ABSTRACT
A common saying in late 2011 was ‘Yu go fo bear’, meaning you have to bear the difficulties of life. Learning how to ‘bear life’ is connected to the language of suffering and dependency. At the same time, visible signs of development such as the building of roads and mining and investment of multinationals, entailed the country was no longer described as ‘backward’ (Bolton 2008) but instead was ‘coming up.’ However, there were still anxieties expressed connected to whether everyone would benefit and develop, expressed in ideas around the vagrancy of the youth, instability of managing life, and ‘selfishness’ of politicians.
