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Why do people smear themselves with mud and then complain that they are dirty?

One proverb can capture the condition of a nation, and help people to move beyond their own self-oppression.

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Credit: www.Shutterstock.com/Sidhe. All rights reserved. 

Recently I found myself at breakfast at Nkopola Lodge in Malawi with a colleague from the world of international NGOs. Since both of us had spent most of our adult lives as development workers in Southern Africa—he’s Norwegian and I’m from Malawi—we started comparing the different experiences of the countries that we’ve worked in, especially Norway and Zambia where we’ve spent most of our time and energy.