nor did I consider the misrepresentation of Africa that would engender if published. That it would run like every child in the continent is as hungry and diminutive as those. It was hard for me to pick myself up from the moral level I’d dropped down to. After all I’m supposed to have learned about money I saw myself then regretting I didn’t carry a camera to take those kids with and send to my shame.
In the end I had to tell myself the hard truth: that I have often underestimated my greed. Maybe (not maybe) I should always be on constant guard against avarice and the love for just a little more, and to remind myself all the time that it is the love of money that is the root of all evil, not the lack of it as Bernard Shaw would have us believe.
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