It's been just over a month since the East African Extravaganza came to an end and I am no back into the swing of academics and Mzungu living. After having been through what is to an extent of the beaten track travel. One gets pondering about what is a "good country". One of my good friends is from Kenya and about 8 months before I left for Tanzania she was saying to me that, " Kenya is a good country. People don't leave because of its problems, its safe and a nice place to live." At the time I was not sure what to think of it as Kenya' security situations has been more up and down that a yo yo in the past ten years or so.
On many a lengthy African bus ride through vast landscapes, rolling hills, surging landscapes, hidden lakes in tropical jungles. I started to think about what it means to be a "good country", and the other categories that countries fall into. After lengthy thought I concluded that there are three types of countries. The Great, The Good, and the Unfortunate.
The Great Country is a country which has sublime natural beauties, is somewhat untouched to a certain extent but contains lots of nocks and crannies which have yet to be explored and discovered. In order of a country for a country to be great it does not mean that it has to be developed and westernized. A Great country may not have the best healthcare systems, it may have certain levels of corruption within the government and it may lack social welfare programs and be disorganized to a certain extent. However a Great country, contains people that warm you heart, get your brain to question a lot of things. A Great Country is a country where if the country is not westernized, the western comforts seem pointless. Countries that I would consider to be Great are Tanzania, Rwanda and Italy.
The Good Country is a complex definition and can have two meanings. Firstly, the Good Country can be a country which is fully developed, clean, safe, has infrastructure, healthcare and all the western comforts and is pleasant . A Good country can also be a country which may have had a troubled past, or may be involved in a conflict, but has a bright future a ahead of it and, like the Great Country contains people and a landscape that will warm your heart, making other things seem arbitrary. Im going to use Canada and Kenya as examples. Canada is a clean developed fully industrialized country clean and is a pleasant place to live in. Kenya has had its up's and down over the years, still has mass inequality within the country, but to the people living nomadic lifestyles, its arbitrary.
There is no such thing as the Bad Country, just the Unfortunate. The Unfortunate Country is a country that had a rocky start at life and are still dealing with these problems. Unfortunate Countries are often called " beyond f*@%ed" or something else along those lines. Unfortunate countries have been explored by very few individuals, due to often high levels of violence within the country or less than ideal security situations. Those individuals that do get the chance or are brave enough to explore the Unfortunate Country usually work in the media or are there for research purposes. Citizens of Unfortunate countries are not often able to make it outside their homeland but those who do, don't usually return but hold fond memories of their birth place. I met a Taxi driver from Sudan a few weeks ago who was exiled to Canada and wants to go back but is unable to as a result of him speaking out against the government a when he was in his early twenties. When the Media posts pictures of his homeland in a war torn state,h e sends his family pictures of East Hastings in Vancouver and goes " This is Canada." As the media feels to represent his homeland in an accurate way, and continues to show the negative side of things.
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