”Fattigdom?!” At blive udsat for tyveri i ”Afrika” er ikke mere usædvanligt end andre steder i verden. Det sker for mig et par gange, og hver gang tager jeg hændelsen med et træk på skulderen. Jeg har alligevel aldrig mange penge på mig. Andre oplevelser derimod kan starte et følelsespendul, der giver store udsving: fra dyb pessimisme over i optimistisk glæde og tilbage igen. Det er, når jeg indenfor minutter oplever afsavn, der er større, end jeg i min vildeste fantasi kunne forestille mig for straks derefter at se en optimistisk glæde, der smitter - det hele i en indpakning af ”fattigdom”, som jeg ikke har entydig definition på. Et af de første følelsessving af den art oplevede jeg kort efter ankomsten til Afrika, i 1992, hvor Claudine og jeg besøgte et Danida-vandprojekt i det østlige Uganda sammen med Bent og Yrsa . Vi stod sammen med beboerne i en landsby og kiggede på en enorm boremaskine, mens vi ventede på det øjeblik, hvor rent vand med et brag sprøjtede op af boremaskinen og plaskede ned over os. I samme sekund, det skete, brød folk ud i jubel, sang og dansede, mens kvinder fór afsted for at hente levende høns, som de overdængede os med som tak for vandet. Nu slap kvinderne for at gå 12 kilometer hver dag for at hente vand. Nu var det kun et spørgsmål om kort tid, før landsbyen ville have sin egen brønd og pumpe. Yrsa, høns og Bent. Forfatterens foto. Bagefter besøgte vi landsbyens hospital, egnens eneste, bygget af englændere under protektoratet ( 2). Hospitalet havde kun en sygeplejerske, og hun fortalte, at briterne havde installeret tredive senge, men at der nu kun var to tilbage. Alt andet fra det oprindelige hospital var væk. Der var ingen madrasser, ingen lagner, ingen medicin, ingen læge. Vi blev vist rundt og opdagede en gruppe kvinder, der lå på hospitalets betongulv. En af dem var død. Moderkagen sad fast, da hun fødte et barn. Sygeplejersken forklarede, at kvinden havde haft brug for en simpel operation, men at nærmeste sted, hvor den kunne foretages, var 90 kilometer sydpå. Hospitalet havde ingen transport. Og nu var det for sent. Vi var i chok. Vi græd. Sygeplejersken trøstede os og trak opgivende på skuldrene. Sådan er det bare, sagde hun - livet, og døden, i en ”afrikansk” landsby. Dengang var jeg ikke i tvivl om, hvad jeg havde oplevet. Det kunne rummes i et ord: ”Fattigdom”. Billedet af jordemoderen i hospitalet i landsbyen blev ved at dukke op men sammen med spørgsmålet: Hvorfor var hun ikke chokeret, som vi var? Det var hun ikke, fordi den unge kvindes død var dagligdag, en trist, men normal hændelse og sikkert ikke noget, hun ville rubricere under ”fattigdom”. Når jeg tænkte nærmere over det, begyndte min forudindtagede idé om ”fattigdom” at krakelere. Senere i Togo fik jeg tid til at spekulere over begrebet og prøvede at aflæse Lomé i et ”fattigdomsperspektiv”. Og nu opdagede jeg i en ende af skalaen handicappede og syge tiggere og i den modsatte ende store villaer og splinternye biler i millionklassen. Imellem yderpunkterne var det generelle træk, at byens infrastruktur var præget af hullede veje, svigtende el- og vandforsyning og det slående element, at byen manglede offentlige toiletter så dramatisk, at folk ”gjorde” hvor som helst. Der blev pisset og skidt i vejkanter og midterrabatter, overalt. Bogens forsidebillede: Taget af forfatteren på Boulevard Eyadema, Lomé, i oktober 2008 Men langsomt gik det op for for mig, at jeg fokuserede på det, som var anderledes, end hvad jeg kendte fra min egen danske middelklasse-baggrund. Jeg så rige og tiggere og en by i forfald men ignorerede det store flertal af lomeanere. Da den sivede ind, opdagede jeg, at den nærmeste betegnelse for de store skarer af byens beboere var noget i retning af ”almindelig”, eller den ”store gennemsnitlige masse”, hverken særligt rige eller særligt fattige. Når jeg spurgte folk, definerede de sig heller ikke som hverken det ene eller det andet, og den opdagelse begrænsede sig ikke kun til Lomé, men gentog sig igen og igen på ture i landdistrikterne. De fleste togolesere så ikke fattige ud, og de definerede sig heller ikke som sådan. En togolesisk bekendt, lægen Aboudou Daré, fortalte, at han sammen med togolesere kun brugte betegnelsen ”fattig”, når de talte om syge og tiggere, mens ”fattigdom” blev bredt ud til at dække hele den togolesiske befolkning, når han var sammen med internationale kolleger, fordi de opfattede alle togolesere som fattige. Udlændingene ville gerne have det på den måde, og det fik de så, sagde Daré. Han gav også en sjælden god beskrivelse af, at perspektivet afhænger af øjnene, der ser, da han kom hjem fra sin første rejse til Asien for arbejdsgiveren SightSavers. Han havde været til et møde i Delhi i Indien og sagde bagefter: ”Aldrig har jeg set så meget fattigdom”. Og tilføjede: ”Så fattigt er der på ingen måde i Afrika”. I vores bydel i Lomé boede de fleste indbyggere i huse af sten med tage af blik, som i min vurdering signalerede noget i retning af middelkl

"Poverty?!" Being exposed to theft in "Africa" ​​is no more unusual than anywhere else in the world. It happens to me a few times and each time I take the incident with a shrug. I still never have a lot of money on me. Other experiences, on the other hand, can start an emotional pendulum that gives large fluctuations: from deep pessimism to optimistic joy and back again. It is when, within minutes, I experience deprivation that is greater than I could have imagined in my wildest imagination, only to then immediately see an optimistic joy that is contagious - all in a wrapping of "poverty" that I do not have unambiguous definition of. One of the first emotional swings of that kind I experienced shortly after arriving in Africa, in 1992, when Claudine and I visited a Danida water project in eastern Uganda with Bent and Yrsa. We stood with the residents of a village looking at a huge drill while we waited for the moment when clean water with a bang sprayed up the drill and splashed down on us. The very second it happened, people were cheering, singing and dancing, while women set off to fetch live chickens, which they showered on us as thanks for the water. Now the women did not have to walk 12 kilometers every day to fetch water.Now it was only a matter of a short time before the village wanted its own well and pump. Yrsa, hens and Bent. Author's photo. Afterwards we visited the village hospital, the only one in the area, built by Englishmen under the Protectorate (2). The hospital had only one nurse and she told that the British had installed thirty beds but that there were now only two left. Everything else from the original hospital was gone. There were no mattresses, no sheets, no medicine, no doctor. We were shown around and discovered a group of women lying on the concrete floor of the hospital. One of them was dead. The placenta was stuck when she gave birth to a baby. The nurse explained that the woman had needed a simple operation, but that the nearest place where it could be performed was 90 kilometers south. The hospital had no transportation. And now it was too late. We were in shock. We cried. The nurse comforted us and shrugged resignedly. That's just the way it is, she said - life, and death, in an "African" village. At the time, I was in no doubt about what I had experienced. It could be contained in a word: "Poverty". The picture of the midwife in the hospital in the village kept popping up but along with the question: Why was she not shocked as we were?She was not, because the young woman's death was everyday, a sad but normal event and probably not something she would classify under "poverty". As I thought about it, my preconceived notion of "poverty" began to crack. Later in Togo I had time to wonder about the concept and tried to read Lomé in a "poverty perspective". And now at one end of the scale I discovered disabled and sick beggars and at the opposite end large villas and brand new cars in the million class. Between the extremes was the general feature that the city's infrastructure was characterized by potholed roads, failing electricity and water supply and the striking element that the city lacked public toilets so dramatically that people "did" anywhere. There was pissing and dirt on roadsides and center terraces, everywhere. Cover image of the book: Taken by the author on Boulevard Eyadema, Lomé, in October 2008 But slowly it dawned on me that I was focusing on what was different from what I knew from my own Danish middle class background. I saw rich and beggars and a city in decay but ignored the vast majority of Lomeans.As it seeped in, I discovered that the closest term for the large crowds of the city's residents was something along the lines of "ordinary," or the "large average mass," neither particularly rich nor particularly poor. When I asked people, they also did not define themselves as either one or the other, and that discovery was not only limited to Lomé, but repeated over and over again on rural trips. Most Togolese readers did not look poor, nor did they define themselves as such. A Togolese acquaintance, Dr. Aboudou Daré, said that he, along with Togolese readers, only used the term "poor" when talking about the sick and beggars, while "poverty" became widespread to cover the entire Togolese population when he was with international colleagues because they perceived all Togolese readers as poor. The foreigners wanted it that way, and they got it then, Daré said. He also gave a rare good description that the perspective depends on the eyes that see when he returned home from his first trip to Asia for the employer SightSavers. He had been to a meeting in Delhi, India and said afterwards: "I have never seen so much poverty".And added: "There is by no means so poor in Africa". In our district in Lomé, most residents lived in stone houses with roofs of tin, which in my assessment signaled something in the direction of the middle class.