Social Capital vs. Economic Capital

I was walking with a buyer (buyer is a farmer who acts as a part time agent for the company, buying cotton on the company's behalf) for the cotton company I'm working with, a very entrepreneurial and intelligent man. We walked past one of his farmer’s cotton fields that was being harvested. It was being picked late and the quality was compromised as a result. I asked him what quality grade he would give it “Grade A. I can’t give him any less because he’s my brother in law”.



We continued walking and saw his personal cotton field also being picked. There were two women picking the cotton and on the ground lay 3 empty, brand new picking bags. Beside the picking bags was a large pile of picked cotton sitting on the dirt. This was really compromising the cotton quality. He went and shouted at the women for not using the picking sacks (they wanted to take them home to use and window shades) and I asked if he would deduct their pay “No, I can’t they are my sisters”



This is an example of trading economic capital for social capital, another way Zambians “buy insurance” and stability in their unstable and dangerous lives. By trading money for favour with friends and family, they are providing some security in their lives. If they die, go bankrupt, lose their job, then there is an external force, a social network that can help cushion the blow to them and their immediate family.

There's nothing wrong with poverty

I've been asking myself the question "Is poverty wrong, evil, unacceptable. Is it just plain bad?"
The obvious answer and the opinion I've held until now is that yes, poverty is an evil thing and I should do everything in my power to get rid of it.

My previous belief was that a "humane death" was good and that long painful deaths, where the animal is afraid and in pain for several minutes, are wrong, evil and unacceptable. What I discovered is that slow painful death, full of fear, is normal. It's not the exception to the rule it is the rule. Now just because something is common doesn't mean it is right, but this is more than common, it is the way of life. It is like saying carnivores are evil. I just can't accept that one of the fundamental workings of the world is evil. It was a foundation shifting understanding. It's not that I now think that slow painful death is good, in fact I avoid it with animals as much as possible, but I stopped thinking it was some kind of despicable evil.

The same is true of poverty. It is as natural as death itself. Can a deer live in poverty? No, it just lives. It's so natural that I don't think people even knew they were living in poverty. Standards change over time and are relative and if something is okay at one point in time, I can't understand how situations change and now it's evil, simply in and of itself. Is it possible that the way we live now will one day be considered horrible and unacceptable? I define a person living in poverty as someone who can not decide what kind of career they want to have, must spend the majority of their time addressing basic needs like getting food, shelter and water, having no option but to drink water that might kill them, no chance of knowing why you're sick or what to do about it, 1/3 of your children dying at a young age and a real chance that you could starve to death. This is true for all animals and I think has been true for humans for most of our existence.

The next question I asked is "If that's not evil, then what is?" My answer: "Rape, torture, greed, violence, allowing someone to starve to death." The difference is that all things that I consider evil are interactions between people. My argument is that evil can not exist outside of people, only within and between. There's nothing evil about someone starving to death. That doesn't mean it isn't a terrible experience for that person or extremely sad. There is something evil about allowing someone to starve to death.

Life and death are equal parts, just like joy and sorrow, pain and happiness.

What does this mean then? How does this understanding change the way I live my life? I don't know yet. It changes my motivations right now though. I no longer think of poverty being an evil that I'm seeking to extinguish.

Why would I want to stop poverty if it's not evil? Would I want to change places with someone living in poverty? No. There is something missing. I believe people should love each other. That means helping each other do the things we want to. If was living in poverty, I would want to change my situation and if someone else was able to help, then I would want them to. So then by "Doing for others what I would want them to do for me" I am helping people that are living in poverty.



What is the opposite of evil? Goodness is far to soft a word, so I will say Holiness. What is holy? Forgiveness, mercy, grace, love, peace, understanding, generosity. What should I do? Do good, be holy, love and serve others.

There is a time for everything and everything under the sun has a place. Hunger, pain, laughter, celebration, rest, work. What I'm finally understanding is that they are all equal and important parts of life. They are life! I have fallen in love with the most beautiful person in the world to me. If she died today it would be tragic, but I think that I would have lived more than if I avoided the pain by not ever meeting her. One day she will die and so will I, but it's all part of something, something bigger.

Ecclesiastes:

 There is a time for everything,
       and a season for every activity under heaven:
 a time to be born and a time to die,
       a time to plant and a time to uproot,
  a time to kill and a time to heal,
       a time to tear down and a time to build,
  a time to weep and a time to laugh,
       a time to mourn and a time to dance,
  a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
       a time to embrace and a time to refrain,
  a time to search and a time to give up,
       a time to keep and a time to throw away,
  a time to tear and a time to mend,
       a time to be silent and a time to speak,
  a time to love and a time to hate,
       a time for war and a time for peace.
 What does the worker gain from his toil? I have seen the burden God has laid on men. He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of people; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end. I know that there is nothing better for people than to be happy and do good while they live. That everyone may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all his toil—this is the gift of God. I know that everything God does will endure forever; nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it. God does it so that people will revere him.
 Whatever is has already been,
       and what will be has been before;
       and God will call the past to account.
 And I saw something else under the sun:
       In the place of judgment—wickedness was there,
       in the place of justice—wickedness was there.
 I thought in my heart,
       "God will bring to judgment
       both the righteous and the wicked,
       for there will be a time for every activity,
       a time for every deed."
 I also thought, "As for people, God tests them so that they may see that they are like the animals. Man's fate is like that of the animals; the same fate awaits them both: As one dies, so dies the other. All have the same breath ; man has no advantage over the animal. Everything is meaningless. All go to the same place; all come from dust, and to dust all return. Who knows if the spirit of people rises upward and if the spirit of the animal goes down into the earth?"
 So I saw that there is nothing better for a man than to enjoy his work, because that is his lot. For who can bring him to see what will happen after him?

Norah 3

I guess the whole point of putting all this on facebook and my blog was to start a discussion about what should be done, by everyone, in general.

1. If people think I should do something, they should. There are literally millions of kids like Norah.

2.... If people then decide to do something what should they do? The first thing most people think of is getting a sponsor child, but I'm saying that's a bad idea and can actually do more harm than good.

3. You can't just throw money at things. Give your time first and foremost. Learn about development, read a book, talk to someone. It is possible to do damage with aid projects, so you have to think about the big picture and make sure you're doing the right thing.

A final note on Norah. I can guarantee that if I gave money to her family that it wouldn't be spent on school. If you gave money to a Canadian family that had trouble buying food and told them to save it until their child was in college, do you think they would? If I just gave money to the school it would probably be stolen by the staff. The truth is that there isn't much I can do to directly help Norah. I want to help her and that's why I'm living in Africa. I think what I'm doing now is the best thing that I can do. Helping working adults earn and keep an income so THEY can take care of their kids.

Norah is special so what I'm about to say is not to take that away. Her situation is not unique. I met a grandmother that is caring for 8 orphans. My neighbour has 2 orphans living with her. Generally, my neighbour's contract is ending soon so he rode his bicycle 110km round trip yesterday for a job interview. Not on pavement, but on dirt road. Not on a mountain bike but on a 1 speed heavy and slow bike. He left at 3am with no flashlight. He wanted to borrow money from me to take a taxi but we were sleeping and he didn't want to wake us up. Life is hard but people, smart people, work hard.

Farmer Behaviour

This is a spreadsheet I made on the main categories that influence how rural Zambians make decisions. It's pretty self explanatory, but feel free to ask questions.

Dollars, Kwacha and Eggs

I was talking with some friends about how much things cost. I would ask them how much something costs in Zambia and then they’d ask how much something costs in Canada. The bottom line is that in absolute value, most things cost more in Zambia and wages are lower.



I took the example of a Canadian accountant vs. a Zambian accountant buying eggs and gasoline



A Canadian doing the exact same job as a Zambian can buy a lot more of the same stuff than the Zambian. That sucks! Pretty unfair I think. People get paid less and stuff is more expensive!

Why do farmers want money NOW! And then spend it NOW!

The question is why are farmers basically willing to pay a fee to get money faster? Why are poor people willing to settle for less money if it comes sooner? Why would they make an irrational, and even stupid decision like that? The root cause is trust. Trust in each other, trust in the economy, trust in their own future. I think what they are buying is stability, predictability. You could want to get your money, put it in a bank and withdraw it later and buy some stuff bit by bit. If all things go as planned, you will have more than you would any other way. The problem is that plan A never works. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, or, put another way, $100 now is worth $150 in six months. You could be dead in 6 months, or someone else could die and you have to give their family money, or someone steals from you, or the price of copper drops, or any number of things happen, and then your future $150 becomes $50. So it’s better to just take what you can get while you can get it, yes it’s less, but it’s more than nothing. It’s like buying insurance for instability, but you get the settlement right away. You take your maize and sell it to the guy on the side of the road for 40 pin/bag instead of 65 pin/bag at FRA because FRA takes 6 months to pay, and after 6 months, a new guy is running the place and the old guy ran off with your money, and now you have no way of getting anything, meanwhile your idiot neighbor who sold to the guy on the side of the road, also doesn’t have money for inputs or mealie meal, but he has a swank radio that’s not going anywhere anytime soon.

The starving buffet. If you stop someone from eating for 2 days, but you tell them that on the third day you will take them to the best buffet dinner. Do you think they will put a reasonable amount of food, well portioned onto their plate? Would you? No! Instead you would fill up the plate with all the sugary and fatty foods you could find, because you earned it when you starved, and you want it and you can have it! That’s why I think people splurge when they first get paid, wasting valuable money for their futures.

Farmers are the same!

Farmers in Zambia are the same as farmers in Canada in many ways. Doing exactly what you should have done last year, instead of doing what you should do this year is an excellent example. Last year the cotton crop was big, as a result, the price was low/kg (~1,300 kwacha/kg). As a result, less people grew cotton this year, so the crop was smaller so the price is higher (~2,600kwacha/kg). Next year…lots of people will grow cotton, and I’m sure the price will be less again.

In my home province, the spring was late and cold last year. As a result, the farmers who planted early lost a lot of their crop to coldness and had to re-seed. This year nearly everyone waited to plant and then had a hard time getting the crop seeded in time. It’s like playing yesterdays lotto numbers, it doesn’t work.

What we should do

I attended a presentation at the University of Toronto by William Easterly. It was interesting because I had kind of forgotten about it until recently when I came to some of the same conclusions that he presented, but I didn’t understand. It was a few months ago so forgive me if I make some mistakes.

The main point is that we in the West can’t and shouldn’t come up with “the solution” to poverty. Here’s why:

If we did it would require us to be 3 things:

Omniscient, Paternalistic and Authoritarian.

Omniscient because we would have to literally know everything to come up with “the solution”. As it stands right now a lot of people in fact understand very little about the people and atmosphere they are trying to help and work in.

Paternalistic because if we did know “the solution” we couldn’t get Africans to come up with it themselves, we’d just have to hand it down, unchanged from on high and they’d have to just do what was prescribed.

Authoritarian because even if we had “the solution” and explained it perfectly, we would have to make sure that it was actually implemented as designed. The only way for that to happen is for us to completely oversee and force everyone to do exactly what we tell them.

Obviously from these three things, we can’t do the one we want to and shouldn’t do the ones we can. As a result, it kind of renders “the search for the solution” pointless.

Towards the end of his lecture, I and a number of other people got the same question. He already knew it and answered before we asked. “What the heck are we supposed to do then?”

Here’s where I can’t reliably remember what he said, but I’ll combine what I think with what I think he said. Make sense? We should avoid one thing and do one thing:
Don’t be destructive or obstructive! Don’t make unfair trade agreements, don’t dump unwanted food and clothes destroying local production, don’t plunder and destroy the planets resources, don’t poach all the doctors and nurses.

Be constructive! Share ideas, trade, be (responsible) tourists, work with and support.

Don’t believe me? Here’s an example of how I landed on this belief:
You know the saying don’t give a man a fish, teach a man to fish. Well there are 3 things wrong with that.

1. It assumes that you actually know how to fish
2. It assumes that you know how to teach someone to fish (very different!)
3. If he relied on you to teach him to fish, who will teach him to cook a fish? Make a fishing rod? Avoid overfishing? Hunt? Harvest?

It’s the reliance that is the problem. You can’t be a student and child your whole life. It doesn’t mean you stop learning when you stop being a student either.

So in the fishing example what is our role?

1. Don’t overfish. Don’t buy the fish at a low price and sell cooked meat at a premium. Don’t flood the market with cheap fish you caught and put all the fishermen out of business.

2. Share where the best fishing spots are and any tricks you have. Trade some fish he catches in exchange for some you catch. Invite him to come and try fishing like you do and go and try fishing like he does without explaining all the ways he’s “doing it wrong”.

I have White Power/Being white is being a celebrity

Imagine this scenario. You are driving home from work along the highway and see Brad Pitt walking along the side of the road. As you pass he looks at you wanting a ride. Would you give him a lift? Of course you would! Why? Why not! He’s not going to rob you, he’s rich so why would he want your money. Will he beat you up? No, he’s not a criminal, if he was you would know about it. Plus he’ll be really fun to talk to, he comes from a world of the rich and famous. If he won’t take you to that world at least he can tell you about it. If you had something you thought he’d like you’d give it to him without asking for money. And when the ride was over, you’d try to get his phone number in hopes that you could be friends.

I am Brad Pitt. I have this magical power, this “White Power” where I can do things that nobody else can do. I can borrow money, go into shops, use offices and many other things completely freely, because I am trusted, because I’m white. I can walk along the road and cars will pull over and give me a ride for free, even taxis! Almost everyone wants to be my friend, people stop and say hi to me when they would have ignored someone else. I get treated with so much respect and am always offered the best of whatever is available. Even other white people treat me differently than they would a black. They trust me more, believe what I tell them, invite me to their parties and homes. Why? Because I’m white. I’m rich and come from a world that most people would cut off their arm to get into.

Norah cont.

It's pretty likely that if nothing else changes she'll be married off shortly after hitting puberty. The next school year starts in Jan, but I won't be able to be here and take care of her until she's finished school, so I can't by myself make sure she goes to school.

I thought about maybe enrolling her in some kind of program, like World Vision or something like that. But if world vision is the best option, what am I doing with Engineers without Borders?

It... See More’s a really tough issue because the resounding sentiment is that child sponsorship programs are bad development. From what I've heard the two big reasons Child Sponsorship isn’t good are these:

a) It's extremely paternalistic and they portray a very negative view of Africa: That it is full of starving kids with distended bellies, flies all over them, just sitting on the ground waiting for someone from the Developed World to rescue them. This is not productive to what needs to happen in the interaction between the West and Africa. My friend wrote about this on his now famous blog

b) A development worker driving around taking picture of children, handing out soccer balls, delivering and sending correspondence letters, etc. has absolutely nothing to do with the development of either Africa or that child. Yet a good portion of their time is spent doing this. Worse still, the performance indicators for the staff in this system are written around these activities: How many soccer balls did you distribute? Do you have recent photos of all of the children you’re responsible for etc.

So if I have major problems with Child Sponsorship on a large scale, why do I want to do it on a small scale myself?

Child Sponsorship and NGO's in general:

The other major factor is that these organizations are often simply not that well run. As far as I can tell, BRAC (Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee) is one of the best run NGO’s in the world, just so I’m not being totally negative :)

Here is the crux of it all. There are two problems at the core of this:... See More

1. We, in the Western world don’t care. We honestly don’t. When there is a national election, how big of a factor is policy on international development? It isn’t. Because of that, our politicians don’t care about it, and worse yet they know nothing about it. Worse still, we , average Canadians know nothing and are thus completely unable to hold anyone accountable. Fred Crowell said something that rang too true to me. “How do you spell love? T-I-M-E. You spend your time on what you love. Do you say you love your family? How much time do you spend with them? Do you say you don’t love TV? How much time do you spend watching TV?” Do we love Africans? How much time have we spent learning about how to be effective in our contribution to them?

2. Which leads me to the next point. We suck at international development. If we didn’t we would have some kind of results for the money and decades we’ve spent trying. The key motivations and feedback systems are backwards, and this extends far beyond Child Sponsorship programs. Here’s a healthy feedback system:
I buy a TV from SuperStore. I take it home and it works for a short time and then breaks. I return it to SuperStore, yell at the customer care person and get my money back. SuperStore get’s 60% of their TV’s from that company returned so they stop buying TV’s from that company. The company loses lots of business because of low quality products and improves the quality from this point on.

This is actually three healthy feedback systems. Consumer, retailer and producer and they all work.

Here’s an unhealthy feedback system:
Canadians (individuals and politicians) give money to an international charity. Canadians don’t know what good development work is, so we ask things like “How many cents out of every dollar go to the Africans? Is this sustainable or will this project still be doing the same thing in 10 years?” The charity is run by people who have never lived in a village and thus understand very little about the problems they’re trying to solve. They also don’t trust their field staff so they give them a checklist of things to accomplish to make sure they’re using the money well. “How many training sessions did you run? How many men attended? How many women? How long did it take you to give out the soccer balls you received? Did you hand out all the flyers on HIV/AIDS?” The field staff give out flyers written in english to illiterate people, run training sessions that don’t actually train anyone, give out fertilizer and seeds as incentives, give out soccer balls and check off their list that everything has been completed on time and give it back to the charity. The charity compiles all of this into a fancy flyer with pie charts about how little money they spend on anything other than training sessions and soccer balls and give it to Canadians (individuals and politicians) and get more donations. Had they spent any money on monitoring the effectiveness of their training programs instead of the attendance, they would know that they need to change and how. The problem is that there is no motivation build into the system for them to do this.

The reason they don’t monitor the effectiveness is because it doesn’t matter in this feedback loop. We aren’t asking for it, we’re asking for cents/dollar spent in Africa. It’s also a lot more complicated to measure if you actually taught someone something than to measure how many people attended.

When I got to Zambia (a few months after Christmas) I read an article in the paper about the cattle that World Vision gave out as Christmas gifts. Most of them died because the people they were given to were too poor to afford vaccinations and medications. Of course World Vision doesn’t report this to Canadians, and aren’t motivated to measure this, in fact, it’s in their best interest not to know this, because then they don’t have to tell us and lose donations in the future.

I would much rather see 10cents/dollar spent well on development than 90cents/dollar spent ineffectively.

It's frustrating because we only want to help children. There's nothing wrong with wanting to help children, they are completely innocent, but at what point (or age) do we stop caring about people like Norah and want to help the younger ones?

Like I said before, there is nothing ... See Morewrong with wanting to help children, the problem is with focusing help at children instead of adults. Children don't do anything, they aren't the economic force of the country, they don't care for other people, they are just kids, as they should be! Parents, care for children, have jobs and are the group that return the most out of an investment (or donation).

If you want to help kids, help their parents, they're the ones most motivated to care for them and in the best position to do so.

All that being said, if there was one direct thing worth giving money to it's schools. It sucks to meet someone, a child, teenager, parent in their 20's or 30's that want to go to school/university but can't because of fees! (Quality) Education makes a massive difference in everyday decisions!

Norah

There is a family that lives across the road from us. A widow grandmother who has remarried, her husband and her two granddaughters 15 and 8 years old, both orphaned. They are poor. Very poor. Depending on the time of year, they might go the whole day without eating, and more likely, they will just eat once per day. I’ll talk about the youngest girl Nora (8). She doesn’t have shoes, her clothes are tattered and dirty (one pair of course), she doesn’t bathe regularly and is dirty. She has never been to school and looks like she never will. Her step grandfather probably doesn’t want the extra burden of caring for her and sometimes he beats her. Our neighbours told us she “fainted” once, i.e. was knocked unconscious. It’s just across the road from us and it’s one of the saddest things I know.



The reality of the situation is that this is Zambia. Our neighbours help her when they can, give her extra food, etc., but the everyday situation is that she seems like a pretty happy and normal little girl. She comes by almost every day, visits, laughing and playing, speaks Chewa to us, which we still mostly don’t understand and hangs out until we’re tired out and go inside. She seems happy and normal.

Our neighbour/good friend said she wishes that she could pay for her to go to school, but that she’s also poor. It costs 15,000 kwacha per term ($3.09)?

What do you think I should do?