Month: June 2012

That Moment.

A friend  from home came to visit recently. She had volunteered for a while in another East African country and hopped over to Tanzania for a few days. Sitting atop a ten storey hotel in downtown Dar, watching the smoke from the shisha pipe spiral into the night air, she told me the story of going to the largest public hospital in the country during her volunteering. The organization was there to ‘choose’ some abandoned new-borns to nurse back to health and eventually to place with a foster family*.

We’ve all heard the stories. Lack of equipment. Lack of motivated staff. Lack of medical supplies. Lack of space. People sitting in the waiting room for days and giving birth on the floor. Premature babies abandoned in non-functioning twenty year old incubators. Babies that have had nothing to eat for days  because the milk from the hospital store was sold to supplement meagre public servant salaries. Or maybe the money just disappeared into a Swiss bank account. Does it matter in the end?

Babies thinner than sticks, barely able to breathe**. My friend’s eyes glazed over for a split second as her voice faltered. I could tell it was one of “those” moments.

Those moments that touch you deeply in a way written words and vocal syllables cannot convey.

Those moments make you sad, then angry, then furious. Helplessness eventually settles in while optimistic determination struggles to sprout through the cracks. Those moments always float back to the surface of your consciousness, leaving you to either frantically push it back down or pull it further up.

I believe we all have them. To some they are fuel. To many they are nightmares to be forgotten. To others they may be daily life.

One of those moments for me was when I lived in Nyandira, my first time living in a Tanzanian village, working with dairy goats and orphans***.  I visited the only secondary school in the village. Two hundred smiling, young, bright, eager-to-learn students and four textbooks. None of the only four teachers at the school were qualified to teach science. Science national exams were coming up in two months.

I went back to Canada after a few weeks. I entered lecture halls with three hundred students in various levels of caffeinated sleepiness. Laptops dotted the bright, high ceiling room, flickering with a familiar white page with a blue band at the top. Hands raised into the air, followed by questions of what will be on the exam. Waiting for these sights to become normal everyday life again was a bit of a journey.

Mind you, not that sipping imported white wine, a bottle of which cost 1/3 of the monthly salary of my office’s security guard, beside a beautiful beach, surrounded by other restaurant guests, who earn five times (and probably more) of my monthly salary, is any less disconcerting. This time, I’m afraid this will become the illusion of normal everyday life.

I wonder if, one day, I’ll try to ignore those students in Nyandira.

*Orphanages are controversial in development circles. It’s actually very damaging to take a vulnerable child away from extended family support networks, in most cases. The recommended action is usually to find ways to strengthen existing family support networks.

**I’m only writing what my friend said. It might have been worse. It might have been not so bad. The point isn’t really how bad it was (for everything is relative), but how it is perceived, as this post is about personal experiences.

***I want to emphasize that I’ve had these moments in many places around the world. Watching interviews of whole families that live in 5 square metres in Hong Kong (paying rent that is, per square metre, more expensive than luxury private houses). I’ve felt the same in the Downtown Eastside in Vancouver, Canada.

Little adults and little emperors

I tapped a cute child in a primary school uniform on the shoulder. He looked up at me with big beautiful eyes and a shy smile, just a bit taller than my hip. I pointed to the vacant seat next to him and me, gesturing that he should sit down. The daladala gave a lurch, almost throwing me off balance. Everyday practice of the art of daladala balancing (read: holding on for life) can’t make up for the creative ways the drivers steal seconds here and there.

The boy giggled and looked back at me with a hint of confusion in his eyes. He shrugged his shoulders and didn’t sit down. The seat remained empty.

I always feel bad when little kids won’t sit down on daladalas. Or when they jump up once an adult gets on. I was brought up in a culture where little kids should be given seats on public transport, especially on ones that bang around as much as the daladalas. But here, kids are the last ones to sit. Cognitive dissonance is the word when I see spoiled “Emperor” kids* in Hong Kong taking over two seats while their parents or others elders stand. Which one is better? I can’t tell.

The explanation I’ve been given is that it is more of a “survival” culture here. The biggest and strongest get most of the food and resources, since giving precious resources to those who are weak doesn’t help them survive in the end. I don’t really buy into this idea. If survival culture is true, then it should be everywhere, since humans have always, until very recently in rich countries, struggled valiantly to survive.

I prefer the explanation that this phenomenon is due to a hierarchical culture combined with children being viewed as capable/responsible/grown up from a younger age than I’m accustomed to. Children are essentially viewed as competent for household chores from single-digit age. I see seven year olds with sharp knives peeling potatoes. I see five year olds carrying ten litres of water from the borehole. After that, what’s wrong with standing up on a daladala? The hierarchical culture I’m a bit more familiar with. Elders are to be respected and not questioned. They get food first, they drink first, they enter the house first, they sit down first.

What do you think?

*that’s what they call the single-borns in China/Hong Kong – Little Emperors. I’m sure you can guess why.

Categories
economics thinking

Education as investment?

Education as investment. Why do companies not invest more in making education systems work?

One of the most common complaints I hear from employers/supervisors/managers where I’ve lived in Uganda and Tanzania is that there aren’t enough competent staff. There aren’t enough people with the basic computer skills, language skills, team work, coordination, and time management skills. Sometimes I hear complaints about a lack of work ethic also, although I tend to think that this is due to a lack of the above mentioned skills. Staff searches take a long time (also because it’s hard to get the word out; internet is not as widely used). Staff turnover is high, as different organizations all need the same sub-set of people.

Recruitment and retainment of good staff drives up labour costs for organizations. While it is desirable from a living wage perspective to have labour compensation rise, companies, logically, should have a large incentive to keep labour costs down. One way would be to increase the pool of suitable candidates.

Flooding the market with foreign recruits isn’t feasible. For one, the Tanzanian government has strict controls over visa requirements for foreigners (especially non-East Africans) to work in this country. Plus, ‘expats,’ where ever they are from, are usually quite expensive (except from China. Currently reading: “China Safari: on the trail of Beijing’s expansion in Africa.” Fascinating stuff).

Another way would be to have a better educated and trained workforce of Tanzanians.

This begs the question, why do companies traditionally have no interest in pushing for better education reforms in this country?

Smaller companies, of course, would not have this longer term perspective. But for larger companies that are chronically looking for staff to expand (with the economy growing at 7% per year*!), why are they not pulling strings, or at least putting in a good word, at the top policy levels to fix the education system?

I’m sure part of the reason is because investment in education would take over 20 years to reap the benefits of a better trained workforce. Part of the reason may be a common resource problem. Why would any one company invest when all the other companies will benefit from a rise in labour quality? Yet, wouldn’t the premise remain that companies should have the incentive to invest in education systems?

I haven’t really developed this idea, but it’s interesting to think about how it’s actually in the interest of the private sector to invest in the public sector. I’m afraid I haven’t seen much of these except in the form of “corporate social responsibility aid” (which, I must say, I don’t really believe in these days). It reminds me of a workshop I attended the other day: we have to make ‘gender equity’ an incentive/benefit rather than a requirement if we really want companies to take gender seriously.

Any thoughts?

(On the flip side, it seems like many Tanzanians are worried about becoming more integrated in the East African Community because the Ugandans and Kenyans are already taking a lot of the available positions. Common reasons cited include better language skills and ‘aggressiveness.’)

* And 6.9% debt. The growth is almost wholly financed by debt borrowing. Translation from my economist colleague: not as rosy as it sounds.

Responsibility

While I generally avoid making this an issue about ethics, let me be slightly controversial for once, and make it about an issue of ethics.

My argument:

People who grew up with privilege have a duty to help others gain similar basic opportunities.

Let’s unpack that.

Privilege, in this context, I define as having basic living standards. As having food, water, healthcare, and shelter. As having opportunities for education. As having opportunities for employment to the full extent of our capacities.

Super basic, yet unfulfilled by the vast majority of people currently living on this planet.

Even in developed countries as in the USA, healthcare, for example, isn’t a certainty. Anyone who has watched Sicko would understand a little bit of the stress and pressure medical issues can have on people’s lives. Even if you thought you were smart and got insurance, a sudden change in health can leave your life in shambles. That’s unacceptable. The richest country in the world is unwilling to help those most in need.

I grew up with more privileges than I can count.

For sure, my family came from humble beginnings. My parents sometimes had no food to eat when they were young. Having been working since they were single digit aged, they hid from authorities for child labour checks. My mom almost lost her thumb while working as a child and the family didn’t have money to take her to a proper hospital. She still has the scars. My parents worked long and hard for the opportunity to move to Canada. Even then, we were struggling. My dad worked minimum wage jobs to support our whole family. Ultimately, we moved back to Hong Kong after four years because the finances just weren’t working out. Luckily, we lived in a place with inclusive enough economic institutions that we were able to rise with the booming economy. (And somehow managed to escape the 1998 economic crisis.)

I have never known a day of hunger nor poverty. (Which is an amazing feat, considering the situation Hong Kong was in when my parents were young)

Fortunate enough to be a citizen of two countries that provide basic health care, that ensure their citizens get unemployment insurance, that guarantee world class primary and secondary education to even the poorest, that provide at least assistance for basic shelter, I have always been fed, housed, treated, and educated. Yes, I worked hard to get into good schools. I worked hard for those scholarships. But I am fully aware that I was able to work hard because I had an environment where I didn’t have to work as a child to support my family. There were hard times in my family, but I was shielded from the storm by my parents, of which I am eternally grateful. Fortunate enough to have parents who saved every penny for me to have the best possible education, I am here today, having the freedom to explore my interests without much economic consideration.

Fortunate, indeed.

Yet, we should not be leaving this up to fortune.

Why should we leave such basics up to luck? Why, when we know the only way an economy can truly grow in an inclusive and democratic way is to have an educated workforce, are we leaving our social and economic futures to random chance?

Basic living and education standards are not privileges, they are investments. Investments for the collective futures of our communities, countries, and world.

Which brings us back to my premise. Those of us who have had the privilege to grow up with basic living standards are responsible for helping spread those opportunities for those who haven’t been privileged. We cannot forget that if you have had a university education, you are part of less than 1% of the world population. Privilege comes with responsibility. We are responsible. You are responsible.

Think back to two hundred years ago. Women were still the property of men. Women could not vote. People of colour were non-persons. Colonialism was justified. Slavery accepted. The poor died and no one blinked an eye.

What changed? The reason I, a female person of colour born in a colony, am able to type these words, express my thoughts, fly around to almost every country in the world and have a chance to work in almost any job I would desire, is because other people with privilege fought for my opportunities. Universal suffragists gave me political voice. Anti-colonialists gave my birth place independence. Immigration advocates opened international borders for dual citizenship.

How can I not be responsible for the future of others like me?

Categories
Uncategorized

I think I’ve decided what to do with my work confusion situation. Thanks to very good advice from a friend and dad recently.

  • Money really doesn’t matter that much. I can live off what I learn and I will always have a back-up (ha, shamefully, my parents). There is a time in life where you do need to earn enough money, now isn’t the time.
  • There’s no other time in life where I can experiment with different sectors and fields that I’m interested and curious about. If I’m really going to go back to agriculture/food systems in the end, now’s the time to have fun and explore.
  • It’s better to learn from good managers (or at least generally good managers) than to jump into the deep end of management and hope that I won’t drown. It’s not like that hasn’t happened before. I survived, but a bit traumatized.
  • If I’m learning a ton and only “manageably unhappy,” stick with the job for at least six months to see if it’s worth staying longer.
  • Staying in one city/country for 3 years isn’t going to pigeonhole me to a region for the rest of my life.

So that’s all the drama for now.

Spam prevention powered by Akismet