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Going to College (in Ethiopia)

2014-09-09 · documentary visit · John, Meheret, a guest · 4:00 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Global development (also: Everyday life, World affairs, Internet & YouTube, Personal life) · mode: Personal essay · tags: on location, guest or collab, heavy topic, community lore

Drawing on his meeting with Addis Ababa University students during his Ethiopia trip with Bill Gates, John argues that Africa and Ethiopia defy the one-place stereotype: Ethiopia is both poor and rising, and children saved by global health can grow up to study.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — Stereotypes of Africa as one poor place with a corrupt elite; Africa isn't one place (Canada/Venezuela vs Liberia/Botswana)

  • ★★★ John says the common picture of Africa as one poor, disease-ridden place ruled by an aid-embezzling elite is a ridiculous stereotype: Africa isn't one place. — 00:00:18
  • ★★ John says most Canadians live closer to Venezuela than Liberians live to Botswana. — 00:00:20 · Canada

00:00:26 — Ethiopia's poverty falling and middle class rising; Addis Ababa university growth; meeting students with Bill Gates; Meheret's anti-violence group

  • ★★ John says he did meet people living in thatched-roof huts and children without good schools, and corruption remains significant, but Ethiopia's poverty rate is falling and its middle class rising. — 00:00:26 · extreme poverty
  • ★★★ John says more Ethiopian children attend primary school, and the main university in Addis Ababa grew from 32 students in 1950 to more than 42,000 today. — 00:00:39
  • ★★ In Ethiopia John met a group of the university's students with Bill Gates, including Meheret, who started an anti-domestic-violence initiative. — 00:00:48
  • ★ Meheret describes her initiative as volunteers who want a better community, country and society. — 00:00:54

00:01:10 — The students: pre-meds on working abroad, future engineers and lawyers; they watch YouTube for fun and school

  • ★★ John says two pre-med students talked a lot about the risks and opportunities of working abroad. — 00:01:10
  • ★★ a guest: A pre-med student says many brilliant minds go to Western countries and don't come back. — 00:01:16
  • ★ The students say they watch YouTube for fun and for school; John declares them nerdfighters. (playful) — 00:01:42 · YouTube, Nerdfighteria

00:01:48 — Slow internet in Ethiopia limits online participation; social media mostly with real-life friends; Facebook vs Twitter

  • ★★★ John says Ethiopia's internet is very slow, making it hard to watch creators, comment, load Tumblr or join online communities; students' social media is mostly with people they know offline. — 00:01:48 · Tumblr

00:02:23 — Tension between dreams and expectations, a sense of duty to the country, and doubt that book learning brings real-world success

  • ★★ John says that, like American students, these students feel tension between their dreams and what they've been told to do, plus a larger sense of responsibility. — 00:02:23
  • ★★ a guest: A future engineer says something is expected of you in terms of what your country needs now. — 00:02:35
  • ★★ John says he heard much concern, familiar to nerdfighters, that book learning might not translate into real-world success. — 00:02:40 · Nerdfighteria

00:02:56 — Aside: the zit on John's neck

00:03:02 — The library with no running water; there isn't just one Ethiopia; media images of Africa; poverty and child-death drops; global health lets children grow up to study

  • ★★ John says the university library has no running water: the toilet flushes by pouring in a bucket of water. — 00:03:02
  • ★★★ John says there isn't just one Ethiopia: the library without water, the future engineers, the kids, a doctor, farmers and the presidential marching band are all Ethiopia. — 00:03:12
  • ★★★ John says news and movies show Africa only as war, pirates, refugees and disease, but the stories he saw in Ethiopia were more complicated and more compelling. — 00:03:29
  • ★★★ John says these young people have seen the greatest drops in poverty and infant mortality in Ethiopia's history, yet tens of thousands of Ethiopian children still die yearly of easily preventable diseases. — 00:03:39 · child mortality, extreme poverty
  • ★★★ John says the lesson of twenty years of global health is that children who needn't die can grow up and end up studying in that library. — 00:03:49 · global health, child mortality

In the description and comments

Threads in this video

Mentioned

Central: Addis Ababa University · Africa · Ethiopia · global health · internet access · stereotype

Also: People: Bill Gates · Meheret

Organizations: Facebook · Tumblr · Twitter · YouTube

Concepts: child mortality · domestic violence · extreme poverty · human capital flight · media representation · middle class · political corruption

Places: Addis Ababa · Botswana · Canada · Liberia · Venezuela

Only in the description or credits: Four-minute rule

Also centred on Ethiopia: Listen: Thoughts from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia · Baby Names: Thoughts from Rural Ethiopia · Food Is Weird: Understanding Agriculture in the Developing World · Bill Gates and John Green Discuss Global Health · Looking Away · Bill Gates and John Green Discuss Progress

Also centred on stereotype: Do You Believe in God?

← Previous: Bill Gates and John Green Discuss Global Health · Next → Hanging with High School Hank

Later videos replying to this one

  • 2014-09-23 · Looking Away (John) — continues (derived — resolved by date window: title words, previous 21 days) — “I've talked before about how much there is to be excited about in Ethiopia” (00:01:27)