The upside-down saucepan

I met a Kenyan Englishman here in Kenya. That is, he's a third generation Kenyan, with all English descending ancestors. Very interesting fellow.

In the evening, we were looking at the stars and satellites above. It was a lovely, clear night for stargazing, as are most nights in that place, he assured me.

I told him about the stellar constellation that in Sweden we call something like "Charles' wagon" or "Charles' stroller", which in English is often called "the saucepan". It had just risen over the horizon, upside-down as always in this part of the world. I told him how in old Sweden, people used to use it as a rough measure of time, since it is always visible in the sky, so long as it's dark enough. It never sets, it just rolls like a baby stroller around the northern star, much like the hands of a clock. Though a counterclockwise clock. I added:
"And it never looks upside-down like this! That's one of the weirdest things about coming to Africa for the first time, the Charles' stroller being upside-down!!... Baby Charles will fall out!! It's one of those constants of the world suddenly no longer being constant!...
No, you see, in Sweden it's always up there", I pointed towards the zenith of the sky, right above us, "so you can choose to see it whatever way you like. So we always choose to see it as a stroller."
Suddenly my friend exclaimed:
"Oh that makes so much SENSE to me now!!....... You see, I always used to wonder: 'Why do they CALL it the saucepan when it's always upside-down?'. Now I get it!!
...I'm gonna make up a new name for it now!"



Oh how subtle, the long tentacles of colonialism... Calling a stellar constellation something in Africa, that only makes sense near the northern pole... Where the African would never have been, nor will ever go.


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Ok, so the picture is from Chile and not from Kenya… You can tell, because it's pointing towards a Northern Star significantly below the horizon. Not ON the horizon, as it would be here on the equator… It was surprisingly hard finding a picture of the upside-down saucepan from Africa!

Vad vår rikedom består i

Det kan låta filosofiskt, men den här texten ska handla om materiell rikedom. Den handlar om varför du och jag är så enormt mycket rikare än en kenyan.

Du kanske inte anser att du är enormt rik. Du kanske är student eller låglönearbetare eller socialbidragstagare. Du kanske har svårt att få pengarna att räcka till i slutet av månaden, och anser därför att du är ganska fattig. Du kanske har svårt att få det att räcka till mat, och anser därför att du är utfattig! Men jag ska tala om för dig vad du har.

Du har elektricitet. Varenda hus du någonsin bott i har förmodligen haft elektricitet. Att bygga upp ett elnät kostar pengar. Du har, och har förmodligen alltid haft, rinnande vatten. Du behöver inte gå flera kilometer varje dag med tunga vattendunkar. Huset du just nu sitter i har tjocka väggar, med isolering och tätade fönster. Kanske betalar du för det, kanske inte, men du har nytta av det. Den som byggde huset hade en gedigen utbildning som krävde mycket pengar, och du behöver aldrig ägna en arbetsdag åt att bättra på den bortregnade lerputsningen på utsidan eller täta taket. Det finns avlopp i huset, och all skit går snyggt och prydligt till ett kostsamt reningsverk, och inga kolibakterier kommer senare att komma tillbaka och förgifta ditt dricksvatten.

När du var liten åkte du kanske subventionerad skolskjuts. Skolvägen hade någon asfalterat, och det fanns inga hål i den som gav bussen punktering. Du fick gratis utbildning. Den har du kvar än idag, och den ger dig enorma möjligheter i såväl stort som smått. Du är försäkrad. Om du blir sjuk får du sjukvård; om du blir utan inkomst får du bidrag. Om du har ett jobb är du garanterad minimilön. Om du lever snålt på den minimilönen kan du resa utomlands varje år, och ditt pass kommer att ge dig inresetillstånd över hela världen.

Fönstren i huset där du sitter har inga galler. Vem som helst kan ta sig in där om natten, men gör det inte. Banken eller affären har inga beväpnade vakter på dygnet-runt-post, och skulle du ändå råka ut för brott vet du att du får polishjälp utan att behöva muta någon. Ett konsumentverk skyddar dig från att bli lurad när du handlar, och ett livsmedelsverk skyddar dig från matförgiftning från affären och restaurangen.

Allt det här kostar enorma summor pengar att bygga upp. Pengar och mänskligt kapital. För oss har det här funnits hela tiden, och gör livet så ohyggligt bekvämt för den fattige svensken, jämfört med den fattige kenyanen. Hos henom finns inget avloppsnät, och inga planer på att bygga nåt i den närmaste framtiden... Nej, för henom gäller inget av det ovan nämnda.

När jag var i Kenya hände det mig hela tiden att folk som jag blivit lite grann kompis med bad mig om gåvor eller hjälp med vissa kostnader, eftersom de har uppfattningen att alla vita är rika. När jag berättar om detta för svenskar säger de ofta att dessa kenyaner visst inte förstått att de råkat på en svensk som inte är så rik. Men de har fel. Jag är enormt rik, och enormt mycket rikare än de. Men det är förstås en rikedom jag inte kan dela. För den är inte löstagbar i pengar.

Elen i mitt hus är billig för mig, för jag byggde inte elnätet. Jag kan inte sälja elnätet och ge min kenyanske kompis pengarna. Jag kan inte tvingas svälta av fattigdom, för jag har ett medborgarskap som gör svenska staten skyldig att försörja mig om jag inte kan det själv. Men jag kan inte lägga armen om axeln på min fattige, kenyanske kompis och säga:
”Hörru Svenska Staten, det här är min kompis; du kan väl ta och försörja henom också va?”
Jag kan inte ens visa upp mitt svenska pass på flygplatsen och ta med mig min kenyanske kompis hem, som så många av dem bad mig göra. Det är mitt, personliga pass och gäller inte vad jag vill att det ska gälla, utan helt enkelt mig.

Jag föddes med min rikedom, och jämfört med de flestas på denna jord så är den alltså enorm. Men hur generös jag än är till min läggning, så kommer den absolut största delen av den alltid att vara bunden till, och förbehållen, min person.

Matlagning i ett kök i Mazeras, strax utanför Mombasa, Kenya

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Skriven i Kenya, 2007

How I've changed in my foundation, over the last two years

"May we all have our hopes, our will to try

If we don't, we might as well lay down and die"...

-ABBA

I think maybe I did that... Maybe I died.

Until I was 25, I lived like people expected me to live, more or less. Of course I was always unusual, no way to escape that, but in the large picture, I followed people's expectations.

Then at the age of 26, when I was in university, on my way to becoming an engineer, have a good job, get an intelligent husband and have a house, a car and 2 intelligent children, I suddenly fell out of the bubble and my world came tumbling down... I realized that this rich world that I'd been living in (Sweden) was an exception, both in the world right now and in time, and that it was possible only because it was living on the expense of others, both of the poor world today and of the whole world in future. And it hit me that I was not ok with this!! Not at all!...

I cried. I suffered immensely just going into a supermarket, and realizing how much exploitation of nature and poor people there was behind almost everything that was sold there, to us rich people. The evil behind it all was crushing me.

I thought I would die, but then I found my salvation in escaping the bubble, and in putting all of myself - all my powers, all my talents, all my time - into fighting for good, fighting the evil. At 27, I went to Africa, and I started working with a biogas project. It was meant to empower the poor and save nature, all at once. It's how I survived, but not only that: I felt more alive than I ever had before! Finally doing things that nobody had ever recommended or expected of me, I felt alive for the first time...

That's 12 years ago now. In that time, I've had two children in Sweden, with my Kenyan husband, and I felt I had to take a little break from saving the world outside, so that I could save my own family... The husband had so many problems, and bringing up children takes a lot of one's time and attention.

But then something else happened. The Green Party, which I had been a member of for 18 years, got into government and started doing everything wrong. Taking massive steps in the wrong direction, and calling it small steps in the right direction... It shocked me! And in the aftermath of that shock, I realized, among other things, that for 20 years, I had been paying extra for organic food, because the other food was destroying the planet and to me it was obvious that if it destroys our planet, we stop it... but it had come to nothing, because the others never followed! I was ok with being the first, I was ok with pulling a bit extra, but after TWENTY YEARS, organic food was still less that 10%... The others were still enjoying the money they saved by buying food on nature's expense, on other people's expense.

And my country closed its borders to refugees in the biggest refugee movement this world has ever seen... With the Green Party voting for it! Not even those 7% were with me!!...

Somehow, I think I died. I stopped breathing for a while. I felt that I had misunderstood everything... I had been trying to save the world, because I thought it was important to reduce suffering... but the world never wanted to be saved! It was fine, the way it was! I was the only one who minded, and that was my problem!... Even those refugees, they never cared for anybody else! They wanted us to save them, yeah, but had they grown up safe, they would have also closed the borders! Even those poor people, had they grown up rich, and I poor, the crushing majority of them wouldn't have cared for me!... So why should I cry my heart out for them?...

Nature is nature. It's cruel, and it's beautiful. Death is ever present. The majority of all living creatures on Earth die very young. Only some very few of them reach the age where it's even possible for them to have offspring. In Sweden, this is no longer true for humans... Most of them now live to old age, but that's an exception. One way or another, that will change again, back to the natural way.

Humans were never made for a life without suffering. Without grief. Without death ever present. I don't think it's good for us!...

12 years ago, I came to Africa for the first time, and I discovered something that we in Sweden must have lost. I discovered a joy, an appreciation of life, that Sweden didn't have. It surprised me, and it puzzled me... Eventually, I started asking myself if it was the proximity to death and suffering that was the cause...?

And now I've reached the conclusion that yes, to a large extent, it is. I now live in Kenya since August 2017, and I still feel so much more alive, so much happier, so much better than I ever did in Sweden. I sell biogas digesters. Thus I'm still empowering the poor and saving trees, but only because it gives me satisfaction, and because that's where I now have my expertise. I always felt enjoyment in clever ideas and beautiful solutions, and biogas has all that. But I'll never again care like I did before. I'll no longer try to rid the world of death or suffering. What for? That wouldn't be an enjoyable world anyway! We were made for hardships, and we need some of that to be able to enjoy life. And pretty soon we all die anyway, and then none of it matters anymore. No matter how sweet or terrible our only life was, it will all have come to nothing.

Enjoy it while you can, if you can! And if you are among those who can, congratulations!

My previous life is over. I died... This is afterlife.

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Further reading:

A small bubble of peace and harmony

In Swedish:

En liten bubbla av frid och harmoni, 2013-01-12