Predicament

1 Driving past the adobe huts in sparsely populated rural areas of southern Zambia, I was
stunned by the extreme economic isolation of these rural households, even those relatively
close to the road on which we drove. The settlements were typically a few huts circled around
an area for chickens and some fuel wood. The settlements had no electricity or
telecommunications, but more than that, there was no motorised transport whatsoever or even
animal-drawn carts. The low population densities reflected the meagre yields of the farms, the
food production of which could support only a small population. This region was one of relatively
stable rainfall and reasonable soils; other parts of Africa that I visited were even more
disadvantaged.

2 The soils of these farms were depleted of nutrients, I would come to learn, and the
homesteads were too disconnected from organized markets to sell crops or buy fertilisers. I
came to appreciate that isolation and lack of basic infrastructure are the prevailing conditions of
most rural Africa, and this is where most Africans live. Relevant information on population
densities, roads, vehicles, access to electricity and water, and the like was certainly available
to me from published data. But without the benefit of visiting Africa’s rural communities, I would
not have known what to look for in the data, or what the data really meant.

3 By the time I reached Lusaka on that first visit to Africa, I knew that things were very different,
but I still did not begin to fathom just how different. I was in the Bank of Zambia on the second
or third day of my arrival when my colleague from Harvard University explained to me that a co-
worker in the financial reform project had recently died. He was in his late mid-thirties and had
died of AIDS. That was my first-hand introduction to the realities of AIDS in Africa. A team at
Harvard had been working on a project to help Zambia get back on its feet at all; they were
dying in significant numbers, including the highly trained Zambians in the project. The project
also aimed at capacity building, but Zambia was clearly losing trained capacity at a much faster
rate than it was gaining.

4 AIDS was already relentless by the mid-1990s, but much worse was yet to come; endless
work absences, funerals, and hushed conversations. Paid leaves meant than a lot of work was
delayed, besides, affecting the budget of many companies. AIDS was not alone in its
devastating impact on the African society. Soon, with the availability of information, my
knowledge blossomed and I was enlightened. I became vividly aware of another insidious killer:
malaria. Every African colleague, almost without exception, lost a few work days per year to
flulike spell of malaria. Every now and then I would hear that one of our African Graduate
students who had returned to his country for a visit had come down with a much more serious
bout of malaria. Several ended up in the hospital, some near death. What surprised me most,
though, was malaria’s grip on children. Everyone’s child – rich and poor – contracted malaria,
with grave complications.
5 Married to a doctor, I have grown accustomed to discussions on diseases. Therefore,
disease and death became the constant motive of my visits to Africa. Never, not even in the
highlands of Bolivia, where illness is rife, had I confronted so much illness and death. India had
never evoked so much death in the air. By the turn of the new millennium, sub-Saharan Africa’s
life expectancy stood at forty-seven years, more than two decades lower than in East Africa,
and thirty-one years lower than in developed countries. In parts of Africa life expectancy was
plummeting by almost twenty years as a result of AIDS.

6 I began to suspect the omnipresence of disease and death, which played a deep role in
Africa’s prolonged inability to develop economically. The unsolved challenge for the economists
is to understand why economic development in Africa has been so hard to achieve, not just in
modern times but for centuries. Even before the Industrial Revolution, which happened in the
19th century in Europe, Africa had the lowest urbanisation rate. It also had the lowest living
standard on the eve of the era of modern economic growth.

(The End of Poverty by Jeffrey

Sachs)

3 a) What does the phrase ‘economic isolation’ tell you about the living standard of the people?

[1]

b) Why, according to the author, was food production very low in that country?

[1]

c) Which one feature of the climate in Zambia indicates that agriculture might have flourished in
the past?

[1]

4 a) What other reason does the writer give for the low food production?

[1]
b) Explain briefly the writer’s aim behind visiting Africa’s rural communities despite the
availability of data.

[1]

5 a) What was the objective of the Harvard project?

[1]

b) Why would it be difficult for Zambia to promote capacity building?

[1]

6 a) Explain clearly how AIDS affects working people.

[1]

b) In what two ways did absences affect companies?

[2]

c) What is meant by the expression ‘insidious killer’?

[1]

d) Why would it be dangerous for a student to visit his country during his vacation?

[1]
7 a) What two reasons does the writer give for visiting Africa?

[2]

b) In your own words, explain what the writer says on ‘life expectancy’ in certain parts in Africa.

[2]

8 For each of the words or phrases below, circle the letter (A, B, C or D) which has the same
meaning that the word or phrase has in the passage.

i) sparsely (P1)

A lowly B thinly C densely b vastly

ii) access to (P2)

A line to B connection with C availability of D nearness to

iii) fathom (P3)

A understand B acknowledge C assimilate D note down

iv) relentless (P4)

A insistent B fast spreading C destructive D merciless

v) evoked (P5)

A described B invoked C recalled D figured out

9 Re-read paragraphs 5 and 6, which contain phrases that tell us about the behaviour or
feelings of the person concerned.

Explain:

• The meaning of the phrases as they are used in the passage

• The effect of the phrase used.

a) ‘accustomed to discussions on diseases’

Meaning:

Effect: [2]

b) ‘to suspect the omnipresence of disease and death’

Meaning:

Effect: [2]

Total for this section: 25