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Originally Posted by Andres
I met many 'car-sellers' and noticed that in general, they were different from travellers like me and others who take their vehicle and use it only for travelling. Andres
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The regulars are a slightly strange lot it's true, but the nature of a successful sale is that both parties come out happy, which is pretty much always the case.
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From my point of view travellers make a (very small) contribution to the lives of those they buy food or fuel from.
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You haven't seen my wife in the african markets ;-)
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The 'car-sellers' in general seemed to be more interested in their own profit than in Africa itself.
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Aren't we all?
If we weren't we would be far from the internet, without a job, living and working with the people we exist to help. There are people like that and I admire them.
Africa cannot be helped from the outside.
The more we give the more we develop an "open hand" culture.
If you haven't paid for it you don't appreciate/look after it.
I don't know where you went but where I went I saw "new colonialism" all over the place.
The EU are doing it on a huge scale; go in, create infrastructure (as a donation of course), take out resources. If you don't let me buy your ore etc. I won't give you a new road.
It's cheaper than the old colonialism because you don't use guns and as the country's independant you don't have to install hospitals/schools/police etc.
There are individuals and groups impressed by dramatized (to sell) press reports who will do that for them.
Coacoa is Ivory Coasts's oil, and it's creating as much trouble (but it's tastier
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Buying stuff locally, exporting, encouraging local work groups, trying to reduce the temptation to migrate to the cities, these are some of the many actions help in the LONG term.
Lending works better than giving (cf. recent Nobel prize)
Probably because the borrowers attach more value to the object received if they have to pay it back.
Oh dear I've done it again.
I haven't the courage to delete this, I'll leave that to the administrators.
Daedalus, what ARE you on about?
You get a carnet before you go, and it's worked out on the most expensive country, and its price depends also on the issuing country.
But all that info is available here if you do a search.
Luke
(got the Africa bug, you can tell)