Wow that is crazy i knew it was bad but never read things from that era.

I remember reading a thread on reddit of all places a while back that was talking about the aid workers over there and how after a while they became disillusioned as nothing they did worked and they always went back to being savages. They built them a irrigation system so they could stop eating dirt and instead grow real food, then they went back a while later and found that they had stripped the farm of everything of value and sold it so they could buy alcohol.

Watch also "empire of dust" its about a chinese railway company trying to make things work in the Congo.