"Collaboration" without the "Co"

The meeting had a noble goal. As part of the action plan of a village-wide meeting a few weeks ago, I decided to pull together the leaders of the village groups, associations and organizations to try to figure out why there isn't more collaboration among community leaders along with lots of duplication and redundency.

I was really excited about this. From the day of my arrival, that is my second arrival that didn't involve fainting and lots of blood loss, I had talked to many passionate people doing some really neat things in the village; However, they all seemed to be off in their own corners, not sharing ideas, stories of success or failure or simply feeding off each other's energy. So, for this meeting I had in mind a room filled with a dozen of the town's movers and shakers where we figured out where we shared the mission and activities of all these different organizations did and worked through some of the key ways they can work better together for their beneift as well as that of the village.

It was not to be. However, what did happen ended up being really interesting and telling in its own right.

Thirty-mintues after the meeting was supposed to start, only four faithful participants showed up, all people I knew fairly well and had effectively guilted into coming. It's actually the good opening line to a joke: "So a chief, an imam and a president of a women's co-op walk into a room.."

Anyway, given this ironic nature of the turnout, i.e. a meeting about collaboration without collaborators, the plan would have to change but not in too different a direction. We started talking about why people wouldn't show up for a meeting about collaboration, something that I intuitively thought people would jump to as well as as we would have to do for people in the village to work better together.

What came out, especially from the local Imam and the Chief of Farende (a sweet guy with a voice like Marlon Brando - if Brando spoke French, that is - and an amazing collection of hats), was that people, although they might understand in the abstract why colaboration is important, aren't motivated enough to invest in it. The chef talked about how at the family level, they save together to buy a radio and understand how working together solves common problems. At the level of the village or among different organzation, however, the rewards of collaboration seem uncertain and abstract. Perhaps I could learn from the examples of others, but is the time it would take to have a meeting worth it, given my dusk 'till dawn schedule of hard work at home as well as the uncertain nature of what will come. In other words, being an entrepreneur testing the waters and learning from best practices is a lot easier without the constraints of subsistence living. You're also a lot more motivated to do the tough work of organization, coordination and analysis if you're from a can-do culture where the resoruces make success likely, not where you are used to being stuck behind.

So, through this meeting, quite accidently, we ended up getting to the core of the problems of collaboration in this setting. The only difference was that a kind of meta-lesson about the difficulty of collaboration was mixed into this dialogue. Cute.

I have another big meeting planned for this Thursday, one which is town-wide and with a narrower mission. The goal is to promote this tax-system I have been working on all summer. The Impot de Solidarité pour la Developpement (ISD, a solidarity sax for development of the village) is 100CFA (20 cents) per month per family tax that will be used to pay for public goods in the community. This fund will be used to repare roads, dig wells and fix up the market.

I think it's a great way to give this village a chance to invest in its future in a way that is empowering to the villagers both in terms of independence from outside help and also in bringing together the village for these common goods. However this tax poses a particular problem for me and the village: it is not a matter of getting a grant or not or getting a big donation or not. The village has the resources and the success or failure of this project is purely an issue of motivation and organization to get the work done.

So, my work to this point has been to figure out how we can convince the villagers to give up their much neeed money for these public goods. I've worked to set up a special commission to research the details of potential projects, follow up on ones that are started, follow-up with collectors and do the public relations work. It's important for the villagers to know that their money is going to be taken care of in a transparent and accoutnable way where they have a voice. But, they with also need a push o f motivation. At this meeting, it is my job to kick start the public relations work by trying to convince the villagers that what they do for their families - saving and working together towards common ends - is something they should and must do for their village:

I'm looking forward to the challenge and will let you know how it goes. I only hope people show up!

Cheers,
Alex

Cards and Steriods

It was another quiet evening in Togo and I was playing cards with the two oldest kids in the household. My family here in Togo has three adorable kids, all boys. Firmin is 11 and the partiarch of the family and not quite naive enough. Marusa is 8 and is appropriately naive. Paulin, the oh-so-cute 3 year old with a pot-belly, an irrepressible smile.

The game, which they call the "Jeu American" or American game, is basically crazy 8s with a few other rules mixed in. It's always a good time for all and a great way to pass the time after a good meal. It was a good game of cards and I had just won a round. As the cards were being counted for points, a saw the oldest, Firmin, sliding one of his cards into the pile before counting it.

Cheating. My reaction was not one that cared about winning but did care about making a point and teaching a lesson, and I saw an opportunity. This is not the first time I caught him doing this, but I gave him another, now perfected, lecture about how important honestly is, how if he wants people to trust him in life he has to be honest even when he's playing cards blah blah blah. Sensing this message needed some additional reinforcement since it wasn't the first time I used it, I imposed a new rule that those that are caught cheating gets 50 points added to their score. Thinking I finally had won, we continued the game. Before the night was out, I caught both of the brothers cheating once. Sigh.

Now, what to make of this? Even after explaining how it doesn't really matter who wins because it's just a game; that being honest will make you feel much better when you do win; that having people trust you is one of the most important things out there and even some pontificating about the idea of fairness, the kids still cheat. Is it just youthful immaturity? A blood-thirsty desire to win? Or rather a deeper cultural phenomenon?

It's probably a combination oh all of these, but looking at it through a cultural lens, it follows a lot of what I've seen in terms of bribery and corruption in Togo. From the cop that pulled over my professor here for "running a red light" and got 5,000 (10 bucks) in a bribe before he'd let us go to the cop that pulled over our taxi going between my village and Ketao for absolutely no reason, just to extract a 1,000 (2 bucks) payment, for what exactly I'm not sure, the attitude seems to be something as follows: although there are rules and laws, everyone is breaking them. By not taking a bribe or cheating, you are at a disadvantage and falling behind those around you, missing out an opportunity to help yourself and your family.

From this comes a different idea of fairness. In the US we tend to believe in fair systems. A deck of cards dealt out gives everyone an equal shot of having a good hand. Maybe fate will deal you a bad hand this time, but you're just as likely to get a great hand later. The same can be said about the police. Although everyone around me was speeding too, the fact that I got caught was random, but in the long run it's fair to all.

In Togo, it's a little different. They believe in fair relationships. By that I mean, that the systems are always tilted against them so that they have to rely on people to help them out when they are in a pickle. Pay for police officers is lousy, thus bribes are part of the job, and are exactly what you would do if you were in that position or one of your family members was as well.

The same seems to go for jobs and university admissions. I was talking to a friend of mine the other day who said he supports the leading oppostion party, the UFC, which hardly has a foothold as the RPT, the ruling party has been in power for 40 years. However, when I was asking about ways to raise their support in Togo, he mentioned that even he worries about being too vocal for fear of being blacklisted. Not exactly democracy or fairness, but if everyone is protecting members from their party or ethnic group or family, then it all evens out, right?

When I talk to Togolese about how they see corruption, they respond with slight indignation that is over shawdowed by pessismistic fatalism that has accepted this reality. But I'm also brought back to examples in the US culture of shameful, widespread cheating. The CEO scandals as well the steroids epidemic in baseball show that this sort of corruption and cheating depends not just on the larger, but also the relative context. In other words, otherwise perfectly honest people find themselves in a context where they cheat. In regards to the Major League Baseball scandal; the public reaction is unamious condamnation. But when you hear the players talk about it, they claim that everyone is taking sterioids, and that even though it's illegal, you are falling behind others if you don't follow suit. Even though they apparently have the same norms of fairness as the general American population, the desire to compete and the lack of faith in others forces them to give in to temptation.

Thinking about how this might change, it seems that the belief in abstract concepts like fairness and justice that we have in the US requires a huge amount of faith. That those that take bribes will eventually be caught and punished and good officers will be promoted requires the faith that those above and around you will enforce the institution of the thin blue line and also that others around you are following suit. If not, you're only hurting yourself and your family by not following suit; you're the sucker not taking advantage of what he can. The same goes for those baseball players that cheat: unless they are convinced that those around them are clean, they will think they need to juice up just to keep up. The idea of appealing to abstract ideas public service, or ideas of justice is tricky when in the larger context and, probably more importantly, the smaller context of those around you, people aren't following suit.

So, back to those ragamuffin children who I repeatedly catch cheating. If you live in this relationship culture, one that instructs you to take advantage of the system when you can and the larger context which is pretty corrupt, it might make sense to cheat when you think everyone else is. If everyone is cheating at cards, all you are doing is being competitive. They do say that if you're playing cards and you can't find the sucker, then it's probably you. So maybe they are just taking me for a ride?

I'm going to see what I can do to root out the corruption in my family card games - if you have any ideas let me know! It's been tough already so I can't imagine a country wide anti-corruption campaign would take! But I'm also going to be thinking a lot generally about how corruption can be fought in Togo.

Cheers,
Alex

*I also have to take this moment to mention a small personal tragedy which depressed me a little. At this big ceremony last week my camera with all my great pictures on it was stolen from right out of my pocket while I was making my way through this big crowd. I know these things happen everywhere in the world but I was still pretty upset because I had just gotten to feel very safe and comfortable here in Togo, more so that I'd ever felt in other developing countries I've been to. I'm lucky enough to be able to replace the camera, but the pictures not so much. Oh well, one of the risks of travelling!

Village Life!

The Schedule of the village.

I wanted to take some time to get a window into my daily life here in the village. It’s different, let me tell you that. Visions of TiVo, a baseball game, an ice-cold happy hour beer, cities blanketed with wi-fi - those things that make life worth living, are hardly close enough to make wish for them. Yet life here is hardly anything that’s too tough or even too far out of my comfort zone. Perhaps I’m well equipped for this environment because I moved around a lot when I was young, and in that context I learned that although I am happy in a certain environment, that doesn’t mean that I couldn’t be just as happy in a completely different context. Or perhaps it’s just because I have the luxury of knowing that I’ll be going back to my… luxury… in a few weeks.

First of all, life in Farendé starts early! I’m awake for about the same number of hours everyday, but the schedule is completely at the mercy of the sun. I get up with the roosters and the sun, usually around 5:30. I usually go for a run that morning with a kid or two from my house or my fellow Duke student, Rui, who is working on public health in the village. As I run across the gently rolling plain or up the nearby the mountains, I pass several villagers with hoes hanging over their shoulders and those already tending their corn or yam or rice fields. Nyen-e-liu I say to them, to which the reply is either silence as they don’t know what I said, “Bonjour” as a nod to the fact that as a white person probably speak French (or more likely speak French than the local Kabiyé) or the appropriate response, “Yo” (yes, it is fun to say!). I of course pass no other early morning joggers, even though our families here always talk about working out (faites du sport!), probably because they’ve seen various white people doing it.

After these gorgeous early morning jogs with the sun rising and fog lifting, I come back to the homestead and begin to get ready for the day. The first thing is a refreshing bucket shower! I head to the well in the center of the homestead and fill my bucket, grab my soap and head to the concrete stall with a piece of scrap metal which I must reposition to serve as the door. Particularly when it is warm (which it always is here) and I’m sweaty, I love the bucket shower. Think of it as splish-splashing in a bubble bath. Surprisingly fun and I use a lot less water that I do elsewhere.

Breakfast I eat on my own, either some oatmeal (Quaker Oats!) with powdered milk and some sugar cubes or some local break which I eat, and I’m not kidding, interspersed between bites of banana and peanuts to simulate a peanut butter and banana sandwich. Delicious! Then I head out for my days, which vary greatly. Usually they involve meeting with a variety of representatives or members of various organizations (such as the local microfinance branch, different groupments and associations in the village), local chiefs or simply members of the community to discuss different issues of development. These conversations range from the nitty-gritty of financing a small commerce to larger issues of democracy (or the lack-thereof) in Togo and larger structural problems such as the lack of electricity.

A quick example was a meeting I had yesterday with the members of a women’s cooperative who take small loans to finance their small commerce activities like making doughnuts or the local beer. I got a lay of the land and saw how it works, loans over 4 month that they pay back in part every week in a group-wide meeting. A great effort, but the interest, 10 percent over 4 months, is exorbitant. The local microfinance branch isn’t too much better, 13-18 percent over a year, but better than these ladies are getting. The rub is that the Microfinance branch requires a 15,000 CFA (about 30 bucks) deposit and a fee of 2,500 to open an account, out of the reach of many of these people. At this meeting I asked them questions about what they do with their loans as well as how they collaborate and compete with others. A few interesting things came out of this meeting. I asked if they had a notebook where they keep track of their costs and earning along with the interest they have to pay. Their response was that their accounting “est à la tete”- it’s in their heads. When talking about competition, I asked about the scene at the market: six women sitting side by side for the entire day selling beignets, each with a few customers and a few dozen beignets to sell. My natural instinct was to ask if they thought about consolidating their businesses to free up some time to do other things. They made a few comments about some people having bad luck and not wanting to take that chance, but it seemed that their view was that this coordination required a lot of effort for an uncertain result, while the status quo helps out a little in raising money. This group asked me to come back and talk to them a little more about my ideas to help them organize their businesses better. So I’ll look forward to that!

I usually come back for lunch which consists of either rice; beans with this dried, crunchy cassava flour; or spaghetti along with a spicy sauce of onions; tomato paste and red palm oil, the staple oil here (no olives in sight!). This is actually delicious, and usually wolf down the huge amount of food they give me. Yes, no Atkins diet in sight either.

The afternoon is similar, often with various forms or relaxing over some local beer or playing cards with the kids in my homestead inserted. Dinner is on at around 6:30 and consists of a standard pate of either petite mille (don’t know English word!) or corn, which tastes like a thick mound of unsalted grits. The sauces are usually delicious; with leaves I’ve never heard of before, various parts of baobab trees and some other flavour like peanuts or crushed okra. They are usually very tasty, but the routine is getting a little old. I crave this carb they eat during the dry season, Fufu, a delicious thick mashed potato like substance made of mashed and well-pounded yams, and of course some variety of cuisine. That will have to wait! One fun thing is that the eating of this is all done with the right hand, an adjustment, particularly when you the combination of being starving and piping hot food leads to injured hands!

After dinner I usually hand out with the family for awhile, before retiring to bed around 8 or 8:30 to read or do some work. As mentioned before I’ve been able to read a lot here which has been fabulous. But, after a long day in the sun, a filling meal and some time with a good book I’m about reading to hit the hay and repeat by about 9:30. It’s no watching 24 on TiVo with a cold microbrew and my close friends, but it’s a great life that I’m enjoying heartily!

Cuture Conflict

The run-down taxi slowly rolls to a stop on a dirt road in the middle of nowhere. The driver jumps out, opens the hood, taps a wrench he hides under the hood a fewer time and gets back it. He figets with the gas pedal, clutch, and - for some reason - the interior fan. This process repeats 3 times on the 10 kilometer long trek to Ketao. Ah, the African quick and dirty fix.

My last post talked about the culture of chaos here in Togo. This time I want to go a little deeper into the cultural issues that, as the progam assitant here calls it, mettent le freign sur la developpement - that put the brake on development - in Togo and delve into that dangerous territory of the cultural things that need to change for Togo to develop.

I want to start out by looking at culture from an objective viewpoint. The director of this program in Togo is an anthropologist and constantly pushes us to see Togo trough the lens of evolved cultural practices that are atuned to the conditions they live in. The underlying message is that people don't do things randomly, all things are done for a reason.

I accept that premise, however, I don't think this neccesarily means that all things are done the best way they should (a dangerous word, I know), particularly for the current time and space. My thoughts on this boil down to two forces. First that inertia - continuing what you did yesterday even if times have changed - is a powerful force in all human beings. Second, over time some practices have clear mechanisms that reinforce gradual evolution towards a more effective endpoint at the indivudal. Others do not have such a mechanism, particular at the indivdual level.

Agriculture is a good example of a practice that easily evolves. Whether your crop does better or worse a certain way will affect what you'll do next year. There is no reason why you'd want less corn. For instance, in my village, isn't too reliable; sometimes there is too much and sometimes not enough. This is even more problematic if you're trying to grow a few different crops. However an ingenious solution emerged for how you grow both yams (which require less water) and sorghum (which requires more water) at the same time is by building these cute little mounds around the sorghum to give the yams a higher and drier place to grow. The culture here has been very receptive of fertilizer and people always complain about why it isn't cheaper.

A muddier case of an eveolved cultural practice is the afernoon siesta. Waking at sunrise and taking a nap from 12-3pm is a great idea when you are a farmer who doesn't want to be out during the hottests hours. But should this also apply to the microfinance office in Farende? Maybe... but for the banker in Lome with hardly a field in sight? I doubt it. I heard that Spain is working to abolish the siesta there but you can see how long that took. Inertia. But also the fact that there is no force to change this practice is everyone is doing it. Why would you keep the supermarket open from 12-3 if everyone else is taking a nap, even if you'd prefer not to close and reopen? The evolution to the culture can only happen collectively, not at the individual level.

And then there is the case of the quick and dirty fix, one that looks to the short term - completing that taxi trip - instead of the long term - not having to stop 3 more times on the way back or the rest of the year. An attitude that privledge the short term against the long term is one I've bumped up against time and time again here. Whether it has to with buying cigarettes one at a time instead of a pack, buying small cheaper per unit can, poorly organized meetings or making key investments by taking a loan or saving to start a business.

After hearing all about the power of microfinance, I was excited to see how it would work out here. I've talked to the office in the village and he says there buisness is very slow because people don't want to take risks and don't like saving. According to him, although they are poor, they prefer to do what they know works as opposed to saving an investing in a better future. Yes, if you are poor it makes sense to be risk averse. However; if you are trying to get out of poverty, it doesn't.

I imagine this short term practice developed because of the subsistence nature of farming. You live day in and day out and just try to make ends meet. This continues into other spheres: because you don't have the money to get a new engine, or transmission, you push it till it gets going. However when you extend this attitude to other question of development, it gets dicey.

Take those development meetings that start 2 hours late. Great idea, but they are also poorly planned, don't accomplish the main goals and have no follow-up. Sounds like a procrastinating student. But in the terribly difficult coordination task of development, you can't priviledge the short term over the long term. You have to do the hard work and focus so that you can see results in a year.

However what is so striking is that in a society that farms, the ultimate tale of delayed gratification as you spend months toiling for one harvest, this attitude hasn't transferred elsewhere. So perhaps there is the possibility to change this cultural practice in those instances when they need it to? I can only hope so as I see nothing imperialistic about focusing on the importance of saving and planning!

My internet time is expiring; but until next time?

Things!

It's been an exciting week here in Farendé! Ive had a bunch of time to be in this fascinating community and try to learn a bit about the challenges and opportunities for development here. Ill get into my observations on that next week, but for now I'd like to discuss some of the, let's call them "adjustments," that I've had to make.

Electricty, specifically the lack thereof.

To be honest, it's not too bad. Thinking about 2 months without iPhone was almost enough to make me not get on that plane to Togo, but despite the definite adjustments it hasn't been too bad. For one, your schedule changes... to one that makes you live the way the earth wants us to. In bed by 8:30, ie a few hours after the sun sets, reading with my headlamp. Up around 6 if the sund doesnt wake me sooner. Ive really enjoyed early morning runs when it feels pretty nice actually. The time between 10-3 isnt terribly conducive to athletics, although there is this natural sauna everywhere. Its definitely a pain using a flashlight for everything you do once the sun goes down (think 2am stumbling to find a tree that looks like it would make a good toilet).

The second thing about the lack of electricity, and something Ive actually really enjoyed, is the fewer distractions that are around me. It's been so much easier to get immersed in a book when you dont have DVR, the internet and all those electronic temptations at your fingertips. Beyond that, Ive had the feeling that the lack of all these technologies that let us be elsewhere has allowed me to do a better job of living in the moment and place and time that Im in. For instance, I just finished reading Moby Dick for the first time, and how incredible it was immersing myself in that tale, especially as I read by a kerosine lantern as the storms brewed overhead, as I can only image this book was designed to be read.

Some nights have been better than others without AC or a fan in my room, but how hard it is to really escape the heat has been rough. There are several methods used here that work to variying degrees: tree shade (not bad); these straw-covered open-air huts called paillotes (pretty good); a shower (soothing, but temporary). There are times, particularly when Im trying to sleep, bullets of sweat running down my body, that I would kill for AC or even a cold beer (the local beer, made for sorghum is pretty good - for taste, think a dry alcoholic cider type taste, is served tepid and no fridge means no ice cold Coca-Cola(TM)) but I think of what this place must be like in the dry season and that these people deal with it their whole lives and I generally stop complaining.

Chaotic Improvisation

My previous summers featured the pretty standard unpaid internship elements: 8:30 to 5:30 office hours, button down shirt (open collar though!), a small desk with stacks of papers and ball-point pens, and lunch breaks at the local café. Not so this summer. This sort of organization was not what I signed up for, and its certainly not what Im getting! The roads are such a fantastic example: cars darting back and forth in between broken down trucks, fearless motorcyclist (there are TONS here), over-loaded bikers and woman with more than I can imagine carrying effortlessly balanced on their heads. With all this, the roads mostly have no lines, are full of pot-holes or just uneven dirt, don't exactly have gutters to help with drainange and stop-lights are interpreted as friendly suggestions, rather than any sort of legal impediment.

Chaos in the way things are done at all different levels as well! Visas? Go through a hole in a wall (literally a hole in the wall) to find an unmarked office. Time? Ha! Meetings that start 2 hours late do not jive with me! Do people show up? Sometimes!

Again, adustment needed. There clearly are benefits of this timeless-ness. I havent seen anybody powerwalking down the streets of Farende with their head down, too busy to say hello and ask how I am doing because they are late for a meeting. They take the time to welcome you and invite you for a drink almost always.Where in the US we'd say (as I have many times before!) that I'd love to catch up with you or do X, Y or Z, but Im too "busy" or Im "late" for a meeting or I dont have the "time" today. In a chaotic, improvised culture, you allow yourself to be immersed in what you have around you, instead of running off to what might be. Ive actually come to realize that part of the problem is that I try to come on time, not thinking about the paradox that if two people are both 2 hours late for a meeting, they are actually both on time.

However, for getting stuff done, for having meetings to learn about development here, this is a pain. For the future of business and government here, this will be a problem. However, maybe it is possible for development to bring timeliness to these sectors, but leave us the time to make time for those around us. Being late always makes me think about my much beloved who is unfortunately not with us any more, Eve Carson. She gave you a 120 percent of her soul when she was with you, but she was always horribly late. Thinking about the concept of being late doesnt usually make me smile; but it does in this case.

But yes! Adjustments! Adjustments that are temporary, but ones that are helping me digest the way I live my life no matter where I am. This is why I love travel!

Until next time,
Alex