Occasionally, at completely random points in time, I am struck with amazement and wonder by the fact that I am living in Africa. I grew up with the image of this continent firmly etched as a foreign, unknowable place, so I can understand how it often provokes these feelings in me.

On the other hand, just living here, I would imagine, should keep me well aware of the reality of my surroundings. My district is one of the poorest in the country of Malawi, which in turn is one of the poorest nations in Africa. It is incredibly difficult not to see the poverty. And day-to-day obstacles I face in trying to accomplish things, one would think, would be a frequent and firm reminder of this.

For the past two months I’ve been traveling back and forth to the National Parks division headquarters (where there is/was one operational computer) to type the constitution and statutory declaration form of a local community based organization (CBO). Both forms are necessary to officially register a group with the Malawi government, which then opens up new sources of funding and training to the CBO and its members.

The first time I went, I was able to work all day but found, alas, no paper. I was told by a parks employee that there is never any paper, and he thought I was quite naïve to have expected any. This didn’t, on the whole, surprise me. The department has multiple vehicles but never any fuel, it has a CD burner awaiting installation but no software to do so, etc. The equipment is all there, but the means to use it never is.

So I bought some paper in the city and returned two weeks later only to find that a local non-governmental organization (NGO) had taken the one computer away to Blantyre, a large city, to get some files off it.

A week later I returned to find the computer again, but it was now missing its operating system. That is to say, the operating system was not found when I turned the computer on. After some debating and hesitation, another employee and I took the computer apart to find that all the connections had been jostled loose in transport back from Blantyre. We replaced them, but before I could print, the power was cut. It would be off for two days.

Two months after I began a one-day project I was able to print – mission accomplished, sort of. I still have to get signatures (in the presence of the district magistrate) and deal with the registrar’s office. I honestly doubt that will go as nice and smooth as the typing did.

I find it ironic that so many things should have gone wrong during this process, yet the first day was so easy. I was lured into a cool office with some semblance of technology by the siren-like feeling of confidence in dealing with the familiar (and the only available computer in a 60-kilometer radius). I was ensnared into an absurd game of traveling back and forth (in 110 degree weather) for two months for something that should have taken a day, two at most.

I’ve concluded that there is a different strain (perhaps tropical?) of Murphy’s Law here – more virulent and oppressive, it thrives on environmental degradation and heat, it reproduces like rabbits. Or maybe it’s just that poverty acts like a steroid for it, boosting its strength and making it prone to violent mood swings on unsuspecting Peace Corps volunteers.

This is what happens, I suppose, when poverty and wealth mix. Like oil and water, the two can’t easily be reconciled. The National Parks Department here is vastly under-funded but is trying (both vainly and admirably) to protect what little wilderness remains. Organizations might donate a computer or truck, but these things are not sustainable. Unless people can actually use the aid given to them indefinitely, the help given to them seems to be done in vain.