Africans - How to Enjoy the Benefits of Modern Technology

Of course, not all Africans have lost good judgment and proper values in their desire to enjoy the benefits from modern technology. There are many honest and upright persons throughout Africa.

A foreign correspondent who spent a short time in Africa noted some dishonest ones, yet candidly reported: "But I should tell as well of . . . a young man who refused money after guiding me for hours around an irrigation project. Of the woman laundry worker who returned to me the eighty naira that I left in a shirt pocket. And I should tell of the kindnesses shown to me by the man I had called stupid."-National Geographic, March 1979.

Not all who move to the big city change their values. Necessity may have required the move, but some have retained their good principles and kept their families united. They have taken a realistic look at a life-style centered around a quest for money and the comforts it can buy. They know that other things are worth more.

The Good Life?

Do you remember the young man mentioned at the beginning of this article who felt that his new way of life would bring genuine happiness? His story continues:

'I have been six months now in the big city. I had moved from the first job, where the hours were long and the work unending, to another job and then a third. The conditions were little different and the pay actually a little less. I had settled into the rhythm of town life-dead low before payday, then a surge at the end of each month. Eventually all I had went into pawn, and I lived a life as quiet as I once did at home.

'Each evening when work was over I went out into the street and stood and watched. There were always the same sights, the same procession of cars, the same well-dressed women in taxis, the same flush-looking boys. Where did they get it? There was a trick somewhere. I was worked as I was never worked before, but the money-which came in handfuls that I would not have dreamed of-went out again as fast. I began to see that people like me never had a chance.'

Though not all who go to the 'big city' end up feeling this way, many see the utter futility of seeking happiness merely through material things. They yearn for the simple life that existed before. Not that they wish to live again in poverty, as some did, nor to revive everything in the traditional culture. But they sorely miss the values of a close family, hospitality and rule of law, which are being eroded in this modern age.

Perhaps you too are concerned about the way your life has been affected by materialism. You may wish to make a change. But how?