Mama Balo

A Small Window Into A Deep Sense of Care and Respect

In 2020, I stumbled on the phrase “moral idiot,¹” derived from the Greek root of idiot, meaning a private person or someone not in the public eye.

Essentially, a “moral idiot” is someone in a public-facing role who doesn’t realise or care about how their actions—or inactions—affect others.

After reading this, I started to reflect on the many ways I’d been a moral idiot in my life. This reflection made me wonder: What is the opposite of a moral idiot?

The answer, I realised, is someone who cares deeply. Someone who goes out of their way, in a sort of maddening manner, when they should ideally have no reason to care and would be “justified” in not caring. Someone who treats every task—no matter how mundane—with respect akin to worship.

That’s where Mama Balo comes in. Mama Balo, my latest documentary with Kayode, is about someone who cares deeply about her job—the opposite of a moral idiot.

She is a toilet cleaner in Nigeria, where blue-collar workers are often overlooked and underpaid. Yet, she approaches her work with an incredible dedication that is rare for any job, let alone one society deems “unimportant.”

One vivid example of her work ethic comes from a day when she noticed a drainage that wasn't part of her duties had clogged. She didn't walk past it. She didn't say, "It's not my problem." Instead, she spent over an hour carefully clearing it [with her hands], ensuring the space was functional for others.

Her dedication made us ask: Why does Mama Balo care so much about her job? And is it useful—or even fair—to ask others to care this deeply when they’re underpaid and overlooked?

These questions lie at the heart of what we set out to capture in our documentary.

Mama Balo challenges everything we think we know about work ethic. She embodies the belief that any job can be dignified if approached with respect. A point James Somers echoes when he says that “no job is too low not to warrant care because no job exists in isolation. Carelessness ripples. It adds friction to the working of the world.”

Image from James Somers’ Atlantic article titled, Learning About Work Ethic From My High School Driving Instructor

Beyond all this serious hand-holding, Mama Balo is also a secret documentary about joy—the joy of work and relationships, joy that’s richly and deeply independent of money. The joy that comes from finding meaning in a job because you respect it.

This film marks a shift for us. With The Gravediggers, our first documentary, we avoided moralizing. With Mama Balo, we’re leaning into it. We want to be didactic. We want to wring out global implications. Most importantly, we want you to care.

Through her story, we hope to challenge how you see work, dignity, and responsibility. If Mama Balo can find pride and meaning in her work, what excuse do the rest of us have?

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If you’ve read this far, thank you. We’re currently raising money to give Mama B a retirement nest egg as she gets older and can no longer do her job.

If you’d like to donate to this, pls find the link here. Every amount counts and nothing is too small - thank you!

1. Idiot explanation from Merriam-Webster