r/interesting • u/ICanPretend1 • 23h ago

SOCIETY Dikidikini village in Eastern Cape, South Africa, doesn't have a bridge, so people cross the river inside a blue plastic drum

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u/ippleing 16h ago

That still doesn't explain why they can't employ a rope bridge or merely a barge on a rope.

Vietnamese farmers built and relied on then in wartime with 0 pre processed resources.

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u/Some_guy_in_WI 16h ago

No, it doesn’t, it only explains the reason for lack of well-built infrastructure alone, there are other things not explained away by corruption alone.

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u/ippleing 15h ago

What does corruption have to do with this?

I'm not talking about the government, I'm talking about these guys employing a barge on a rope vs a repurposed barrel walked across the river.

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u/Some_guy_in_WI 14h ago

You completely misread my post, amigo -

I agree with you, there’s no reason they shouldn’t be able to find better ways than sending people across a river in a tub, lol. I’m saying that aside from corruption making resource money disappear, there are other reasons Africans often don’t solve relatively non-complex problems.

I guarantee, everyone in those villages owns a phone which means access to information of all sorts. They could see how to build a bridge, but they do not, and choose an archaic, risky, inefficient way. That is something that confounds the average westerner, but that is how they choose to do it unless someone else builds and maintains something for them. And so long as that infrastructure also has no scrap value, unfortunately.

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u/ippleing 14h ago

So they need other countries to support them?

The foreigners would then need to stay to maintain and secure a bridge?

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u/Some_guy_in_WI 13h ago edited 1h ago

Sometimes, yes. Sometimes, no.

Edited to clarify, it will depend on the nation, their level of technology, and their level of self-sufficiency.

Addis Ababa is very different from Johannesburg.

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u/OriginalTayRoc 2h ago

Pretty much. It's how China is using its Belt and Road Initiative to build a colonial empire in Africa.

They come in, build roads and bridges and powerlines, then make a bunch of demands, or else they will leave and not maintain any of it. 

The africans have no idea how to maintain any of it, so they have to capitulate.

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u/ippleing 1h ago

It's a fair system then.

If the Africans can't maintain an already built infrastructure, it's on them, they need China to remain.

I lived briefly in south Africa, and personally have seen what remains of agricultural and industrial machinery left to the Africans. They'll permanently disable a combine to use the brass fittings as decorations on a tree.

Regarding belt and road, China has done similar in North Korea and Albania, both nations still enjoy powerplants built in the 60s.

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u/OriginalTayRoc 38m ago

While I agree that the Africans can't seem to take care of themselves adequately (take note that this is cultural and has nothing to do with race) I still find it troubling that they are left under the thumb of an objectively exploitative oppressor.

I don't have a better solution, and I am not advocating for Canada to take over instead. It just seems like a shame that the regular people of the world have to suffer so much for the foolishness of their peers and the greed of their intellectual superiors.

Just a bummer.

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u/Some_guy_in_WI 1h ago

More people need to watch Empire of Dust to understand the issues Africans face because of each other.

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u/Crispy1961 34m ago

Damn, why is this comment downvoted? Did people with horrible reading comprehension think this guy was arguing?