Today I visited Makambako, a small town on the Tanzam highway between Iringa and Njombe. The town was dry and dusty, but the clinic was actually a quite nice and new. As I walked around taking pictures, I noticed that there were two distinct groups of people: those who wanted their picture taken and those that turned away from the camera. I tried to focus on the kids who liked the camera, but soon I heard grumbling from the crowd around me. I saw two traditionally dressed older women scowling at me, and rubbing their fingers together. Yes? I asked, feigning innocence. Money first! they hissed at me with narrowed eyes. A small boy beside them positively yelled, ‘GIVE ME MY MONEY FIRST!’
I could feel the mood change in the crowd as everyone turned to stare at me, and I felt an involuntary sense of disappointment and disgust. I lowered my camera and stood silent for a moment, debating how I could explain in my elementary Swahili that I was not a professional photographer who would profit from these photos. That actually, I was a taxpayer that was indirectly paying for the free service their sons would receive today, and that these photos were to help ensure the continued supply of that service.
Of course I couldn’t explain this, so I waved and left the crowd. I felt annoyed, but I knew I had little right to be angry. Most of the people in the crowd were poor enough to make a good living off what I spend on coffee in a year, and furthermore, how could I convince a group of subsistence farmers that I had this fancy camera not for work, but simply because I enjoyed it as an inconceivably expensive hobby? Perhaps these Tanzanians have met photographers or heard about photographers that profit from their photos, and in that sense they do have a right to demand some payment. Morally, it doesn’t add up for a photographer to take a photo of a child in destitute poverty and then sell it for hundreds or thousands of dollars as art.
Africa is a culture shock, but from my highly affluent lifestyle back home to the dirt roads of Makambako, I can’t escape the pervasively corrupting influence of money. I feel sad to see the little boy shouting at me for money, but of course this fixation on money is only a byproduct of having so little of it. But do I have any moral ground? Maybe Americans don’t scowl and shout at strangers for money, but we are certainly willing to bomb civilians and impose economic sanctions in order to protect our wealthy way of life. I guess this is also impolite, just on a grander, and more acceptable scale.
But speaking of photography, I want to plug my friend spencer’s photos, which are infinitely more compelling than mine. He is in the Zambia, probably saving children, but I’m not sure. You can click through the photo to get to his flickr stream.
