In 2017, we went to Malawi, Africa's poorest country, and in September this year we went to South Africa, Africa' best economy.
Coincidentally, in South Africa's Chinatown, we happened to meet a Malawi who came to South Africa to work, and we chatted together for a while.
South Africa was the first country in Africa to start developing, and Malawi has always been the most economically global country, and the two countries are not far apart, sandwiched between a Mozambique. Although the South African economy is now regressing, people from all over Africa are willing to come to South Africa to make money, after all, "there are still three thousand nails in the broken ship". In addition to the yearning for the South African economy, other African countries can also go to South Africa visa-free because of some community policies, but there are time limits.
The Malawi man was very simple, and he said that he had come to South Africa just to make some money and go home and build a house. He works in a lighting shop in Chinatown, helping to take care of the business. He heard that we had been to his hometown and he was smiling happily. In fact, this work is not technical. The work is not very heavy, and you can save up for a few months.
Local employment opportunities in Malawi are few and earn less. It's hard for Malawi locals to find a job that pays $300 a month. But in South Africa, the Malawi guy found a job in China that costs 3,000 to 4,000 rand a month, or 1,500 to 2,000 yuan, much better than in Malawi.
Chen Wei asked him how much it cost to work in Chinatown and how much it cost to live every month, and he replied that he wanted about 700 yuan. In this way, you can still have about 1,000 yuan left to remit to your home, and you can build a house at home in a few months. The Malawi government will divide the land for them, and they will build a house for less than 3,000 yuan.
When we were in Malawi, we once photographed the locals building houses. The brick house in Mangoche Town, Malawi, costs 2,500 yuan for all, including a tin roof, windows, bricks and workers' wages, which is actually just the price of a mobile phone in China. The wages of the workers here are unimaginably low, only about 70 yuan, until the house is completed. In addition, in order to save costs, people also have to burn their own bricks, go to the capital Lilongwe to buy cement, a bag of 50kg cement costs 50 yuan.
In South Africa, there are many people from other African countries who come here to work, many people from Nigeria, and some from Malawi like him. Sima is a staple food in many African countries, some of which are made of corn and some of which are made of cassava. The Malawi guy said there was only one Malawian shop selling Simma, but it cost 40 rand (20 yuan) for one, which was the taste of his hometown.
Life is always not easy, and after chatting with this Malawi guy for a while, we said goodbye to him and continued the next shoot. I hope he can build the family house soon and bless him.
Search Follow: I go to see the world, update the full version of the video produced by the Sao documentary team every day, see the bigger world, and thus have more options. Edited by Min Zhang.