An adult and a child

September 4, 2012

Furrowed brows, tightened lips, squinted eyes. A sneer flashed across the adult’s face.

The child whipped back his head, innocently staring at the adult with eyebrows raised, brown eyes wide, mouth ajar.

The daladala conductor glared at the waist-high student in a primary school uniform with a look of pure hatred. He spat at the child. Then again. The child continued walking, clearly perplexed, turning his head to look back a few more times.

As far as I could tell, the conductor didn’t know the child. As far as I could tell, the child committed no offense, except walking on the sidewalk. Except for being a different skin colour. Except for looking ethnically South Asian.

I’ve seen racism. I’ve felt racism. I’ve probably been racist, unknowingly, unwillingly. But seeing it so direct, so raw. Targeting a random child, in my neighbourhood. It was a sobering morning experience on the way to work.

Utopia might never come. Sometimes it seems like the bare minimum of basic human decency won’t ever come either.

P.S. I can’t guarantee that if I were the daladala conductor, I wouldn’t feel enough resentment about current economic inequalities to do the same thing. Your child is heading to a private school, in a crisp uniform, tummy full, limitless opportunities waiting ahead in life. My child? Probably going to a public school where teachers are absent 80% of the time, where she can’t pass a grade 2 test in grade 6. Just like millions of other children, struggling to scrap together a living in ten years.


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Here’s why I’m here

July 6, 2012

I read a post on Tales from the Hood* a while ago about how you shouldn’t be working in international development if you feel like you’re making a “sacrifice to help poor people.” That you are holier-than-thou because you’re doing this amazing work, giving up your good life, good salary, and personal luxuries to help save the world.

I can’t agree more.

It’s no sacrifice for me to work in development and be “in the field.” (I would vehemently disagree that Dar is “the field” anyways. I have probably ranted about how much I actually want to be in the field, with maize fields and dairy goats). I wouldn’t be here if I felt like I had to give up more than what I gain. Bury the “I’m your saviour” attitude. The moment we think we’re ‘saving’ anyone, the power dynamic tips. We stop listening, we stop focusing on making sure what we do actually has an impact, and start basking in our own (imagined) glory.

For sure, I believe in the work I do. I believe it will make a difference in people’s life, hopefully. I do not, however, feel like I deserve special treatment, or am more ethical, or more saintly because I chose to be in development work.

Tales from the Hood also had another post about needing to be very honest with ourselves about both our professional and personal motivations of working in development. “Helping people” is all fine and good, but we need to be brutally honest about our other incentives to avoid the risk of fooling ourselves. So allow me to be honest:

1.       Adventure: this probably would be in air quotes if I were speaking – one person’s adventure is someone else’s daily life. I like seeing different places, eating different foods, meeting different people. Any scene that makes me go “wow!” or “huh?” spices up my day. Seeing gazelles dotting the savannah or advertisements selling “Chinese medicine” with a painting of a voluptuous female. Walking around a new neighbourhood. Discovering a tasty food stand. Finally being able to navigate the traffic to cross the road during rush hour. Looking out the window. Sitting on a street corner. Having conversations about the most mundane topics. The little things that make me annoyed at home make life interesting. (Other than lining up at the bank and trying to fix the leaking washroom, that still annoys me).

2.       Work experience: due to the insufficiency of very skilled labour in the economy here, even people with my level of tertiary education are considered more than just employable. If you have a good work ethic, and are semi-good at networking, you’re bound to find an interesting, paid, job sooner or later. In the jobs I have worked so far, I’ve always been allowed to take on much more responsibility than I would have had back home. I can stretch to the edge of my current abilities because there’s too much work and too few people.

3.       Pay: while I am earning less (or maybe even much less) than I would have in Canada (not in Hong Kong though, which is quite crazy when I think about it. This is probably because most people my age are not expected to move out and pay for all their own bills in Hong Kong), I save about the same and I don’t have to watch my spending as much. Dar is expensive, but still not as much as in Vancouver or Hong Kong.

4.       It looks good on my resume: cross cultural skills. Language skills. Ability to persevere through obstacles. Willingness to step outside of my comfort zone. This might not even be true, but people assume so when they see an “exotic” country name on your CV.

5.       Networking: the expat circle is small (probably not as small as, say, the Central African Republic) and places to hang out few. We’re all away from home somehow so it’s easy to make friends and meet people (it also really isn’t that easy to break out of the expat circle). Plus, I’ve stopped viewing ‘networking’ as a dirty word a long time ago.

6.       Cool people: 80 percent of the people I meet here are super cool. They’re doing super cool work/research. They’re interested in development issues or at least politics. Usually multicultural or at least less ethnocentric. Travelled lots. Full of stories. And to some extent, strange and quirky. Back home, this percentage is probably around 1 to 10 percent (maybe 30%, depending on how many university conferences I go to). It’s a self-selective process – people who come here in the first place are already a bit off the beaten path. Dar’s also a bit of a development industry hub.

7.       Grad school research: I’m heading back to grad school in a year or two. Since I want to work in this field (not necessarily development, but most likely agriculture economics/public policy), there’s no better place for me to be learning about the topics I’m going to be studying. Theories are useless unless they are grounded in the real world. Change in the real world require theories.

8.       White sandy beaches, crystal clear blue skies, giraffes, lions, and elephants! Where else can I be a tourist and a resident?

After finishing this list, I’m starting to wonder why aren’t all of my friends living abroad.  ^__<

*which is, sadly, not only on hiatus, but also half of the posts are password locked; hence I can’t find said post anymore.


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That Moment.

June 29, 2012

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.


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Little adults and little emperors

June 26, 2012

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.


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Education as investment?

June 20, 2012

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.


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Responsibility

June 15, 2012

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?


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June 13, 2012

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.


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Taxing garbage

May 30, 2012

What would happen if we put a really high tax on garbage. Not recyclables, not reusables, not composted organics, but garbage that is burnt or taken to landfills. “Waste.”

If we had a significantly high enough tax on garbage produced, then there is a very big incentive to 1) produce things that can be reconfigured into a resource input at the end of its life cycle, and 2) figure out ways to make sure current garbage is reused. Add on incentives to figure out how to reduce the amount of garbage that was already produced (resource ‘mining’ from landfills), then we’re really encouraging a close loop system.

What is preventing us from taxing garbage like we tax petrol? What is preventing us from taxing garbage higher than petrol? What are the barriers and conflicts?

A quick google search:

Pay-As-You-Go Garbage Tax: weighing garbage bins

http://www.ecogeek.org/monitoring-pollution/293

Hong Kong mulls garbage tax to tackle waste problem

http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/global-observer/hong-kong-mulls-garbage-tax-to-tackle-waste-problem/2724

Both articles talk about consumer side control though.

The main idea shouldn’t be to focus on taxing consumer/normal resident produced garbage. It would be to target industries. Might as well start the closed loop system at the producer end, rather than the consumer end.

I really should look into Industrial ecology more.


Posted, by in economics thinking

May 22, 2012

A friend recently told me…

We all struggle with each other. We all love each other. We all struggle to love each other. Everything we have, we make from scratch. Every new person, a new round of negotiations.

Social norms? No one follows them anyways.

We make from scratch.

***

I thought it was worth remembering in my personal and professional life.


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Job advice from others

May 15, 2012

Really good post and link resources on careers in international/humanitarian development: http://www.internationalpeaceandconflict.org/profiles/blogs/guide-to-careers-in

(copied completely incase of broken links)

Guide to Careers in International Affairs (Including Review of Top Job Sites)

Finding the right job in conflict resolution, international development and related fields requires a combination of the right experience and training, an understanding of the field, developing strong connections and a bit of serendipity. In addition to academic and/or professional training, it is essential to have an understanding of how conflict resolution works in practice. Many people working in conflict related jobs, will not find employment with “conflict resolution organizations” but with organizations in others sectors (international development, education, environment, business) working on conflict related jobs. Thus it is also important in the job search to broaden your scope to include international development organizations, government and intergovernmental institutions, for-profit and business institutions, educational institutions, and more.

One of the things that I encourage my students to consider is developing strong skills in conflict resolution processes and theory, but also develop an expertise in a another sector and/or regional area. For more information on careers in the field, see a report I co-authored, Skills, Networks and Knowledge: Careers in International Peace and Conflict Resolution. offers guide to careers in the field based on interviews with over 60 organizations and practitioners. The document also offers 10 pages of resources for finding jobs, internships, scholarships and more. You can download the report for Download Webreport.pdf or at the ACT website. Another great resource is a Career Guide from Sustainability on Corporate Social Responsibility. Idealist has also developed an excellent guide to Nonprofit Careers and a separate Careers Resources Section . Dr. John Paul Lederach and Kate Mansfield from the Kroc Institute have also developed a wonderful visual representation of possible careers in the field.

Here are some additional career development suggestions

1) Develop a Strong Resume – Make sure you have a strong, clear and compelling resume and cover letter. See the Download TipsforWritingEffectiveResumes.pdf . Many university career centers also offer guidance on resumes.

2) Conduct Informational Interviews – Most people are more than happy to talk about their job and conducting informational interviews can be an excellent way to learn more about an organization and what a career is like in a particular area. Informational interviews are a chance for you to ask general questions of someone already in the field. However, it is very important in informational interviews not to ask for a job or put pressure on the person you’re speaking with to help you find a job.

3) Subscribe to Key Web and Job Lists – There are countless numbers of websites that provide resources on jobs and internships in the field (and in related fields). You should get on all or some of these sites as you will get daily or weekly updates of opportunities around the world (note some charge a fee, whiles others are free or provide partial postings for free).
Some of the best sites for jobs directly in conflict resolution, development, social entrepreneurship, etc. include (some of these sites have been suggested by the Skoll Foundation’s www.socialedge.org site on social entrepreneurship which is a wonderful resource):

Other Job Sites/Resources that may have relevant jobs:

3) Use your contacts/networks – One of the key strategies for finding a job/internship is to consult your personal and professional networks. Let your professors, colleagues and friends know that you’re seeking an opportunity and perhaps they will have suggestions/contacts. University career centers and alumni can also be terrific resources.

4)Join New Networks– Joining a professional network in the field can also be a useful way to make contacts and learn about opportunities. Some relevant networks include:
Society for International Development or Society for International Development DC Chapter
Association for Conflict Resolution
Women in International Security
Peace and Justice Studies Association

5) Examine Ethical Practice – When you are researching an organization it is important to make sure that the organization’s ethics and practice fit with your values. If you’re offered a job (hopefully before this happens) learn about what the organization does, how do they treat their staff, how do they work in they field and with partners, etc.

6) Considering Taking a Job to Get Experience – Although many people would like to obtain their ideal job right away, sometimes it may be worth considering taking a job that will help you develop the necessary skills, contacts and experience that in the future can help lead to more of an ideal job.

7) Explore Fellowship Opportunities – There are many excellent fellowships/scholarships that do provide funding for independent research/volunteer work/study. Thus, fellowships can be an excellent way to get experience in the field. You can find many fellowships/scholarships on this site by searching by various keywords.

8 ) Explore Organizations that Have Developed Mentoring Programs for New Employees – A number of organizations have developed special entry level positions in which new employees receive extra mentoring. Look for organizations that have Junior Program Officer Positions (some in the UN), Entry Level Fellowships (Catholic Relief Services in the US) and others.

9) Develop an Expertise in a Needed Area – There are number of current areas in which the field is in need of developing further expertise. Developing your skills in this area can make you more attractive to potential employers. Some areas include: Program Evaluation and Monitoring, Conflict Mainstreaming and Conflict Sensitivity (Integrating Conflict Across Sectors), Organizational Conflict Management. Talk with your colleagues and other professionals in the field to see what might be potential growth areas.


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