Tag: work

I can’t believe it’s been a month since I’ve blogged here. It’s been so busy at work the last month that my days are basically work, eat, sleep. Rinse and repeat. I’m also spending a lot of time looking into scholarships to apply, since I’m thinking of going to grad school next year or maybe the year after that.

I’m a bit ashamed that I haven’t been able to write down what I’ve learned at work (and in life) this past month. But try as I might, it was hard to kick my brain back to thinking mode once I got home after over 12 hours at work.

It really doesn’t feel like I’ve been here for 5 months only. It feels like years already; that’s how busy I’ve been. I think if my work paid over time, I would have three times my salary. But it’s worth the lessons I’ve learnt. As my parents’ say, working in a challenging job is like having someone pay you to learn.

And learning needs reflection.

Basically, this was a post to motivate myself to start writing regularly again…

In a place where the law doesn’t work, it’s always those who are powerless who are affected.

***

I remember my last night in Dar es Salaam. I was out at a pub with a few friends, enjoying my last Tanzanian beer. Somehow, in my semi-tipsy state, I got into an argument with a Tanzanian guy whose family runs big business up in the north. He was a typical libertarian – everyone for themselves. Only difference was that he didn’t even believe the state can provide security from violence and enforcement of personal property; that’s where the money under the table to the powerful come in. Who cares about the weak guys? They’re only useful to step on top of to get even higher up the social ladder.

Predictably, I was trying to convince him that if people didn’t support a society driven by the fairness of the law, in the end, it would be yourself losing out. You may think the small guys are irrelevant, but if the law doesn’t apply equally to everyone, one day, you or your loved ones will fall out of favour of the powerful and end up as one of the weak. Or else you’ll live in constant fear of violence from the weak. This point was especially relevant personally as I had just come back from a visit to South Africa. Violence perpetuated by inequality. If you had to live in constant fear, why not just support a fair and just law. Why is it so hard? Why are people driven to strive for inequality?

***

Tonight, one of my staff told me that one of the districts we work in is corrupted from the inside out. Farmers were stolen from, beaten up, and silenced. They are continually squeezed because the leaders are earning a very handsome profit. Involved in all this, implicitly or explicitly, is probably one of my most important field staff. We cannot prove he’s guilty, neither can we prove he’s innocent. Suspicions either way. It’s not the first time I’ve heard of this, the headache is still the same.

The small farmers are scared now, because they have finally understood the extent of their loans. Pressured from all sides, they may now finally stand up and become witnesses. In the end though, the repercussions in this small community ruled by the iron-fist of an evil old woman may be too much for the small farmers to risk. In the end, even if some small farmers are willing to stand up against those powerful, the law will still probably not be on their side.

***

How do you work in a place where the law doesn’t apply, criminals walk free, innocent people are frightened into silence, the poorest squeezed to stuff the pockets of the rich, and your staff probably was involved in the largest fertilizer theft case in the history of the region? You don’t. You just almost want to give up. But I think we have no choice but to go on.

Side-selling

Someone should do a study on why farmers are side-selling in our scheme (and probably other schemes).

Please. I would help fund your research to lessen my every day growing headache.

(I’ll write more about what is happening soon.)

Categories
agriculture

Rainfed agriculture

I’m not a farmer. As ashamed as I am to admit that, I really don’t have much practical experience in farming, or really, even taking care of a garden on my own. My plants inside my house have mostly struggled valiantly to survive in the past. I might not be the opposite of a green thumb, but I’m pretty close, probably.

Although I’ve spent most of my higher education learning about, and advocating for, different forms of sustainable agriculture, it was all theoretical. I’ve longed to WWOOF for at least a season, but it always ended with the (maybe valid) excuse of “I just don’t have enough time.”

Now, though, I’ve been at least doing as many field visits as possible to monitor our farmers. I’ve learned so much just asking questions about the crop cycle here and the main challenges. Most of all, it really made me re-think what it meant to be a farmer dependent on “rainfed agriculture.”

In the past, the textbooks made it sound like rainfed agriculture was ‘backwards’ or ‘inefficient,’ without really explaining the reasons. I assumed it was because of some sort of paradigm where ‘modern’ conventional agriculture was viewed as the only correct method of farming. After all, rainfed agriculture has been around for as long as humans have farmed, how inefficient can it actually be? According to my bias towards all things ‘natural,’ traditional methods must have some good uses too!

Boy, have I been wrong.

Farming here is completely dependent on the rain. The most common phrase you’ll hear is “If God gives us the rains, we will do well.” What does it really mean to be dependent on the rain? Here’re a few examples:

  • Two farmers planted their bean crops side by side; one three days before the other. There was a good rain during those three days. One farm had 100% germination while the other only had 50%. That’s half of your business, gone because of raining patterns you can’t predict.
  • A whole district had great germination for their bean plants. There was a sudden lack of rains for about a week and a half in some areas. Everyone in those areas suffered from almost-dying bean plants. Some farmers planted a few days later than others, their plants luckily survived. Those who were diligent and planted earlier, suffered losses.
  • If it rains hard now, the maize plants would do great, but the beans would be damaged from the hard rain. If it doesn’t rain hard now, the maize plants would yield less, but the beans would thrive. Which one do you wish for when you’re a farmer who has planted both?
  • If you can harvest your beans now, you want two sunny days to dry them and sell them while the price is still high. But all the other farmers with plants still growing want the rains to continue every day.
  • If it rains too hard when the beans are flowering, you lose your whole crop. If it rains too little when the beans are growing, you lose at least half your crop. You can develop irrigation systems to prevent the drying, but you can’t put tarps over 3 acres of plants to prevent heavy rain. (Unless you’re in a total controlled environment like a greenhouse.)

Farming is risky. Hence the need for seeds that are drought and flood resistant. Hence the need for irrigation systems. Hence the need for a variety of crops for insurance. Hence the need for safety margins, without assuming 100% germination and profit. Farming isn’t a normal business where everything can be controlled by hard work; not when your main input is controlled by the sky.

And really, it’s not only limited to farmers in developing countries. I just saw this article today about the potato crop in Delta (near Vancouver in Canada).

Work really isn’t about work. It’s about managing human relationships.

Now why do they pretend work is only work in school all through my education?

I’m in a bit of a crazy situation at work right now. It’s all about how to get through this with a good balance in my human relationships.

Another kind of field cred

Normally, when I think about field cred, it’s about one-upping each other on “exotic” and dangerous situations with fellow expats. It’s not an activity I particularly enjoy, although I must admit I like listening to all the stories. Generally, though, the one-upping just becomes ridiculous; I lose interest quickly when it becomes a bitching-fest.

Recently, I realised that “field cred” also works with my field officers. They’re Ugandan and have lived in the rural areas and the capital. They’ve seen the country in high times and low times. It’s not so much their own field cred that they seem to care about (although I’m sure the one-upping probably happens amongst them also), but mine.

As I have no transport right now, I use “public means” (a semi-Ugandan English word that I think is endearing), i.e. taxis (buses) and bodabodas (motorcycles). Taxis take a long time and bodabodas are a bit dangerous. When I tell my field officers this, they’re always surprised. I can’t help but detect an undertone of approval when they ask “Really? You use public means?” It’s as if I had passed some sort of test because I take similar methods of transportation.

Same goes for eating Ugandan food, for walking in the field all day long, for dancing to local music.

In a way that’s hard to articulate, I understand. My field officers have probably worked with other expats in the past; after all, aid money is everywhere. Their expat colleagues, however, probably always came and went with a private SUV, stayed at hotels, and ate “western food.” Although these actions would garner respect by showing off your status, they would hardly help you understand a bit more of how a normal person lives here. Not that how I live is representative at all. But at least I’ve tried. At least I’ve waited in a taxi for 2 hours. At least I’ve sweated in the field for hours. In a strange way, I think my field officers appreciate my attempts at living a more normal life. And in a way, they respect me for that.

It may use a bit more of my time, but I enjoy (well when I’m in a normal mood) taking the taxis. I enjoy the food (I just discovered groundnut sauce with bamboo shoots. Forgive me, but OMG). I love going to the field. If I wanted to live like I do at home, why didn’t I just stay at home?

***I’ve actually met an expat who’s never had Tanzanian/Ugandan food. Never taken public transport. And never really engage with Tanzanians/Ugandans. I’m quite perplexed as to how that is even possible.

A Farmer

One of the farm leaders I work with is a big shot.

She’s an old, old lady. Short and chubby. The first time I met her, she was wearing a fluffy, pink sweater and a wool hat covering her ears. The outer rims of her eyes are sky blue.

Everyone from my company suspects she stole over 1000 to 2000 bags of fertilizer from her group members. And she’s probably still stealing, after being taken to the police and detained. Of course, even if she’s guilty and there’s evidence, we doubt anything would actually happen to her.

Everyone’s scared of this frail-looking grandmother. Some farmers started to make complaints that she stole fertilizer from them. The very next morning, she called a meeting, and no more complaints could be found. Whenever she stands and speaks, there’s hush silence. No one dares contradict her.

She used to be the head guard at the regional prison for over 20 years. Rumour has it that she sold all the prisoners’ food for her own gain. She wasn’t convicted.

Whenever the President of Uganda comes by this region, he has to go to her house to greet her. The latest news is that the President invited her to Sweden for his party. She has all the plane tickets and hotel reservations to prove it.

Trying to get her removed from our scheme is practically impossible.

Who ever said farmers are powerless? Everyone’s a farmer in this part of the country. Including the politicians, the big business people, even the elite in the capital often own land and hire people to farm it for them. If you have an image of all farmers as poor, marginalized, oppressed, with tattered clothes and no shoes, scrub it clean from your brain this instant.

Here’s a post to remind myself why I pursued work instead of studies:

1. I had a strong need to find out if what I was learning was actually happening on the ground. There were too many questions, too many conflicting messages, and too much certainty about such an uncertain world.

2. I knew I wanted to work in development/alternative economic systems, but I had no idea what I wanted to focus on for my graduate studies. I figured if I was going to spend two years of my Masters/PhD trying to find out what I wanted to focus on, I might as well get work experience, get out into “the real world,” and get money while doing all that.

3. I was, and am, hoping to magically bump into an amazing supervisor that I would do my graduate studies under. I thought it was better to follow a good supervisor to a good university, rather than going to a good university in the hopes of meeting a good supervisor. I don’t know if this goal would turn out though…

4. I was itching to travel, to “live local,” and to just get out of my comfort zone. I had four months in east Africa before I graduated and I was addicted (not necessarily to east Africa, but to, how should I put it, living basic). I wanted to have more conversations with people who come from a completely different background. I wanted to taste food I’d never even knew about. I wanted to be immersed in a language I couldn’t understand. To stand out, to be strange, simply because I  was there.

5. To do something meaningful, small or big, that might leave an impact. Something tangible. Something useful. I had enough of writing yet another paper that no one was going to read. I wanted to find out that we can help without doing harm (this was amongst all the “dead aid” debate).

6. I had enough of being intellectual for a while (my timeline was 2 years). I wanted to experience and then reflect. Where will this take me? What have I learnt? Why am I here? Where should I go? How? Also on a more metaphysical level – why did I learn this in the classroom and now it’s different? How do you take an idea from theory to implementation? Am I doing the ethically correct actions during work? Can I do this any differently? I needed to take my intellect and let it experiment with hands-on work.

I guess I’ll have to evaluate how I’m doing with all these goals another time. As you might have guessed, yes, I’m in self doubting mode for a bit. I’ve been researching scholarships and I’m wondering if I should have gone right into graduate schools instead. My intuition still tells me I made the right choice…

My supervisors came for a brief visit the last few days. I learnt a few lessons:

1. Always be clear of the boundaries of what is our responsibility and what are the responsibilities of others. Be very clear and sign MOUs.

2. We are similar to a consultant that works for the farmers. They are our clients and always will be. We need to ‘manage’ the other stakeholders to make sure the farmers get a fair deal.

3. Never lose your temper. In different cultures, people need different levels of (perceived) respect. Shouting may be OK in one culture between work colleagues, but it is not in other cultures. Sometimes the harm done by temporary lost of temper can be hard to erase. Skilled and competent staff are hard to come by.

5. Criticisms aren’t personal. For any project/organization to work, there needs to be continual improvements. Even if the criticisms aren’t initially palatable, they aren’t personal and are only for the betterment of the project/organization.

4. Honesty is the way forward. Covering up problems never gets any organization any where. Be accepting of failures and together a solution can be found. Be open to hearing anything and everything and then make your judgments. Don’t hesitate to use resources for reflections and evaluations.

My supervisors came to the field for two days. It was so nice to be with them. I feel totally recharged and supported. Now I’m ready to take on (*cough* cooperate *cough*) those people again.

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