The Complicated Act of Sharing

At the Mwika campus of Stefano Moshi Memorial University College where I teach English courses, I found my students studying for a phonology test. They had removed desks from the classrooms, put them under the shade of the trees, and quizzed each other over the fine details of tongue frontness, lip rounding, allophones and phonemes.

Joseph, the class representative, called me over and said he had questions. After I clarified more details about the allophones of /t/, Joseph wanted to know if America had as much corruption as Tanzania. This was when I knew they were tired of phonology. I said we did, but probably not as much as Tanzania.

Then I launched into my ever-evolving theory of why corruption is so prevalent in Tanzania. I said to Joseph that corruption begins as a way of thinking that isn’t necessarily bad. In Tanzania, children are taught to share—-share the food, share your clothes, share your bedroom, share the money that you earn to pay for your younger siblings’ school fees. During a test, students share their rulers, their white-out, and their extra pens.

This is a way of cultivating a care for others, but it has a sinister under-side. The other day, I sat on a bus and watched as a secondary school student boarded the bus with a small bag of peanuts. Four of his fellow classmates immediately put their hands out. I could see his whole body droop as he distributed his peanuts to yet another insistent hand, emptying his bag to three peanuts. But if he hadn’t, he would’ve been cast into the outer darkness.

Any adult fortunate enough to buy a car must absolutely give free rides to his or her friends and enemies. And the freeloaders feel no shame, no sense of responsibility in helping to pay for gas. The driver must carry all of that burden because he or she has the car, and the rest do not.

Students must also share the answers on a test. Joseph and his fellow students, though most of them have already taught in secondary schools, are notorious cheaters. Some of those who are tired of sharing, like the boy with the bag of peanuts, sit in the very front so they cannot be disturbed by the person behind them who wants to the phonemic symbol for the “th” in “thy.” When someone becomes president, he--so far, it’s only been “he” in this country as in the States¬—he must share his advantages with his friends who helped him become president.
Then Joseph complained that no change can take place unless it happens through government mandate. I disagreed. I said, if you’re a teacher, you have 70 students in one class. If you teach them a new way of thinking, you will change how they think. Then they will change how their students think. And after five years, you’ll have changed hundreds of students who will change hundreds of thousands of students. Teachers, I said, have more power than presidents.

But Joseph didn’t like that answer. First, it makes him responsible. Second, it gives him a lot of work to do. I did not tell him this, but the biggest impediment to corruption is accepting that it happens with every individual on a daily basis with the simple act of sharing, whether it’s a bag of peanuts or the answers to a test.