African Entrepreneurship Record

Chapter 1295: Chapter 304: Orientation Camp

Regarding the issue of educating immigrants, the East African Government has already mastered a set of standardized processes, which are currently mainly applicable to the overseas colonies of East Africa.

At the immigrant learning camp in Davao City.

”I am your instructor, Betzdorf. In the coming days, I will use Russian to tell you about the rules and laws you should follow in the Mindanao Colony, as well as the naturalization requirements.”

”Coming here does not mean you can relax. If you cannot obtain local household registration, your status will forever be inferior. Do not think I am exaggerating.”

”In Mindanao, there are still many natives who have not completed naturalization. They will engage in the most arduous work and earn the lowest wages.”

”And the most important thing for naturalization in Mindanao is to master standard German. Many Slavs have already joined the Mindanao family through this method.”

Of course, Betzdorf clearly did not mention East African nationality, but only the district registration of Mindanao, a situation widespread in the colonies of East Africa, after all, joining the East African administrative system like the Lanfang Overseas Province is just an isolated case.

There is nothing much to say about this; it’s akin to the vast colonies of the United Kingdom. The British cannot treat the colonies as their homeland.

Betzdorf said: ”In Mindanao, we fully implement a planned economy. What is a planned economy? Simply put, you must do what the government requires, and what is forbidden cannot be done. Even for things not specified, you must apply upwards and cannot act on your own.”

”There is a large amount of undeveloped land in Mindanao, so we must unite all forces to develop the area. Building this place is also your new home.”

”When the Mindanao Colony develops to a certain stage, you can have some leeway to experiment.”

That being said, even if Mindanao truly develops in the future, obviously, unlawful acts will certainly not be permissible.

Betzdorf continued: ”Naturally, to make it easier for you to understand, you can view the current management mode of Mindanao Colony as a military-style management.”

”Of course, we do not need you to fight, just complete the production work, which mainly includes logging, construction, land reclamation, entering mines, and other mainstream jobs in Mindanao.”

”And material allocation is under comprehensive vertical management by the government, including all your necessary food, clothing, shelter, and transportation, which the government will entirely bear. While enjoying these benefits, you naturally need to pay a price until you naturalize.”

”After naturalization, you can, like today’s citizens of Davao City, have more freedom to choose your profession and manage your time.”

Of course, this also means that East Africa will no longer bear their minimum subsistence security needs by then, as the cost of freedom is self-reliance.

At first glance, the former might seem good, but in practical terms, after some time, most people will choose the latter.

Subsequently, Betzdorf began to explain to this group of Slavs other things to note on Mindanao Island.

In Davao City, there are three immigrant learning camps targeting three groups, one mainly for Slavic immigrants, one for immigrants from the Far East Empire, and the last for other types of immigrants.

However, if Germans choose to immigrate here, they obviously do not need to join the learning camp. Of course, currently, few Germans are immigrating to East Africa, much less to the East African colonies.

The three learning camps in Davao City annually maintain a student scale of about six to seven thousand people, which are not included in the population of Davao City.

Most of them cannot stay in Davao City for long, as Davao City is just a transit station. Generally, within two months, these immigrants will be reassigned to various places in the Mindanao Colony, and most of the time, one or two weeks may change a group of people.

In the Davao City learning camps, the main teaching is language, rules, and helping these immigrants initially adapt to the local climate.

Acclimatization, in fact, is the biggest challenge immigrants face, with not a few immigrants losing their lives to this reason every year.

The good news is that East Africa, as the only great power in the tropics, is also the most experienced and technologically advanced country in dealing with tropical diseases and climate, so the immigrant loss rate has always been maintained within an acceptable range by the East African Government.

In fact, in the Nanyang colonies, the easiest to die are the Slavs, since the climate contrast between Nanyang and where the Slavs live is simply poles apart.

Not all Slavs cannot handle this climate; for instance, the Yugoslavians from the Balkans have much better adaptability.

...

Evening.

In the cafeteria of the learning camp.

”This is rice, the food of East Africans. It tastes strange, but such a big bowl is indeed substantial and friendly to the teeth.” Kumoyev said, holding a spoonful of rice with his spoon.

In Nanyang, East Africa did not equip chopsticks as utensils as they did in their homeland, at least not in the non-Far East Empire immigrant learning camps.

This also shows East Africa’s leniency on some detailed issues in overseas colonies.

Lebria said: ”I heard from the predecessors that in the future on Mindanao Island, the daily food is expected to be this kind of rice.”

”Because on Mindanao Island, rice is the only food crop that can be grown on a large scale. This place is not suitable for growing wheat or barley.”

In this era, Ukraine, as the Tsarist Russia’s granary, planted more than eighty percent of all wheat in Russia, along with a large amount of barley and beet and other crops.

So, Ukrainians’ staple food is also primarily wheat and barley, but even so, Ukrainians just live on the subsistence line.

After all, as an agricultural country, wheat export occupies a huge part of Tsarist Russia’s finances, and in relatively backward countries like Tsarist Russia, the land has basically been concentrated in the hands of large landlords and nobles.

After all, there is a scramble for quality land. In this respect, perhaps the farmers in the Russian Siberia region might live better than the Ukrainians, provided they overcome the closed traffic and harsher environment.

But on Mindanao Island, there is no comparable situation found within Russia’s territory, be it in language, customs, food, etc.

Kumoyev said: ”As long as I can fill my stomach, I can accept any food, plus East Africans are very honest.”

”Besides rice, they also prepared meat and fruits. These should be sea fish. There are many fishing boats in Davao, which should be their main source of meat. In Ukraine, meat is rarely eaten, but it does have more fishbones.”

Lebria said: ”It’s good to have something to eat. Why are you being choosy! Moreover, sea fish have fewer bones than freshwater fish. It’s already nice to get so much fish meat.”

”There are also bananas and this fruit I don’t recognize. Bananas are rare in Russia; I’ve only heard of them before, but in Davao City, bananas are everywhere.”

The fruit Lebria said he does not recognize is actually cut pineapple chunks. There are many orchards in Davao City, and these fruits are generally very cheap.

For the bottom-level people living within Russia, they most probably do not recognize the various local fruits.

Many Slavs have never seen bananas, even though Russia once was a major importer of East African bananas, but bananas were obviously not something the ordinary Russians could afford.

If it were Germany and other countries, or the economically developed areas within Russia, their people’s knowledge would be different.

Even if they haven’t seen the actual items, education could make up for this point. For example, a country like Germany that implements comprehensive compulsory education – any random German person’s knowledge might surpass that of most people in the world.

Regarding these fruits, Kumoyev only replied with one sentence: ”Really sweet!”

In reality, Ukraine also has many fruits, like apples and cherries, which are still relatively common, but tropical fruits are their first time encountering, plus the recent tough living, naturally, they would have more subjective feelings.