It is almost as if folks have put all their faith in the "modern" chemical ways and are so enamored by those ways that they are surprised to hear that non-chemical traditional-type ways can work effectively. One man said "my grandma always bugs me, telling me to save ashes and manure for the garden but our generation, we've forgotten all that."
In so many different domains, from medicine, to latrines, to water wells, to agriculture, one remarks that the traditional methods that had worked have been left behind but that there is not enough money in the system to fully adopt the "modern ways."
This puts a whiteman promoting traditional-type methods in an ironic position. "Oh sorry, we were wrong go back to doing it the old way." Africa has in her subconscious the ways and the means to develop herself but she is lost between tradition and "modernity." Just a small evolution in the traditional methods of latrines, medicine, wells, and agriculture could give birth to low cost highly effective techniques.
In a 2006 article entitled "OPEN THE BLINDS", PCV Dan Mueller tells us of a fictional African village that was developing at its own pace before the world started trying to develop Africa. It would seem that Mueller is saying that organic grassroots development is made impossible or improbable by the promise of the developed world driving up and magically developing the village with money. That promise drastically changes the rules of the game of getting ahead and tears apart the fabric of the developing society. I believe Mueller is also saying that the prospect of emigrating to the "developed" rich world and living the good life blinds Africans and makes them forget the organic development that their ancestors, like ancestors all over the world, we're engaged in. This state of affairs is really quite obvious to the observant development worker.
