Introduction
Hello, my name is Kassim Taiwo, I'm Nigerian and I'm 28 years old. In this post I'll be explaining what the struggle is like for an African child trying to make a decent living.
I currently live at Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia but I'm in Beirut for my summer holidays. Looking back at how I started my life journey, I decided to share with you what it's like to be born and raised in an underdeveloped country.
The Unique African System
When we hear about Africa, some ideas come to the mind. Ideas like Porverty, Curruption, political instability, inability to afford clean water and many more. While some of these claims might be true, there's a different side of Africa the media hasn't shown and this is what I aim for on this post.
Lagos Nigeria
Africa is a unique continent (Not a country) and its the only place on earth where every colored person originates from. That's not all, it's blessed with Abundant Natural resources some of which are Crude Oil, Gold, Diamond, Uranium and many many more.
With all this abundant natural resources, a very unique thing about Africa is the high level of poverty. You might be asking how a country with this resources can still be in poverty but thats a discussion for another day.
Nairobi Kenya
**Africans are rich within the continent and poor outside the continent **
Would you believe that the average Nigerian lives below $1 daily and yet this person will still afford a 3 square meal.
This is because the value of Nigerian Naira is relatively high but when trading with the US dollars, it becomes very low. And since food is bought locally, its helps to explain this possibility.
$1 will not be enough if an average Nigerian decides to eat a foreign food due to the conversion rates.
My journey to My first $100
In my opinion, Africa should be regarded as a land of opportunities just like the USA. Firstly it underdeveloped with so many young talents, and this is what makes it quite easy to be rich in Africa if you have a definite plan.
Tunis Tunisia
I am a software developer fluent with (PHP, Java, JavaScript, flutter, Laravel, python, MySQL, POSTGRESQL, C#, C++ and WordPress management). I am also a 2D and 3D cartoonist and I learnt all of this in Africa. This was possible because I was surrounded by so many Talented youths and the opportunity for me to what i am came up.
Secondly to give an example, "back in 1981 I was hiring staff in Warri(Nigeria). A young (17) Igbo fellow called Sam asked for a job. He was as short as me and very slim so not suitable for laboring work. He was totally full of beans so I hired him anyways to help me with line testing gear. Sam had had just four years of primary education. About a week in he asked me why I liked the small numbers on the test gear and did not like the big ones. So sitting there under a mangrove I explained voltage, current, Ohms law and the problem with contaminated connections. About an hour later Sam comes back with a drawing and a handful of batteries. He wanted to know whether there was a way to put the batteries in the geophones so as to push the signal through even with poor connections. I was gobsmacked. An hour after hearing of Ohm's law for the first time he'd dreamt up the concept of a pre-amplifier. I had an electronics workshop so I took Sam into it and started with the math and electronics. He lived in that lab. He went from Euclid to Leibniz in less than a month. Six weeks in he was using spectrum analysers to control inter-modulation between multiple radio transmitters. In the eleven months we worked/learnt together Sam got to about associate degree level. He set up an electronics store after.
Some damn smart folk in the Delta."
This was a tale from my Friends Uncle whose name was Tunde.
Cape Town South Africa
