Escape to Africa: The Seqel

Since I'm begin my third (and hopefully more permanent) trip to Africa I'm resurrecting the old blog. If you want to know what kind of misadventures can befall country boy from Texas as he travels the expanse of the African continent, then this is the place for you. No promises on how often I'll update it. I'll write as long as I have something interesting to talk about. Enjoy!

I’m sitting in a lonely hotel room in Houston, TX preparing to get on a flight in the morning that will take me to Johannesburg, South Africa. If you’re wondering how this happened, read on.

One thing I’ve always wondered is how you end up with a job in Africa. I also used to wonder what in the heck a honky from Texas like me could get paid to do in Africa…I mean other than things that involve drugs, guns, resource exploitation, or the toppling of world leaders.

So if you’re wondering the same thing now that I’m about to embark on the big journey across the ocean, here’s the story about how I got a job in Africa.

My story begins way back when I was a teacher/coach in Denison, TX. One of my students (let’s call him Will since that’s his name) got the crazy idea to skip all the top-notch colleges he could have gotten into and instead bought a plane ticket to Africa after graduation. Meanwhile, I had left teaching and started my Master’s degree in International Development with a vague idea of working in Africa, but no real idea about how to do that. At some point while I was toiling away in the drudgery of DC internships Will met an American on a random flight in East Africa. As it turns out that guy worked for an organization inconspicuously called Miles and Associates. In a nutshell that organization does basketball programming in basketball with kids. Since basketball is second banana to soccer in Africa, a lot of what they do is introduce the sport to kids through camps, practices, and eventually leagues. They also help identify talented basketball players for international scouts. And once they have the kids in the room they try teach them life lessons like how to prevent HIV/AIDS or improve nutrition.

A few months after that chance meeting Will and I switched places. He was back in the States, and I had convinced American taxpayers to pay for my summer in the warm, tropical Southern African country of Malawi. While there I saw a lot of different options for jobs in Africa but didn’t really fall in love with any of them. During one of my last weeks in Malawi Will finally got around to telling me about the guy he met, which sounded like a cool job to have. On a whim, I emailed the guy Will met just to get some more info on his chosen vocation and maybe get some advice on how to start a career in Africa. It turned out that that guy had left the organization, but he forwarded my email on to a guy named Michael Finley, his former partner at Miles and Associates. As Michael explained to me later, around that time he started realizing that he could use someone at his organization with more formal background in international development; someone maybe with a Master’s degree in International Development; someone who has a heart for Africa; and, ideally, someone who loves the game of basketball; someone named Michael Bardgett. And there I was in his inbox.

I had already planned a trip through Johannesburg on my way out of Malawi and he happened to have a home there. He ended up giving me a place to stay while there as well as a good home-cooked meal. Over dinner I met his family and learned that Michael is an African-American from Atlanta who left a Fortune 100 company to start over as a volunteer in South Africa. And since that time he has worked to build up the game of basketball in Africa while also having a positive impact on Africa’s youths. He explained his big plans for the future to bring more prominence to the sport of basketball in Africa. We clicked immediately and agreed to stay in touch over the course of my final year in grad school.

That was August 2008. By the time of my graduation a month ago he offered to bring me out to South Africa and help me get my feet wet in the business of sports and development in Africa. Initially I’m going to get a chance to manage a few of his programs and start working on proposals for new programs in different countries. That will more than likely mean a lot of criss-crossing the continent, which I could not be more excited about. In reality the job I’m starting is going to be very ad hoc with a lot of uncertainty about the future.

To see how it all ends up for me you’ll just have to tune in to my next few posts. But right now I’m just so excited to finally start this new life in Africa. I don’t know exactly what will happen or how long I’ll be there. But I do know that I couldn’t imagine doing anything else with my life right now, while at the same time will miss a lot of good folks over here.

The lesson from this story as always is to not make fun of the red head kid in class. As much as you may want to, and as easy as a target as he may be, ultimately he just might help you find a job in Africa someday.