Sadly logic or logically sad?

Yesterday Didier and I were asked to participate in a selection panel to evaluate six candidates for an internship at the Kisantu Botanical Gardens. The profile of the candidates constitutes a good example of the educational and economical crisis that this country has been going through for...ever...

The six candidates were close to, or in their thirties. Only one of them had any paid professional experience. All had completed their university education in 8 to 10 years instead of 4. All tried their best to convince us they were the best candidate using the most "logical" arguments possible.

Most people here take a long time to complete their studies because they face all sorts of financial problems, including having often to support a family while going to school. Also, sometimes they have to wait 1 or 2 years until a certain course is offered. Professors are paid so little that they often have other jobs to complement their salary. Material and academic resources are very limited. And so on.

Many of these problems are similar to what Guatemalans face. Still, I often get the feeling that things are even more desperate here. After working in the Congo for two years the limitations of the candidates shouldn't come as a surprise to me, but still they shock me. It still makes me sad.

While the technical adviser and the Garden's director asked very specific questions about trees and stuff, D and I asked more general ones, such as the classic "how do you think you can apply your field experience to this internship?" and "what do you expect to learn from this experience?". Part of the reason why we asked more general questions was because we know nothing about plants, but also because these more general questions sometimes help see if a certain candidate has potential, despite his or her academic shortcomings.

The question about applying past experience to the internship resulted in answers that would be funny if they weren't desperate. We're no angels, so I'm not going to say that we didn't chuckle at a few of these answers. Still, the overall feeling elicited by these "logical connections" was sadness. They showed how desperate people are to get a paid job or internship.

It appears as if one of the more active professors in the Biology department at the UNIKIN is very involved in research on rats. Three out of the six candidates had worked with rats. Urban rats. So how does catching rats in the shanty towns relates to training as a field guide in a botanical garden 120 km from Kinshasa?

I tried my best to send the candidates telepathic messages with the PC-interview-proof-get-an-internship answers: "My experience relates to this internship because collecting rats requires the ability to adapt to difficult field conditions, pay attention to detail, etc. etc." It didn't work. I obviously don't have supernatural powers. These are some of the answers we got:

"I worked with rats. Rats are omnivores, therefore they also eat plants. The work at the Gardens involves plants. Logically, my past work relates to this internship."

"I worked with rats. Rats are part of the Animal Kingdom. The Animal and the Plant Kingdoms complement each other. I now want to work with the Plant Kingdom. Logically, my past work relates to this internship."

I think we thought we'd be helping them by asking more general questions, but apparently these "classic" interview questions are only classic on the other side of the Atlantic. Their answers were somewhat sadly logic. Applying for your first internship at 35 seems to me logically sad.