Maputo at Night

The Catch-22 of INGOs

I will first qualify this post.  I am a young development worker, which is to say, I'm not very old or experienced.  I have professionally worked for longer than 6 months in one country - which is to say, not very long.

Mozambique has been called a "Foreign Aid Darling" in recent publications, and this moniker does indeed represent a lot of money being thrown to Mozambique in the name of projects.  It's seen everywhere - the big pagoda-shaped resort being built in Maputo by the Chinese, the number of Mozambicans who say "Oh yes, I know a lot of Germans and Danes" and as I'm told, most notably the increase in the number of foreigners both in grocery stores and the offices of Immigration.  

This represents money.  Lots of Money.  And as far as for-profit companies go, it's understandable.  Come to a new, rapidly growing market, make a profit, employ more people, continue profiting.  It's how the system works.  In terms of International Non-Governmental Organizations (INGOs), this gets more complicated.  They have a mission to "help people."  The problem is this:  how can you help people if you don't know what they need?  There is so much infrastructure in international development attempting to help well-meaning INGOs figure out what the local population actually needs.  I'm not convinced this works though.  I've seen how much reports can be manipulated without ever actually telling a lie.  

These INGOs are rich.  They've been in Mozambique for anywhere from months to decades, and continue with noble mission statements and dedicated staff.  The problem is this: their programs are good.  Mostly worthy of the billions of dollars in funding received.   But not good enough to put themselves out of business (sustainability).  

In a recent conversation with a new colleague, a Mozambican who has spent decades working with everyone who is anyone in the foreign aid business in Mozambique, he clearly laid out the culture of dependency created by these programs.  Farmers had unions.  Then big organizations came in with projects that treated the farmers as babies.  Farmers became dependent on these organizations for money, infrastructure, and ideas, and he we are, decades later, waiting for them to become independent as they are waiting for us to come up with the next idea and pot of money.  

Does this mean that the world would be better without the programs?  I'm not sure yet, to be honest.  I think there are good and bad programs, competent and not competent people, good and bad ideas.  Looking back at my older posts, I think the main problem is this: it's not that we can't build good programs.  It's not that we shouldn't not try to help people because of this fear of dependency.  It's that there is a history and structure bigger than any one program, any one person, and I'm starting to think that we got most of that part wrong.  

HOWEVER.  Mozambique has seen record development since the civil war ended.  So just because a system is wrong or not perfect doesn't mean that it doesn't achieve.  It's complicated.

Things have gotten better for this family.

The Traveling Hannah

I'm back!  And, with the orders of Fred Kyle, about to be much better about my blog posting.

I have moved from program manager of a library (www.livroaberto.org) to program manager of a short term project.  I'm in Maputo for about a week to get everything we can set, and then I go back to the city in the tea fields.

The flight over was as fun as most 15 hour flights are, meaning that I watched a lot of movies, was blessed to sleep a solid 4 hours, and was very happy when we touched down in Johannesburg.

Johannesburg happened so that I could meet with the South African team who is implementing the same project in South Africa that we are in Mozambique.  The meetings were really helpful and it was absolutely the coolest experience of my embryonic life as a development worker to be in a meeting about development in Africa as the sole non-African. 

After 2 days wandering around the chic neighborhood where I stayed for my first business trip, Rosebank, Johannesburg, I took a quick 45 minute flight and I was in Mozambique!  My Blackberry worked immediately, meaning it really was as if I had never left.  However wonderful it is to have 21st century technology on your side, the best thing about returning to Mozambique has been realizing how wonderful the 2 months at home were.  I was nervous about going home the first time - it had been a long time since I had been home, it had been even longer since I had stayed with parents for more than the length of a vacation, and I was jumping into the depths of possible unemployment and a bank account ruined by Mozambican immigration fees.  At the same time, I went home because I wasn't happy in Mozambique anymore, and it truly didn't have anything to do with Mozambique.  I just wasn't happy.  It was time to go home.   Right about as my Blackberry powered up, I felt content.   Happy to be back, happier to have been home, and yes, already missing all of my family, friends, and American steak (the Portuguese and Mozambicans both have their versions and it just isn't the same).

As I type this, I'm sitting in the offices in Maputo.  A driver comes to get me every morning to bring me to work (this will only happen while I'm in Maputo, my project is based in the tea field and the city where I will live is not big enough to have any public transportation and therefore no need for a private driver), I enter a building and take an elevator (!) to go to an office where they have graciously given me desk space.  The project is intimidating because so much depends on how Mozambique does along with the other countries participating, but I'm slowly getting a better understanding of the task and thoroughly enjoying the human resources employees who are taking care of my visa, renewals, and work authorization.

So far so good.  I also just realized I didn't take any pictures while home, and I don't have any yet from this trip.  So, pictures from the end of the last Mozambique tour:

In my favorite city (Beira), cooking my favorite Mozambican food (Cassava leaves with coconut milk and peanut flour and in this case, shrimp)

She almost didn't let me go to the airport.  I almost let her let me not go to the airport.

Inside the classroom where they called me teacher

At the high school where they called me teacher

I live in a city?!

And so, I have missed yet another month. I have a good reason. I swear.  "Settling in..."

Maputo is different.  My first week here all I could tell people was that Maputo is so cool because it has dental floss in the grocery stores.  And MOUTHWASH.  what?

I can't lie and say that the novelty has completely worn off.  I still can't believe the food variety available (and often make exactly what I made in the tea field because I don't know what else to do), I still wander around big grocery stores slightly lost (the little ones are more manageable), and I still can't quite believe how Maputo relates to the rest of the country.

It is the capital city.  There is opportunity - many different schools, medical clinics, business opportunities.  One of the problems of rural poverty is proximity to the rich - where I was, there weren't any rich people to speak of, and so business was hard.  How do you sell to people who don't have money?  Things worked out - my village is able to support a few local stores and every once in awhile people come with new goods.  In the city - there will always be rich people buying bottled water, which means there will always be bottles for poor people to sell.  As stifled as an opportunity as this may seem, it is a lifeline.  Although I am privileged, I have seen far too much what lack of opportunity, any opportunity, can do to someone.

Maputo feels untouchable.  There was flooding in the beginning of January (an understatement, I believe it was the worst in 44 years) in my home province.  Electricity is still out, and the biggest bridge in the province connecting north to south is still broken.  But my (hot) running water has stayed on, my electricity has not gone off once, and food/transportation prices remain the same.  I don't wish I were still living there - being witness to such destruction and desperation isn't fun, nor do I wish misfortune on anyone - it makes me uncomfortable that the leaders of the country do not feel the suffering as everyone else does.  Maputo is of its own.

And to make matters worse (or just different?), this is really the first time I've ever lived in a city for longer than a few months.  To be honest - I'm having many conflicting feelings, but it is pretty great to be able to order takeout (for the first time in my life), call taxis to take me places and catch buses (because I live inside the city limits!), and live in a city that has zones where people don't stare at me ALL THE TIME.  Even after 2 years living in the same small town, there were people who stared at me while I did all of my food shopping. Or just walked around.  I did visit a friend today in a neighborhood today that was exactly like being back in Peace Corps.  You can just read people's expressions: "Is this girl lost?"

There is so much more to say, but I definitely need to organize my thoughts before I ramble past the point of no return.  Maybe next time I'll post about my job?

The group with our big boss, Custodio - saying goodbye (and of course my ultimate Maputo welcome)

Back to the Future

So in the time between my musings on the world and now, I've finished my Peace Corps stint and traveled to our amazing capital.  I say amazing because that's exactly what it is: banks on (almost) every corner, dental floss and sometimes ziploc bags in the grocery stores (yes, there are grocery stores), and business hours that are more or less followed.

In light of all of these wonderful things, I will be staying a bit longer here, working for an NGO as their project coordinator (in light of various security things I will send out specifics via email if you're interested).  I haven't completely decided the fate of this blog -  part of it depends on what I have to say (as life becomes less of a novelty and more familiar to those at home because I'm in a city) and part of it depends on you (aka demand).  To be determined, I guess.

For now: I'm renting a room in a house with a beautiful yard etc that's in a nice neighborhood and celebrating/waiting to go back to work in the new year.

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and Happy New Year!

Os Senhores Manuel e o mundo

Partly because I am tired of proctoring written tests, partly because I am tired of grading, partly because I didn’t want to cater to more students who didn’t come to class when we had the test and “NEED” a make-up exam, and partly because of my most recent lunch date, the make-up “exam” we had for my 11^th grade computer and technology class was a graded debate.  The question being debated was “How can we better the world?”

After they finished being amazed and confused about such an open-ended question -
“But teacher, better the world in what terms?” “There really is no right answer?” Their answers to this question varied – caring for the environment so agriculture has a future, better educated farmers, building more vocational schools and giving more access to students to these vocational schools, bettering the training of doctors, building more hospitals, and creating more scholarships (that could be fairly won) for students to study at all levels.

These are all very good answers – it is obvious to me that despite the challenges that each one of my students face in getting enough food, studying (and passing if not able to pay the “tax”), caring of family members, etc., that they have really thought about what they would change if they could, and what they hope will change for Mozambique in the future.

I focused the conversation after that discussion on my lunch date with Manuel.  Selfishly, I was looking for hope and answers.  But I also wanted them to think about how they can help people like Manuel now.

The students said it is important to give money if you have it to give.  They said it is important to treat them as people (Podemos conviver com eles).  They said it is important educate others who might be afraid of strange behaviors or possible illness. 

A side to this I had not thought of (I haven’t gone native quite yet, obviously) is that sometimes people like Manuel are victims of “feitiçaria” or witchcraft.  All students present quickly agreed that this is a possibility, but I was happy to hear that they didn’t think that they couldn’t help someone afflicted by such magic.  They said the same things hold true, even if someone has been cursed.  Give them money. Give them food.  Give them friendship. 

O Senhor Manuel

Our quarterly report for Peace Corps asks us to share a success story.  Maybe it's because I'm about to become a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer, or maybe it's because Manuel made an impression on me.  In any case, I couldn't justify writing about another student of mine who has gained confidence because of Peace Corps programming (though they exist in full), nor could I write about how PEPFAR's money is being put to good use (even though most of the expenditures make sense).

This is Hannah's "Success Story" for the reporting period April 2014 - September 30, 2014.

The most meaningful story I have at the moment is not a success story.   It is a reflection into a very complicated situation and the perspective gained only through the process of leaving a place.

I was in Gurue, a small city near my house.  As I was walking to my favorite take-away restaurant, I noticed a very thin man who looked ill.  I said hello, but continued into the restaurant.  After I ordered, the man also entered the restaurant.  He stood in the middle of the room, and looked very confused.  I asked him if he was hungry, and he said yes.  The restaurant owner then gave him a meat pastry, and I bought an egg sandwich.  When I turned around, the man was huddled in the corner eating the pastry the owner had given him.  I asked him why he wasn't sitting at the table - his reply: "I don't have money to sit."  I told him that he doesn't need money - only food. I invited him to sit at the empty table or at my table, where I was sitting alone.  He chose to sit with me, and I shared my lunch with him.  From there, we started to talk.  His name is Manuel, and he used to live far in the country.  He came to Gurue awhile ago, but doesn't have anywhere to sleep.  He often sleeps in the forests around Gurue, and works when he can.  Parts of this story came out slightly convoluted, and so it was impossible to determine if he was suffering from mental illness, malnutrition, hunger, other illness, or most likely, a combination of everything.  I told him parts of my story too, but I mostly just listened.  We parted ways with "Até a próxima" or "Until the next."

I do not consider this a success story because humankind and the very systems we have created to help people like Manuel have failed him.  He was reduced to standing, waiting for someone to notice him, to give him food.  Something had happened to him so that he no longer even asked for food.  So often, our reports ask to share success stories.  While our work has many successes, and that is why we stay here and enjoy what we do, there are so many failures that we see, and these failures will not be fixed by the status quo.  The hegemony of international development has done much good, but has also failed more times than we, as a community, can count.  Peace Corps Volunteers are in a unique place to bear witness to these great successes and great failures.  It is part of our job to report these failures, understanding as we have  come to that our reports of successes and failures in our community will not be put in the next USAID agency-wide memo, nor will these reports necessarily help to better the bigger system that centuries of humans have created.  It is not helpful to report one more child who has gained confidence because of a Peace Corps Volunteer.  For this child, the volunteer has changed his/her life.  But for reporting purposes, we already know that children become empowered through our program.  What we don't know, in scientific terms anyway, are the circumstances of the people that every program fails to reach and how we can better design a program for the "unreached."  We will not be doing our part as humans, nor as development (semi) professionals if we continue to focus only on our numerous successes.  It is important to remember that Manuel, a person who probably had very bad luck, and may never had even had a chance at a different life, is not the only person in the group of people for whom these programs make no difference.  These systems are big enough, our collective brains powerful enough, that we should not accept their suffering.  Although we may not be able to eliminate it, we have to try.