I've moved!

2011-12-01T03:23:00.001-05:00

Please visit markclaytonhand.wordpress.com.

Why not to Publish What You Fund

2011-11-16T23:13:00.002-05:00

How much money does the US give away each year in foreign and military aid? To whom? For what? And with what results? Well, we don't really know. Last week, the Global Campaign for Aid Transparency published the first Aid Transparency Index, scoring and ranking USAID, the Department of Defense, the World Bank, and other international aid agencies on how honest they are about where the money goes.

I wondered aloud (on Twitter) why no one has done this before. The folks at the Aid Transparency Index asked me what I think. Shooting from the hip in two parts, with an eye on incentives:

Part I : Why wouldn't governments want aid transparency?
- Some kinds of support--to opposition groups or militaries--don't lend themselves to transparency (right-o, @mickeljen)
- Transparency is the first step toward accountability, which is annoying.
- Tracking every dollar spent uses up dollars that could be spent elsewhere.
- Transparency may put a spotlight on politically sensitive programs, such as family planning efforts.
- Not trusting recipient governments to spend money well could be spun as pedantic.

Part II: Why hasn't anyone done this before?
- It sounds quite difficult, really.
- Aid workers are incentivized not to stir up trouble, limiting the push for transparency from within organizations.
- From top to bottom, success is measured by funds dispersed rather than results achieved.
- Too few bosses of politicians (voters) care about aid transparency relative to other electoral issues.
- No one thought of it before.

Thanks, @aidtransparency. If you have other ideas, please share!

She came, and traffic went

2011-09-07T11:25:00.001-05:00

"Bombblast today," I said to the Delhi taxi driver as we sat in traffic. His placard read Sain, Kanwar.

"Yes. Bombblast. High Court. Today." This morning, a bomb outside of India's High Court building killed eleven people, according to the last news report that I saw before boarding a plane in Mumbai. I didn't know if there had been more attacks--I hadn't seen any TVs on my way out of the Delhi airport, and my mobile wasn't working.

"One attack? Or many?"

"One only, sir."

I had spent the plane from Bombay reading articles and reflections on 9/11. "In four days, Kanwar, is September eleven. Ten years my country attacked."

"My country attack ten years also. Parliament attack. Terrorist name is Ajmal Kasab. Ajmal Kasab. 2001. Ajmal Kasab. Twenty five soldiers, they die."

"Your country very strong, Kanwar."

We sat quietly and still in the gridlock, as Kanwar occasionally rolled down the window to spit or defog the air-conditioned glass.

"Traffic bad for bombblast?" I asked. My Delhi colleague had warned me that it would take some time to get to the hotel, given the road closures following the attack.

"No, bombblast, no. VIP woman coming, traffic stop. Minister Parliament woman, very important. She come that side, and traffic go."

She came, and traffic went.

Location:Abdul Rahman Marg,New Delhi,India

Why I am Not in Business School

2011-09-05T05:55:00.001-05:00

I first applied to business school at the end of 2009. One school, Oxford's Said Business School, said yes. Not anticipating the sort of career path that might justify $90 Gs of debt, I applied for the Skoll Scholarship. No dice. The Rotary Foundation did offer me a scholarship, however, covering about a third of the total cost of the MBA--but I would have to defer admission until 2011-2012 to apply it.

So, thinking back to that $90K of debt business, I waited. And while I did, I conned First Light to keep me on full time by never quite finishing that one impact assessment project I started as an intern. Occasionally, Big Boss Bob would send me Economist articles comparing MBA programs to Ponzi schemes or linking the spectacular ethical failings of big-name MBA grads to the programs they passed through. But I was Oxford-bound, Lord-willin'-and-the-Creek-don't-rise and all that.

On June 1st, my immediate boss John gave me details of a potential partnership between First Light and Shell Foundation. "If it goes through on June 16," he said, we're kind of in a bind--nobody else will go. You're the last one left. If you'll do it, First Light will buy you an iPad."

"John--man, I can't do that. The deposit at Oxford was outrageous, and I slept through that econ class about sunk costs so that still affects my decision-making. Plus, the Rotary scholarship is important to me and to my family. Out of curiosity, though, would it be the new one? With the front-facing video camera?"

"Yep. Think about it."

I called Rotary, which happily deferred my scholarship by a year. I called Oxford, which did not. So: to go to business school or not to go to business school? I went back to my initial reasons for applying to reassess.

1. To move out of non-profit work and into a for-profit company that addresses poverty in emerging markets (or the developing world, or whatever). Check--having worked at Gray Ghost and First Light for a year, I'm in exactly the spot I'd hoped business school would take me.
2. To be taken seriously by my sister. I'm not sure how this works yet, but I'm pretty sure business school is what lawyers call not outcome-determinative.
3. To stay ahead of and contribute to degree inflation. There may be some moral hazard here, but I'm fine with that.
4. To learn how businesses fit together so I can start one. Will business school actually help with this? Many, including Gal Josefberg, argue that it will not.
5. I told my grandmother I would. One does not renege on promises made to a Southern grandmother. That said, I only promised I'd get a graduate degree--she hasn't yet made me specify which.

Then, on to the reasons other people go to business school:

1. To switch careers. No thanks. This stuff is pretty fun.
2. To break the mysterious MBA ceiling at big companies. I'm less than interested in big companies, except as a path to starting stuff.
3. To drink for two years. I can probably figure this one out on my own.
4. Networks, prestige, and other sundry nonsense.

In the end, even business school students, professors, and alumni told me to come to India, put business school on hold, and re-apply later. What started out sounding pretty far-fetched turned into a near non-decision, and two months later I flew to London and Mumbai.

Will I go to business school? That's the plan. My assigment here is for a year, after which I'm meant to hire my replacement and go off to Oxford, where I'll reapply this October. I did meet a chap from Jersey last week, though, who came to India for three months, six-and-a-half years ago. He seemed quite happy and at home. Perhaps I could m--nah, I can't do that. I'm Oxford-bound, right?

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad 2

(Photo Credit: Ravnen, via Wikimedia Commons)

Al Idioma Mío

2011-08-29T12:06:00.001-05:00

Remaba bien, una vez.

Remaba con hombros tensados y manos callosas, trazando un plan recto, si no sin falla.

Remaba bien, una vez.

Remaba con toda la concentración que sabe dar un hombre. Y de pronto--casi sin darse cuenta--sentía más cómodo remando en aquél río que andando de pié en su propia tierra.

Remaba bien, una vez.

Pero ahora, anda por otra tierra con sus propios corrientes. Los hombros se han atrofiados, las manos ensuavizadas. Puede que jamás vuelva a remar con tanta certeza, en aquél río o cualquier otro. Pero vuelve a intentar.

Porque una vez, remaba bien.

On my first three weeks in Bombay

2011-08-27T01:39:00.004-05:00

Diego had never seen the sea. His father, Santiago Kovadloff, took him to discover it. They traveled south.

She was there, the sea, just beyond the highest of sandbanks. Waiting.

When the boy and his father finally reached the top of that little mountain of sand, the sea burst into sight. So immense was the sea, and such was her brilliance, that the boy was left speechless by her beauty.

And when he finally managed to speak--trembling, stuttering--he pleaded to his father: "Help me see!"

-Eduardo Galeano's "La funcion del arte/1," translated from Spanish

Photograph by Leobudv

Moving to Mumbai

2011-08-03T10:19:00.001-05:00

Last week my dentist asked me why in the world I am moving to India. Given his professional efficiency, I had little chance to tell him verbally--but promised an update by email. That email:

For the last year, I've been working in Atlanta with Gray Ghost Ventures (GGV), a family office that began as a for-profit microfinance fund in the early 2000s. Some background on microfinance:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/microfinance

In the last couple of years, GGV has moved away from actively investing in microfinance and begun tin focus on investing in what we call 'social enterprises,' or companies driven by some sort of social or environmental goal, be it climate change or poverty alleviation. We call this 'impact investing.' Some examples from our larger active fund:

www.pharmasecure.com
www.dlightdesign.com

I work at a small but growing corner of GGV called First Light. First Light acts like an angel investor, putting $100,000 dollars or so into seed-stage social enterprises. We've done this with about twenty companies over the last two years in the US, Latin America, Africa, and India. A couple of examples:

www.kickboardforteachers.com
www.caregointl.com

This spring, my colleague +Ross Baird began talks with Shell Foundation, which is increasingly interested in the seed-stage investing that we do at First Light. They're especially focused in India, where First Light already has a half-dozen investments and Shell Foundation has a number of programs. SF has given us a year-long grant to set up an office in India, make four to five investments of $150,000-$400,000 each, and prepare for the creation of a larger fund that would continue to do this sort of work in the future.

My role in all this is to go set up that office in India, likely in Mumbai. We'll be hiring two local experts pretty quickly: another investment analyst like me and, oddly enough, a boss. After that, our task will be to find and make investments, work closely with those companies to help them grow, and lay the groundwork for that larger fund. At the end of the year I'll be replaced by another local and head off to business school.

So, Doc, that's the story. Today I'm in London, looking forward to working alongside the folks at Shell Foundation and seeing some good friends in the City. Thursday, Mumbai.

Trying out Google+

2011-08-01T12:46:00.003-05:00

As I travel in India, I'll be experimenting with using Google+ as a one-stop posting shop. Check out my profile here:

https://plus.google.com/116099124619491082448

What Aid Agencies Can do to Boost Social Enterprise

2011-04-07T14:50:00.003-05:00

(Reposted from Devex and Nextbillion)

Last month, I called the disaster preparedness division of a leading international aid agency. As an investor in early-stage social enterprises, I had hoped to find institutional customers for some of the social enterprises producing cookstoves, water purifiers, rapid affordable housing, and solar-powered lighting and charging devices.

I asked if the aid agency would be interested in purchasing solar-powered lanterns or other products (the answer was no). They asked if our portfolio companies might be interested in donating those products (no).

Despite being committed to similar goals and genuine interest in working together, there seemed to be few productive ways to continue the conversation. The aid agency’s model was to provide necessary services subsidized or for free, sourcing monetary and in-kind donations from businesses and governments in the industrialized world.

As if the difference in our approaches to poverty reduction weren’t enough, we were also seriously mismatched in the scope of the industries we represent. In 2009, official development assistance – excluding the money coming from private donors – topped $100 billion. The entire impact investing industry – the source of funds for social enterprises, narrowly defined – was worth $50 billion, according to the Monitor Institute. Only a fraction of that was actually put to work.

What is the traditional aid community to do with this upstart field that doesn’t fit existing models, brings new and unfamiliar voices to the table and, frankly, is often dismissively critical of international humanitarian assistance?

Aid agencies have the capacity to nurture this growing field into a powerful set of new partners in their efforts to rid the world of poverty. If not handled with care, however, the growing interest in social enterprise may overwhelm a fragile, nascent network still finding its voice. Here are five ways aid agencies can constructively engage social enterprise:

Teach us.

Aid agencies have a hundred years of practice with some of the most painful questions that social entrepreneurs face, from how to distribute products cheaply and effectively to how to deal with prickly local governments. By serving on the advisory boards of social enterprises, aid experts can walk entrepreneurs around some of these potholes.

Introduce us.

For decades, aid agencies have worked to develop relationships with the local NGOs and customers social entrepreneurs seek ties with today. Upstream, aid agencies have longstanding relationships with foundations and governments in the industrialized world that have begun to experiment with microfinance and social investment. For the time being, aid agencies have the power to choose which social entrepreneurs have the most promise to impact the lives of the poor, introducing them upstream to deep-pocketed funders and downstream to trustworthy local partners.

Educate consumers.

As hard as design students try to make them intuitive, some of the products with the potential to impact the poor (like fuel-efficient cookstoves) may require too much customer education to be profitable. One of First Light Ventures’ investees, Under the Mango Tree, has diffused this dilemma by training Indian farmers through its nonprofit to keep bees in order to increase their crop yields, while its for-profit arm distributes the honey that these farmers produce.

Giving away or subsidizing cookstoves runs the risk of crowding for-profit players out of the market; helping educate poor consumers in how to use them effectively, however, could open up rather than choke off new markets.

Fund pilots and R&D in areas where private capital won’t go.

In a recent interview with the Global Impact Investing Network, Overseas Private Investment Corp. CEO Elizabeth Littlefield said that OPIC invests “where the markets are most difficult, where other investors won’t yet go, but where real opportunities await.”

Nonprofit capital was essential in the early stages of microfinance; today, thanks to that early and risky investment, microfinance attracts capital orders of magnitude larger than those nonprofit players could provide. If aid agencies eschew areas that attract private capital (mobile money) while focusing on areas where private capital won’t go (rural distribution chains), aid agencies can absorb risk and kick-start new industries.

Fund and develop entrepreneurs.

Perhaps the most valuable resource at aid agencies’ fingertips are its people. In economies with few opportunities for highly educated young people who choose not to emigrate, posts at aid agencies – with high salaries, benefits, job security and international exposure – are highly prized. Imagine that local talent were actively encouraged, supported, and funded to launch their own ventures in their own countries, backed by the international juggernauts in which they developed professionally.

Moving forward

By helping us source local entrepreneurs, explore new sectors, educate customers and build networks, aid agencies can play a pivotal role in the growth of social enterprise. My hope is that these are but five ideas that can spark a wider discussion about the opportunities for collaboration between aid agencies and social enterprise. That collaboration may require some effort and some realigning of incentives; the task at hand requires nothing less.

My current blog home

2010-11-12T08:35:00.001-05:00

Though without much commentary, I'm currently blogging at vilcap.com. Come and see us.

Buford Highway, Americano Dream and Death Trap

2010-08-13T14:52:00.005-05:00

Over 30,000 people live on either side of Buford Highway, the seven-lane concrete river that slices through northeast Atlanta. The majority is foreign-born; at least half are Latino. Over 1,000 own businesses along the highway. As the area has mutated from a, white, blue-collar, automobile suburb into a poor, immigrant, pedestrian community, the highway itself has become a murderous obstacle:

To sum up the video: (but seriously, watch it--even if it means skipping the rest of this post):

Crosswalks along the highway are at points a mile apart along a hilly, low-visibility road.

Bus stops and sidewalks are mostly patches and strips of dirt.

Crossing Buford Highway on foot is, frankly, pretty suicidal.

I discovered all of this on my very own this Wednesday, as I wandered up and down Buford Highway. I was on assignment from Gray Ghost Ventures to dive into the life of the working poor in Atlanta, with only a MARTA card, three dollars, and a role to play--that of an out-of-work cashier in need of a job. What I learned along the way:

Atlanta's Latin American Association has their act together. I went through LAA's job placement seminar on Wednesday, and am probably going to start looking for jobs there in my real life.

People on Buford Highway are generally friendly and helpful. Juan gave me tips for job-hunting ("stand up straight! Approach with confidence!"). Gilberto called his construction boss and got me an afternoon job after overhearing my pitch to a restaurant owner.

Even on Buford Highway, Wendy's value menu is lunch option number one if you only have $2.

There is a private bus company and a bewildering system of taxi shuttles along the highway, in response to slack MARTA service. Seriously entrepreneurial, that one.

Being bilingual makes finding a job very, very easy. If my life falls apart, I can totally scratch it out on Buford Highway.

A valid Social Security Number is most definitely not a prerequisite to finding employment in this corner of ATL.

It is easier for me to convince people that I have a deadbeat Ecuadorian dad than to convince them that I have no high school education (Thanks, Caddo Parish School System?).

Some non-linear internet research revealed the following:

The GM plant around which these suburbs first developed in the 1940s may become the Falcons' new home.

Some seriously terrible ideas have been floated for how to monetize Buford's international flavor.

ATLANTA JUST ISSUED ITS FIRST FOOD TRUCK PERMIT. ROACH COACHES, HERE WE COME!

People can get way, way too serious about fast food: "Woman starts fight over chicken nuggets."

*Much like you, dear reader, I have my doubts about the ethics and the efficacy of trying to mimic the lives of the poor. Because that's a relatively boring argument, however, I ask that you ignore that point and continue meandering along with me.

The New Wildcatters

2010-08-07T10:45:00.002-05:00

I have oil on the brain this summer. Gallon after gallon of the stuff continues to wash up on the shores of my home state, Louisiana. I’m reading Daniel Yergin’s The Prize, a sweeping account of the history of oil from the 1850s all the way to the Gulf War. And at work, one of Gray Ghost Ventures’ own investments, d.Light Design, hopes that its solar-powered lamps can do what the first oil-powered lamps did in the 1850s: provide cheap light to poor people. In doing so, d.Light aims to put the final nail in the coffin of kerosene lighting, the innovation that gave birth to the oil industry over 160 years ago.

As I learn this summer about the early days of the oil industry and those of social entrepreneurship, I can’t help but note where they parallel. Today, social entrepreneurship shares some of the same obstacles as did oil in its early days as well as its opportunities; it also attracts a similar kind of mind. One difference, however, will send social entrepreneurship in a different direction as it grows.

Big hurdles, bigger opportunity

As John D. Rockefeller considered the expansion of Standard Oil, he faced a daunting task: the US, reeling from a Civil War and expanding at breakneck speed, was hardly a predictable place to do business. Necessary institutions which today we take for granted had yet to be invented; regulation for the emerging oil industry hadn’t been considered, much less codified. And distribution? There were hardly BP stations on every street corner.

A similar lack of institutions, missing information, and inefficient markets define the opportunities and threats to social entrepreneurs working in emerging countries. According to a new book by two Harvard professors, those voids and inefficiencies provide precisely the opportunities that make social entrepreneurs jump: “The more institutional voids there are, the more niches there are for entrepreneurs to fill.” The government can’t provide access to clean water in rural India? That’s exactly the niche that Paul Polak’s nascent company Windhorse International seeks to fill, unpredictable as the market environment may be.

Nuts? Yes, please

These market characteristics attract a particular type of businessperson; then to oil, and now to emerging markets. When New England banker James Townsend first dreamt up drilling for oil in the 1850s, he was widely scoffed: “…pumping oil out of the earth as you pump water? Nonsense! You’re crazy.” Thirty years later, as rumors of oil in Oklahoma began to surface, even the boss of Standard Oil laughed off the prospect. “Are you crazy? Why, I’ll drink every gallon produced west of the Mississippi.” The history of oil, and particularly its exploration, is dominated by men judged by their peers as nutjobs and by history as geniuses of industry. From Townsend to the Texas wildcatters, they were ambitious, energetic and—yes—a little bit nuts.

Today, social entrepreneurship attracts people of the same stripe. As Khanna and Palepu note, “There's sheer energy in emerging markets… excitement and enthusiasm… their ambition level is reminiscent of ambition in late 19th- and early 20th-century United States.” Consider the efforts (by multiple groups) to fight global malnutrition by spreading the gospel of peanut butter, for example. Sound silly? Sure, a little bit. But what if works? I’m certainly not going to offer to eat every peanut sold east of the Nile.

A small difference with big implications

I spoke last week with an older banker who worked for an US oil company in Mexico before it was nationalized. I told him about my work at GGV, and he asked “Do you not run into trouble with the natives’ feeling exploited and all that business?” His question brought to the surface the primary difference, in my mind, between the global oil industry and the work of social entrepreneurs. From its humble beginnings providing cheap light to the poor, the oil industry quickly grew into an extractive one, piping the resources of poor countries into the automobiles of rich ones, with the nation-state as its primary partner. As such, the industry was and is vulnerable to sometimes genuine, always political accusations of exploitation.

Social entrepreneurs, in contrast, most often view citizens of developing countries at once as producers, employees, and—vitally—consumers. When one of Windhorse International's microfranchisees sells a liter of filtered water to a customer in India, it is “positioning itself as a partner in progress” (to borrow a phrase from Khanna and Palepu). Rather than extracting resources in exchange for cash to local governments tasked with keeping the “natives” from getting restless, groups like Windhorse and d.Light, propose an optional exchange of value at an individual level. “Natives,” once they become customers, become equals. And that is a crazy idea worth getting behind.

(Reposted)

Dead aid, Live chat

2010-08-05T08:32:00.003-05:00

I went last month to a meeting of Women Advancing Microfinance (snarky comments about my gender fully anticipated) that centered on a discussion of the book Dead Aid: Why Aid Is Not Working and How There Is a Better Way for Africa. The author, Dambisa Moyo, main argument is that financial aid from Western to African governments is actually counterproductive, and that we should replace aid with the creation of African bond markets, microfinance, foreign direct investment, and increased trade. When the book came out in early 2009, the Zambian-born Moyo became the new face of aid skepticism.

The debate about aid effectiveness is as old as aid itself, and in the meeting last week there was plenty of back and forth about what doesn’t work. Sure, plenty of aid money is wasted. But do Moyo’s recommendations hold water? I think Icelanders would agree that there are some risks inherent in ramping up a country’s exposure to the vagaries of the global marketplace, for example; and microfinance’s status as the darling of international development is in pretty serious danger.

If there is a bright spot in international development, I think it is the potential for mobile phones to provide robust, real-time feedback from the people those development projects are to serve, feedback that has been woefully absent in international development to date. Mobile phone fever has definitely gripped the social entrepreneurship world, and mobile technology comprises a significant chunk of the investments of Gray Ghost Ventures, my current employer. But I’m still searching for a nonprofit, aid organization, or at-scale social venture that has successfully incorporated client feedback from mobile phones into its own monitoring and evaluation. Suggestions welcome!

(Reposted)

On the Arizona Immigration Bill

2010-05-10T22:13:00.003-05:00

This week, I submitted a letter to the editor of Fax-Net, a local rag for Shreveport insiders. Comments welcome.

In the May 11 issue of Fax-Net, Pat Culverhouse gave a roundup of his take on current events. I'd like to respond to his comments about the immigration bill in Arizona.

First, the author's focus on the current popularity of the Arizona bill tells us little about its worth or potential success. To cite a recent example, more than two-thirds of Americans opposed George Bush's early 2007 troop surge, a surge that may ultimately prove the beginning of a US victory in that country. The surge's initial unpopularity did not make it wrong or unnecessary, any more than the Arizona bill's current popularity makes it morally or logically defensible. It may in fact be both of those things, but we must look elsewhere for evidence.

Second, Culverhouse describes opponents of the bill as “proponents of illegal immigration.” In fact, the author would be hard-pressed to find anyone that believes illegal immigration is good for the United States; illegal immigration has no “proponents.”

Illegal immigration endangers U.S. security, U.S. citizens, and foreign migrants. What those of us on the other side of the table from Mr. Culverhouse seek is a more rational national immigration system, one that acknowledges the dangers and the opportunities that immigration brings. Yes, we must control our borders and punish those responsible for the murder of Arizona rancher Robert Krentz. And yes, the free flow of labor – like the free flow of capital – benefits our economy and our country.

Unfortunately, our current system is not “rational” in any sense. The presence of millions of illegal immigrants in our country right now is testament to just how much our economy demands their labor. At the same time, our immigration system allows almost no way for the majority of them to come here legally – unlike the era in which my ancestors (and likely Mr. Culverhouse's) came to this country.

Current law allows for 5,000 unskilled worker visas annually, about 3,000 of which are taken up by family members of American citizens. For all of the undocumented workers in the U.S. to acquire a visa under our current system would take 6,000 years. It takes more than “desire and effort” to be in this country legally; it takes some serious patience, too.

Our current immigration system is at best schizophrenic. We invite immigrants to build our houses during a boom and look the other way when firms hire undocumented workers, but then deny those workers protection under the law and provide no legal method for most of them to enter our country. We can do better, if we tone down some of the rhetoric, roll up our sleeves, and hammer out the details. The Arizona bill couldn't do that at the state level – but perhaps it can convince Republicans and Democrats in Washington that it's high time they did.

Ideas for Haiti

2010-01-30T01:39:00.014-05:00

"We need money. We need technology. We need support. But what we most need is to remain the ones who decide our own future" - Lyonel Trouillot (from article)

It's been nearly three weeks since the earthquake in Haiti. My mother has watched the news every day, looking for hope, good news, or for Louisiana's General Russell Honoré to take over like he did in New Orleans after Katrina. Tonight, she asked me: "Well, Mark, what would you do?" Well, Mom, this is it.

Who the hell do you think you are?

Nobody. I'm a student of international development. My knowledge is patchy, my background is thin. And this is not, by any means, "how to rebuild Haiti." But after hearing too many people throw up their hands at the question of what should be done--or cynically arguing that nothing can be done--I thought some positive suggestions might be in order.

If this post is to create any value, it will be in the discussions it provokes. I ask two things: First, As you blow holes in pieces of my plan or another reader's, offer up an alternate solution. If we build up as we tear down, we might actually come up with something. Second, if you know of people doing any of these things in Haiti already, please share them.

The Aid Trap

To begin, let's talk about what to do with all of the aid money flowing into (and promised to) Haiti right now. That's a tremendous, and time-sensitive asset. It's also a real and potential danger. If that aid money is used poorly, in five years Haiti will look much like it did before January 12. Here's how we can use it well:

Use those foreign currency reserves to dollarize, immediately. Haiti's economy has always been, and will always be, principally tied to US markets. Working with the dollar eliminates the specter of inflation, a variable which will otherwise haunt any Haitian recovery effort.
Set up small loan offices all over the country, like the US did in Europe after World War II, in order to get money into the hands of Haitian entrepreneurs (See here for a recent book about a Marshall Plan for Africa).
Contract foreign design and architecture firms at going market rates to rebuild Haitian roads, hospitals, and bridges. But add a contractual obligation that they create and train Haitian-run businesses to do that work, and then leave after a set period of time. Kick-off suggestions of capable firms: Arup and CH2M Hill.
Build the Haitian economy in two ways: first, provide tax incentives or subsidies to companies considering investing in Haiti. Second, create a similar subsidy or tax incentive--diminishing with time--to foreign companies who purchase key Haitian exports.

The Basics: Health and Education

That's all pretty dry economic stuff, but now that we've mopped up most of that aid money, what to do with all of those volunteers? Their intentions are noble, but we all know intentions aren't enough; oftentimes those volunteers are even a net drain on resources. What volunteers do have is a commodity often sorely lacking in poverty-stricken places: trust. Haitians do not trust their government, do not trust the US government, but do trust that those young foreign volunteers are there to "do good," whatever that means. So, let's transfer that trust back to other Haitians.

Both Brazil and Mexico have experimented successfully in the last ten years with conditional cash transfers: if a family shows their child has been in school and regularly seen by a doctor, that family gets a handful of cash to spend how they see fit. Could this work in Haiti, schools and clinics have been devastated?

With regard to schools, it's the teacher, not the locale, that matters. Set up temporary tent schools: difficult, full-day schools based on the examples set in the US by Yes Prep and KIPP charter schools. Use remaining food aid to provide children who attend school with a free breakfast and lunch. Have each classroom run jointly by a paid Haitian teacher-in-training and one of the fresh-faced foreign do-gooders. The volunteer sparks local trust; the teacher has an extra body in the classroom until he/she learns the ropes.

Medical care? Well, we know there's not enough medical care, period, and there's unlikely to be for a very long time. But many basic diagnoses don't require extensive medical training. Train and pay public health workers to be able to do basic check-ups, relieving pressure on the precious few in-country doctors. Again, partner one local-in-training with a foreign volunteer. Together, those two can sign off on the medical check ups required for families to get their conditional cash transfers.

Next steps

So. The aid money/food is all used up, children are back in schools, money is in the hands of families and small business owners, investing is flowing in and exports are on their happy way out. That leaves, at the very least, the task of a) developing and training a security force and b) reforesting the resource-depleted Haitian soil. I know little to nothing about building police forces in developing countries, so I'm hoping for suggestions there. As to reforestation, I'm most interested in Brazil's payments to local landowners to protect forests. Why couldn't that work in Haiti? In terms of agriculture, there are smart people (like Amul in India) who have already figured out how to source local foodstuffs from tiny local producers, creating jobs and keeping cash in-country.

Deciding their own future

This plan, I hope, hews a path bound on one side by the exhortations of Lyonel Trouillot for Haitian-led growth, and on the other by the acknowledgement that it may be some time before Haiti stands alone. If we can provide some ideas as to how Haitians might shape their own future, let's do it. What are your ideas?

(Note: this post edited slightly from its original version, thanks to my editors)

On housing innovation in New Orleans

2009-10-25T10:45:00.004-05:00

Though a bit too focused on Brad Pitt, The Atlantic had a spot on housing in New Orleans this week. Check it out!

"If you look at the way ants behave when they’re gathering food, it looks like the stupidest, most irrational thing you’ve ever seen—they’re zigzagging all over the place, they’re bumping into other ants. You think, ‘What a mess! This is never going to amount to anything,’” says Michael Mehaffy, the head of the Sustasis Foundation, which studies urban life and sustainability and has worked with neighborhood organizations here. “So it’s easy to look at New Orleans at the grassroots level and wonder, What’s going on here?’ But if you step back and look at the big picture, in fact it’s the most efficient pattern possible, because all those random activities actually create a very efficient sort of discovery process.”

Actually, sounds a lot like how I spent my last two years.

Louisiana in the Economist

2009-10-22T18:29:00.006-05:00

Two of my favorite things come together in this cautiously optimistc Economist article about Louisiana. Guess they must be reading my hopeful blog posts.

Hat tip to Dunc, the source of most of my interesting news links.

Today's homework

2009-10-21T09:14:00.004-05:00

If you work in international relations, development or health, you probably have written up some glossy report you are convinced no one will ever read. Today, I will dive into that murky world of readerless reports. On the list:

Asset-Based Approaches to Poverty Reduction in a Global Context (Brookings)
The Future of Globalization (CG Researcher)
The Final Report of the International Commission on Education for Sustainable Development Practice (The Earth Institute/MacArthur Foundation)
Cuba's Future (CQ Press)
Ready to Lead? Next Generation Leaders Speak Out (The Annie E. Casey Foundation)
The United States and Mexico: Towards a Strategic Partnership (The Wilson Center)

Also on the list: catching up on my brother's blog and finishing Vonnegut's The Sirens of Titan. Not a bad day, I tell you what.

Homework stinks

2009-10-20T10:28:00.006-05:00

Rather than researching graduate schools, I spent this morning browsing Holly's photos from Ecuador. Like Vandy at the bottom of the SEC, the two emails inviting me to view Holly's Picasa albums have held up the bottom of my inbox for months. A couple of my (shareable) favorites:

Trying to help Johana with her math homework. Note iPod headphones on the table; for a couple of days, she was able to focus while listening to Bach's cello suites.

One particularly colorful neighborhood in Quito
Isaac Suntaxi Suntagsíg, who referred to me affectionately as gringuito, or "Little White Boy"

"Pilsener - The beer we will never have to drink again" - Dunc

Fun stuff I learned in Manhattan

2009-10-13T16:28:00.005-05:00

In New York last week, I attended a social entrepreneurship conference called "The Feast" (for a layman's definition of social entrepreneurship, see below). There were lots of exciting speakers, fancy videos, etc. Some bits that were interesting enough to copy down:

In deciding what to be and what sort of organizations to build, we can make one slight but game-changing syntactical shift. Instead of trying to be the best ______ in the world, we should strive to be the best ______ for the world. Think for a moment about the difference between a firm being "The best investment bank in the world" and "The best investment bank for the world." (From Uffe Elbaek, the founder of some project in Denmark I don't understand).
Make the smallest investment possible to achieve your goals; make bets that give you room to maneuver; bet big when you're happy with either outcome. In addition to making better poker players, professional poker player Annie Duke suggested applying basic game theory to the rest of life's conundrums: kids, families, jobs, and the like. For example: if you're taking six children to Disney World and one of them is acting up, a threat to cancel the trip will prove wholly ineffective. The kid knows you won't follow through, you know you won't follow through, and you've left yourself little room to maneuver.
Keep your eye on the periphery. I've been long convinced that tomorrow's solutions to global problems won't come from existing businesses, governments, nonprofits or news agencies but will come from unexpected places. Some guy involved in the health care debate (whose name I didn't catch) put this much more eloquently.
The food debate in the US is as much about social justice as it is about efficiency and competitiveness. Half of today's black and Latino kids will develop diabetes over the course of their lifetime, according to the boss of Slow Food USA. A fifth of our greenhouse gas emissions come from agricultural production. And "if we really wanted to manufacture a system that would lead to a health care crisis with real staying power, we would design something that looks a lot like our school lunch program."
Success in entrepreneurship comes from deep expertise and commitment over time. Yeesh. Guess it's time to get back to school.

One more thought, this from a street musician in Grand Rapids:

"If you're a fan of what works, you become a student of the world pretty quick."

*Social entrepreneurship, for those of you unfamiliar with or skeptical of the buzzword, is the application of resources designed for entrepreneurs to social ventures: nonprofits, socially minded businesses, etc.

Car conversations

2009-10-11T13:11:00.006-05:00

I'm not much for talking on phones. As such, being in Ecuador was a pleasant break from phone conversations. When you pay per-minute, you have lots of had-a-baby-it's-a-boy exchanges.

So I save my phone conversations for the road, and generally very much enjoy catching up with folks while I drive. Some of yesterday's New Orleans-to-Shreveport conversation topics:

The parable of The Grand Inquisitor in Dostoevsky's The Brother's Karamazov, which wrestles with the theological problem of evil
U2's new concert tour, which apparently has a fancy rotating stage
How to Command a Room Like a Man
Graduate programs at the London School of Economics
The Hound of Rowan, a teen book about a boy whose mirror allows him to access alternate dimensions
David Vitter's chances of winning the 2010 "Most Miserable Human Being on the Planet" contest. See this morning's Shreveport Times article for a recent example, completely unrelated to the very serious sin of this man "fighting for families in Louisiana"
The Texas border wall, and the efforts of UT's Rapoport Center to combat it

Dallas, here I come!

Sternutation Inspiration

2009-10-09T14:21:00.005-05:00

Looking forward

2009-10-07T18:45:00.006-05:00

Jackie from Gramercy, Louisiana, isn't looking back. 'We a post-Katrina couple,' she told me proudly of the man she'll marry this weekend. 'We havin a blue-jean weddin, doin it our way, since we both done the deal before.' Her before was definitive and, in definitive south Louisiana fashion, pronounced something like bufowah. 'My ex-husband, he got some things uh mine there's a court order for me to go git, but I just about don't care anymore (ehnymowah).'

'Lookin forward, sounds like,' I said, 'No use in lookin back.' She gave a start and nodded. 'Yeah, that's right!'

It is now October of 2009, four years after the Gulf Coast was buffeted by the now-proverbial* storms of 2005. Finally - finally - the city feels to me as Jackie sounded: Looking forward. There's a mayoral election around the corner. Groups like 504ward and PlayNOLA are coming up with creative ways to build on the tide of young professionals flowing into the city. There's finally a comprehensive plan and a central office for coastal restoration, even if the funding hasn't come yet. The Saints are winning! And conversations don't all revolve around the storms and how people 'made out' anymore.

But don't for a minute think that all this fancy forward-thinking has anybody forgetting why they stuck around. After having told me all about her wedding, Jackie wheeled the conversation toward Gramercy and their Christmas Eve bonfires. She assured me it'd be every bit as fun as Mardi Gras as long I as I'm 'fine with drunk Cajuns and fireworks. Cause if not, boy, I tell you what...!'

Drunk cajuns, fireworks and a whole region lookin' forward? I could get fine with that.

--

*Note: In the original version of this post, I misspelled proverbial as porverbial. Phonetically, I think that's indicative of my generally poor verbiage. My apologies.

La Vida Idealista

2009-10-06T14:11:00.004-05:00

So it doesn't really make me famous, but I'm a guest blogger this month on La Vida Idealista, idealist.org's newish Latin America blog. Check it!

(Also, if you're bored and/or interested in community development, see this spot from All Day Buffet a few months ago).

Things I like

2009-09-20T12:29:00.003-05:00

• Honey Bunches of Oats. Are they the perfect cereal, or is my perception skewed from two years of off-brand corn flakes?

• That my niece Genevieve says "no way!" when she feels particularly strong about something.

• My niece Genevieve, even when she's sick.

• My brother's Michigander friends. "I was in Ecuador once on a missions trip," says one. "They said we could either dig ditches or organize books. I said, 'Heck yeah! I'm going to go catalogue, baby.'" He now works in the Calvin College Bookstore.

• Rhianna's "Hate How Much I Love You," the version with Spanish d.b. Davíd Bisbal. Yes, it's true. More about my lifelong love-hate relationship with very, very bad music, coming soon.

• Grand Rapids' best coffee at its coolest coffeeshop, The Sparrows. Please ignore that the link is to a myspace page; sometimes greatness and early adoption of technology don't coincide.

• Bulkagov's The Master and Margarita, which I finally found at a used bookstore in Grand Rapids. I have an inkling that this book is newly popular for some reason or another. Anybody else besides Seth, Dunc and Chris read it recently?

Learning to Roadtrip

2009-09-18T23:15:00.009-05:00

I've never roadtripped before. No, really.

I get pegged for a real tramp sometimes, but I'm convinced it's due to the same sort of relative judgments that has caused my Louisiana-born but mild-mannered brother to become the class clown in his otherwise tranquil Michigan office.

So I'm learning how to roadtrip on the fly, or at least learning how I like to do it. A handful of useful suggestions:

1. Bring an atlas
Smart phones are nice, I imagine, but sometimes Google's just wrong. Atlases, peace be upon whoever their authors may be, are not. An atlas does not run out of battery, get stolen, go on the fritz or cost $100 a month.

2. Snacks!
I'm still figuring this out, but got a couple of pointers recently. First, in Ecuadorian Spanish foods are called either de sal (savory) or de dulce (sweet). When you're hungry you generally want one or the other. Second, my high school buddy Ryan informed me that chewing on something keeps you awake. Connecting the dots, I went to Sam's and picked up a giant box of sunflower seeds (de sal), chewing gum (de dulce) and two dozen Cliff Bars or protein It didn't hurt that the first two make me think of Little League baseball. The case of green tea has proven more diuretic than useful, but I haven't had to eat fast food yet.

3. Visit people, not places
They're what matter anyway, right? Carry small gifts and big stories for the folks kind enough to open their homes.

4. Use technology when you feel like it
I've used facebook to remind myself who's where, and been happily surprised along the way. There's also CouchSurfing, eRideShare.com, Google maps and podcasts - oh man, podcasts. I say "when you feel like it" only because I get irritated by (other) techno-evangelists.

5. Get lost
Lock yourself out of your friend's apartment, run your car battery down, get stuck for 45 minutes in the black hole that is Granville, Michigan. Think: "This might make a pretty good story once it's over."

If all you have is a hammer

2009-09-18T22:46:00.001-05:00

"I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail."

- Abraham H. Maslow (1962), Toward a Psychology of Being

How to find facebook friends by geography

2009-09-13T08:36:00.007-05:00

On the eve my Great(ish) American Road Trip, I suddenly discovered that facebook had removed the ability to search for my friends according to location. I spent some time with Mark's girlfriend - what my friend John has decided to call the internet from now on - and discovered how.

From your own profile, scroll down to your 'Friends' box in the left-hand column.

In the window that pops up, click on 'Browse,' and then pick 'By City.

Voila!

Things I haven't seen in two years

2009-09-12T14:43:00.004-05:00

Some everyday stuff that - when you haven't experienced them for two years - don't seem so everyday:

Squirrels - gross.
Baby strollers
Front lawns with crabgrass instead of walls
Enormous, not-for-professional use four-door trucks
Casual conversations in English
People over 6'6" tall
Microbrews and good beer on tap. Heck, good beer generally
Restaurants serving tap water
People waiting in line for tables at restaurants
LSU football, Rangers baseball, and the Saints!

Two years later

2009-09-10T11:24:00.003-05:00

A final letter to my donors, which should be arriving by mail this week (if you don't get one, please let me know!):

After two years in Ecuador with Manna Project International, I’ve hung up my cleats. I have landed safely in Shreveport, had my first (and tenth) Southern Maid Donut, my first encounter with an old Magnet High schoolmate in Barnes and Noble, and begun slowly to relearn the rules of the American road. I leave my work in Ecuador in the capable hands of Bibi, a former Peace Corps Volunteer and Tulane public health graduate who replaced me as Ecuador Country Director last month.

At the close of this two-year journey, I want to thank you and your family for your gracious support of a project you may have understood only in vague terms when it began. Admittedly, when I first asked for your help in the summer of 2007, I had only a rough outline of how I would spend the next two years of my life. Your confidence inspired and challenged me to make these two years count and pushed me along in more difficult moments.

I would like to take the opportunity to describe how your donations and my time in Ecuador were spent. Upon first landing, MPI-E’s founding team inherited a skeletal mission: to create a community of young volunteers who would live in service to a "community in need" in the developing world. We were invited to work in a valley southeast of Ecuador’s capital, Quito. We began slowly, with an after-school program and English courses.

Very quickly, we had to discard many of the assumptions we brought with us to Ecuador. This was a lower-class community, to be sure, but children were not starving. The neighborhoods of San Francisco, Rumiloma and Tena were full of people already working to better their own communities. What constructive role could a handful of young, eager, Spanish-learning Americans play here?

Our answer was simple: we could build up, connect and support those Ecuadorian institutions, networks and people already in action. We set to work connecting a locally owned cooperative to microfinance training; we began talks with a school/foster home to open a health clinic; we helped a teacher and entrepreneur develop his English curriculum. The shift from talking about communities in terms of ‘need’ to talking about them in terms of assets and resources allowed us to see people as actors rather than clients.

Missing in our grand new scheme, however, was a sensitivity to the valley’s edifices of trust and power. After a year and half, we were still an unknown quantity: the nice gringos who taught kids’ classes in the community center, but little more. In communities where traditional ideas of trust (confianza) and authority run deep, the library and teen-center which we launched in March of 2009 granted us the presence necessary to approach larger institutions, provided a platform for building personal relationships, and created spaces in which to experiment with educational programming.

The library and teen center have met enormous success, even as Bibi’s new crop of volunteers determines their role in the valley’s development. For my part, I leave Ecuador having learned how to be a plumber, mediator, volunteer coordinator, librarian, US embassy warden, disciplinarian, and entrepreneur. My own path remains an open question. I’ll be traveling in the US for two months to visit old friends and am looking toward graduate school in 2011. The last two years have prepared me for just about anything, an opportunity for which I thank you all dearly!

Un abrazo (A warm embrace),

Mark Hand

To stay in touch with MPI-Ecuador, head to openhandsdirtyfeet.blogspot.com.

For all things, there is a season

2009-02-22T08:54:00.004-05:00

It has been two years since I first came to Ecuador, eighteen months since I moved here, four months since my last meaningful blog post. I don't know what to call the first two numbers, but I the word for the last one may be hibernation. If you are interested in reading about my life in Ecuador - inextricably wrapped up as it is in the lives of seven other people - the best place to do so is our daily blog, Open Hands and Dirty Feet. My most recent post there:

Neither Here Nor There

Men in Botswana holds hands to display their purely platonic friendship. In Scotland, as in the rest of the UK, cars drive on the left side of the road. In Nicaragua adios ("to God," literally) means hello and goodbye. In Louisiana, the southern gentry stand by their chairs whenever a lady arrives at or departs from a table. Travelers both seasoned and novice note these sorts of cultural quirks. Sometimes they are just that – quirks. Often, they point to deeper cultural currents.

In my travels, these quirks have always been amusing, and at times thought-provoking to me. While in Nashville last week, for example, my sister would physically push me away for walking too close to her on the sidewalk; an amusing notion, and one which in more thoughtful moments could lead to a discussion of the quintessentially North American need for personal space.

This trip back to the US, which I spent at a conference in DC and in MPI's first organization-wide conference in Nashville, was the first time I have paid more heed to those quirks in myself than in my surroundings. When in an uncomfortable formal situation, I used to find myself reverting unconsciously to my training as a southern gentleman; now, however, I find myself acting more like a polite Ecuadorian country boy. When I walk into a room it feels more natural to greet evry last person – the men with a not-too-firm handshake, the women with a single fake kiss on the cheek – than to slip in quietly, shake hands with those in close proximity, and nod in recognition to those who make eye contact from across the room. When I make physical contact with someone on the metro (a grave offense in the US, apparently) my immediate reaction is to say perdoname rather than excuse me. And man, driving in the US is boring.

I am back in Quito now, interviewing an excitingly strong group of applicants for next year's E-team. And instead of coming back with open questions about the differences between Ecuador and the US, I come wondering about how I fit into both – or neither. So Mom, if I stand up at the table whenever you do, but then attempt awkwardly to kiss you on the cheek, you'll know why.

Happy International Volunteer Day!

2008-12-05T19:02:00.001-05:00

December 5th is International Volunteer Day - a day set aside by the United Nations since 1985 to celebrate volunteerism. On this day we pause to celebrate the many thousands of people who travel across the globe to serve the needs of their fellow man. International volunteers work side by side with local citizens in every corner of the world helping address every kind of need including the UN Millennium Development Goals. MPI is proud of the work we do in this field and proud to be part of the Building Bridges Coalition - a consortium of leading international volunteering organizations, colleges & universities, corporations and government agencies working collaboratively to double the number of volunteers serving abroad by 2010 while improving program quality and maximizing positive impacts in the communities where volunteers serve.

WHAT CAN YOU DO?: Have you had the privilege of participating in an international volunteer program? If so, help us raise awareness by writing a phrase or two on December 5th about why or how your experience was meaningful to you. If you have a regular Facebook, MySpace, BeGlobal or other personal blog presence, simply take 2 minutes and make your entry there. Or Twitter your friends to honor the day. Or send an e-mail to your friends about the benefits to you and those you served. Consider including a link back to our website (www.mannaproject.org) to create even further awareness. Together, we can build a better world

Happy International Volunteer Day!

Your friends at MPI

Kids these days

2008-11-10T20:46:00.003-05:00

An article in the Huffington Post reminds our parents that while... "may listen to our iPods in public a little too much and fantasize over thin laptops," that our generation still has a lot of potential:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/naomi-hirabayashi/memo-to-our-parents-we-do_b_141911.html

More Galapagos Islands photos

2008-11-03T17:57:00.005-05:00

Mostly 'cause I knew Mom would want to see them, and I wanted to experiment with Google Photo.

http://picasaweb.google.com/mark.c.hand/GalapagosIslands#

Shark-diving in volcanic craters

2008-11-02T11:35:00.006-05:00

A slightly different kind of blog post on my recent trip to the Galapagos Islands. Start with the green marker and click away for pictures and descriptions.

View Larger Map

If you can't get this map to work here, try this link.

Rosa (Or: Home)

2008-10-21T14:31:00.003-05:00

When I traveled to New Orleans a few months after Katrina, my friend Lindsey and I spent an afternoon driving around gawking at the damage. At the end of the day, I was spent; I needed home. Not Shreveport, necessarily, but some place of refuge – a bookstore, a coffee shop, a Scottish pub.

Home doesn’t have to be a physical place, I've learned. Today I went home to a person – Rosa – who for me personifies that concept in a way that I hadn’t realized.

Rosa, mother of one of UBECI's co-founders, is about about sixty-five and served as my first mother in Ecuador. When I arrived in August 2007 I knew limited Spanish, immediately landed a level three sinus infection,* and was fitfully processing the previous six months as a social worker in Shreveport as I prepared for my team coming in September. Rosa listened, carefully. She also did enough talking to make me realize that this tiny old woman who guts her own guinea pigs, uses every drop of water at least four times before giving it to the pigs and is just now learning how to read, might be one of the sharpest, wisest, most determined human being I have ever met.

And for me, she is home. Not having visited in about six months, I had developed that Catholic know of guilt in my stomach that starts to form when you haven’t visited your grandmother in too long. So when Fabián failed to show up for our meeting this morning, I swallowed hard and pointed my nose to Rosa’s.

Thankfully, Rosa did not berate me for not showing my face more often, and seemed genuinely grateful to see me and take a break from feeding the pigs. We talked about Obama (“Have you heard about his family? He used to be poor, like us!), the Rafael Correa flag outside her door and what I thought about the new president, the dwarf beans from her son in Italy that she is going to try and plant soon, and the old grandfather who se fue a otro mundo (“went to the other side,” loosely) three months ago. We laughed at the social work stories I told her over a year ago, and she asked if I could find her the telephone number for Ecuador’s Vice President. He’s handicapped, and Rose thinks if she could get him on the phone, that maybe he’d know how to help her handicapped son, too. If he knows what’s good for him – or if he takes the time to get to know Rosa - he probably will.

Finished!

2008-09-29T17:36:00.003-05:00

After three months a handful of stops and starts, I've finally finished Sean Wilentz's The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln. It is a beast - a beast - of a book, and I'm quite proud of myself for getting through it, however well-written it is.

My dad always says that when you study something in enough detail, then you end up studying everything. That happened a bit in this book - now everywhere I look I see founding fathers and divisive aristorats and democratic rabble-rousers. two examples from today's news. First, Congress's refusal to pass the $700 billion Wall Street bailout (700,000,000,000? What does that number even mean?) harkens straight back to Andrew Jackson's anti-banking instincts, and all the populist rhetoric that it rode on. Second, watching Ecuador fight over and pass its new constitution - a 444-article tome, and Ecuador's twentieth in 200 years - makes me marvel at how sturdy our own little constitution has proven, despite the hardly guaranteed development of democracy in the first half of the 19th century. It was a rough ride, no doubt about it.

One small step

2008-09-09T17:07:00.006-05:00

We had another marathon 2.5 hour meeting this morning at the Manna Ecuador house. Not abnormal, though this meeting did include a vote on whether our new avian friends would get to stay.

After the meeting, I headed to the Sangolquí notary to process more visa paperwork. My regular readers know what a happy hassle this process has been. I'm happy to report that after today, and if all goes well tomorrow and Thursday, I will be free of visa paperwork (or tramite) until our next group of Program Directors comes in July 2009. That means less time for me in offices and more time losing at basketball to Ecuadorians like I got to do this afternoon.

Beer that tastes like beer. Eureka!

2008-09-09T16:57:00.006-05:00

I have spent 13 months now drinking the local Ecuadorian swill, a beer called Pilsener. 13 months. "Ecuadorianly Refreshing" is its midleading tagline, and the hooch has long been a key ingredient to Ecuadorian pride. Insulting Pilsener is equal to insulting the entire country. But man, it's bad.

Imagine my surprise and delight, then, when Dunc informed me that the new corner store was selling Budweiser - the King of Beers - Grandpa's nectar - for 89 cents a can. And, to top it off, the purchase of a six pack comes with a free Budweiser glass.

I know Budweiser is bad, too. And I know it's Belgian. But sometimes little pieces of home, however processed or foreign-owned, can make an afternoon.

Mark at the pulpit

2008-09-08T20:33:00.002-05:00

Jocelyn roped me into going to church on Sunday morning - which, for those of you who know me, involved me swallowing down quite a few demons - and they asked me up front after the service to talk about MPIE. J-La asked me afterwards to type it out, so here it is.

"Good morning to all of you, and thank you to Fernando* and you all for inviting us her today. Thank you also for all the warmth you’ve already shown us. My name is Mark, and I belong to the organization Manna Project International – or, in the Spanish which I’m still learning bit by bit, el Proyecto Internacional de Maná. I imagine that some of you have already seen us, walking around the neighborhood, giving surveys, or maybe lost like two of my friends were last night after they left here.**

"I’m here this morning for three reasons: first, because Jocelyn made me. Although I’m supposedly the boss of this group, we men with titles know that it’s women with strength that make us do things!

"Second, I’m here to explain a little bit about our organization. We are a young organization, made by young people, nonreligious, apolitical and nongovernmental. As an organization, we believe that global communities, like those here, already have the resources, abilities, and ancient and modern knowledge that they need. As a result, let me say that we are not here to “help” you, because we don’t see you as people who need help. We are here to build upon that which you are already doing to advance your communities.

"Because of this, we talk of our work in terms of three axes: empower individuals, strengthen institutions, and build networks. With respect to the first, we’ll be offering courses like English and women’s exercise that Jocelyn talked about yesterday. With respect to the second, we’re working, for example, with Aliñambi to help them open up their clinic to the entire neighborhood. And with networks, we hope to connect local individuals and institutions with both national and international resources.

"The third reason I am here to today is to meet you. We believe, myself personally and we as an organization, that at the heart of any positive change are individuals and personal relationships. My goal is that we would see each other not as “others” but as brothers and sisters – or, given our gringo-ness, at least as cousins.

"Thank you again, thank you very much for the invitation to come here. We look forward to working with you all."

* The pastor’s name was actually Francisco. Oops.
** Jocelyn and Serena had gone to church on Saturday, then gotten lost on the way home.

------

Buenos días, Buenos días cono todos. Les agradecemos a Fernando y todos ustedes por invitarnos acá este mañana, y por todo el cariño que ya nos han dado. Soy Marco, y pertenezco a la fundación Manna Project International – o, en el castellano que aun aprendo pite pite, el Proyecto Internacional de Maná. Creo que ya algunos de ustedes nos han visto, andando por acá, dando encuestas, o tal vez un poco perdidos como se encontraron dos de mis amigas anoche después de salir de esta iglesia.

Estoy acá esta bonita mañana por tres razones: primero, porque mi amiga Jocelyn me mandó. Aunque supuestamente el jefe de este grupo, los hombres que tenemos títulos sabemos que a veces son las mujeres con fuerza que nos mandan!

Segundo, estoy acá para explicarles un poco de la fundación nuestra. Somos una fundación joven, hecha por jóvenes, no religiosa, no política, no gubernamental. Como fundación, creemos que comunidades globales, como estas acá, ya tienen los recursos, capacidades, y conocimiento antiguo y moderno que necesitan. Por eso, dejadme decir que no estamos acá para ayudarles, porque no les vemos como gente que necesita ayuda. Si estamos acá para fortalecer todo que ya están haciendo los de acá para avanzar sus comunidades.

Por eso, hablamos de los tres ejes de nuestro trabajo: empoderar a individuos, fortalecer a instituciones, y forjar a redes. Con respecto al primero, vamos a armar clases como los de ingles y ejercicios de que habló ayer Jocelyn. Con respecto a instituciones, estamos trabajando, por ejemplo, con la escuela Aliñambi a abrir su clínica de salud a todo el barrio. Y con redes, esperamos conectar individuos y instituciones locales con recursos internacionales y nacionales también.

La tercera razón para que estamos acá hoy día es para conocer a ustedes. Creemos, yo como persona y también nosotros como fundación, que al fondo de cualquier cambio positivo son individuos, y relaciones personales. Mi fin es que nos vemos al otro no como “el otro,” sino un ñaño o ñaña nuestra o (como somos gringos), por lo menos como primos.

Gracias otra vez, les damos gracias por su invitación a venir acá, y tenemos ganas de trabajar con ustedes.

Mark the Killer

2008-09-07T18:47:00.006-05:00

Holly and Serena came back from Sangolquí markets today with two chicks and two ducklings.

As the resident dad of MPIE, I was less than excited about our new pets: "Where will you keep them? What do they eat? Do you have a plan for when they're not cute anymore?" And yes, I had already looked up websites on how to butcher ducks.

That said, I wasn't so upset about our new friends that I was homicidal. But then I stood up to go grab a beer, the pink one decided that a good spot to hang out would be right underneath where my right foot was headed. Since my (sandal-clad) foot didn't cast a mortal blow, I had to finish the job with a kitchen knife. I'm not sure Serena will ever forgive me, and I'm slightly traumatized myself.

Rest in peace, little artificially pink guy.

Building your core takes more than sit-ups (wisdom from Suzi)

2008-09-07T08:51:00.005-05:00

When I was in DC a couple weeks ago, I had a conversation with Suzi, a former boss of mine at FHI. Suzi is regularly full of wisdom, and she did not disappoint during our conversation over pizza at Comet.*

First, Suzi stressed the importance of reinventing the wheel. I've turned that over some, and find it to be a pretty sharp insight. If a local homeless shelter is a dump run by entrenched politicos, then a young person might be better off starting over rather than trying to resurrect that corpse. If a computer operating system begins to grey, maybe it's time for a smarter one. If you're clanking around on spokes - or now, on a material that is contributing to global warming - maybe somebody should be reinventing that wheel.

Second, Suzi emphasized the importance of building up one's core - not physically, but spiritually. We had been discussing the possibility of my heading to graduate school before the decade's end, and Suzi said, "Mark, one thing I've found is that it is not people's education or experience that determine how they act - it's who they are, at their core, that determines that." Maybe it's time for me to do some more core building. Like any good nerd, my first step in that process will be some background reading.

Thanks for listening,

Mark

----

*Really fun, family-oriented place with bad pizza.

When a nation becomes a community

2008-08-31T11:20:00.003-05:00

Anxiously, I've been tracking from afar the movements of Hurricane Gustav. From the e-coverage, I draw an encouraging note: Americans of all stripes are demonstrating their concern for New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. State governments are at the ready, the GOP convention is turned upside down, and Gustav dominates the electronic print media. There are all number of plausible reasons for this: leftover guilt from the pathetic response to Katrina three years ago, or political calculation of voters' sympathies in the run-up to November, for example. But even if national politicians are looking out for number one, their calculation must be that their constituents actually care about what happens to their southern brothers and sisters, and so they should too.

One of my chief drivers for traveling (and working with MPI) is this: to work and live and breathe in another country is to make that place and its people part of your own community. I follow Zimbabwean politics because I became friends with Zimbabweans during my time in Botswana; Zak tracks Gustav's path as obsessively as I do because, yankee that he is, he made New Orleans his home and New Orleanians his friends.

What I want - and what I hope we at MPI contribute to - is for Americans to extend their community a little farther south than Plaquemines Parish. The way that Americans now consider folks from Louisiana "us" rather than "them," can we not also do for those who have already battled Gustav in Haiti, Cuba, Jamaica, and the Dominican Republic? Sure, they talk kinda funny down there and eat strange things, but hell - have some boudin on a New Orleans sidestreet and then tell me that we don't, too.

On Sarah Palin

2008-08-31T11:18:00.001-05:00

"The question should be whether McCain—and all the other Republicans who have been going on for months about Obama's dangerous lack of foreign policy experience—ever meant a word of it. And the answer is apparently not."

-www.Slate.com (see article)

You can flush toilet paper here! (and other notes from the field)

2008-08-22T10:25:00.006-05:00

I'm in DC for a conference this weekend. More on that later - for now, some cultural observations:

You're not only allowed but expected to flush TP here. That's just weird.
Cars are actually predisposed to stop for pedestrians.
They actually check IDs at bars in the US.
I can walk around in my friend Justin's house barefoot without having to wash my feet afterward.
Nobody here uses cash. Where did all the money go?
I'm awkwardly unpracticed at exchanging pleasantries with strangers in English, but that doesn't matter much because Americans don't really exchange pleasantries.
Lots and lots of people speak Spanish in Washington DC.
There are a lot of very pretty people in the US, and a lot of very large ones, too.
The Olympics are awesome.
The internet is fast here! I can download the entire Economist audio edition and update the software on my computer before I'm finished with my cereal. And the Google loads immediately.
Mark v. Wendy's Baconator: first round, Baconator.

Hello from Colombia

2008-08-21T08:58:00.003-05:00

Two airlines, seven metal detectors, six new airline friends and three airline enemies later, I am in the Bogota airport, on my way to Washington DC for a conference with a handful of other MPI-like organizations. My only two commentaries:

1) Colombians and Ecuadorians look nothing alike.
2) The quickness with which Avianca handled an airplane simply not showing up suggests to me some regularity with airplanes not showing up.

The New York Times loves Quito.

2008-08-20T13:51:00.004-05:00

It may be that the Ecuador articles are the only NYTimes Travel articles that I read, but it seems to me that the folks in the Empire State love Quito. The latest homage to Quito from New York:

Meals and Wheels on Avenue of the Volcanoes

The article has some good points. Ecuadorian street food is great, and the city of Baños is most certainly the tourist capital of Ecuador. BUT I have to take issue with the idea that all Ecuadorian buses have air conditioning. Also, do not pay a dollar for that ice cream - 3o cents should do it.

Barack Obama, MPI and Colombia

2008-08-19T12:07:00.005-05:00

In his "New Partnership for the Americas," Barack Obama's Latin America team proposes doubling foreign assistance to Latin America to $50 billion. I'll put aside for now the questions of where that money will from, or what good it will do if coupled with his annoying protectionist pandering, and focus on a positive note.* The report says that the money

"...will focus on bottom-up development by concentrating on micro-finance, vocational training and community development programs."

Over the last couple months, the MPI-Ecuador team has been working on solidifying our approach to community development. Our three areas of focus:

Empower individuals through programs that develop their capacities to advance economically and educationally, and to become leaders in their communities.
Strengthen institutions by working alongside them to introduce best practices, connect them to national and international resources, and expand their services.
Build networks by creating stronger links among community members, connecting people to local institutions, and promoting inter-institutional collaboration.

Not bad to be out in front on this one, and glad that Barack sees this one MPIE's way.

-----

*I can't leave out this (loyalist) criticism of an otherwise forward-looking plan. From the same Obama document:

Oppose the Colombia Free Trade Deal: While the Colombia Free Trade Agreement has some labor and environmental standards, these protections are undermined by persistent violence in Colombia. Labor protections remain useless in an environment where union leaders are routinely assassinated. Barack Obama will work with Colombia to bring the perpetrators to justice and protect labor activists.

What this position ignores is that labor union leaders have a lower rate of assassination than Colombians at large, and that the current Colombian administration has overseen a vertiginous drop in violence in Colombia. That doesn't speak to Colombia's safety, but it does undercuts the argument that labor union leaders are assassinated "routinely." And in a country as shorn as Colombia, President Uribe's Weberian monopoly on violence, finally bearing fruit, may be the only way to transition the country out of its four decades of guerilla warfare. Punishing Colombian businesses and consumers by cutting off trade hardly inspires Hope and Change.

------

For a more professional analysis of Barack Obama's somewhat disconnected Latin American foreign policy, check out this article from Foreign Policy in Focus.

Posting this may be illegal

2008-08-15T21:15:00.005-05:00

But maybe The Economist will give me a pass since I'm such a big fan. Below, the latest from the magazine on Ecuador's constitutional politics.

-------------------

The good life

Jul 31st 2008 | QUITO
From The Economist print edition

For the president and for lawyers

Correa dictates his socialist credo

IF ONLY size, novelty and good intentions were everything when it came to constitutions, Ecuador would be a paradise. The document approved on July 25th by a Constituent Assembly dominated by supporters of Rafael Correa, the leftist president, is a 444-article behemoth. If approved by a referendum on September 28th, it will become Ecuador’s 20th constitution and the third in as many decades. It is nothing if not politically correct: it bans foreign military bases, promises a “just wage” and enshrines manifold rights, including that to sumak kawsay, or “good living” in Quichua, one of two indigenous languages whose use it now makes official alongside Spanish. Whether it will improve real life in a chronically misgoverned country is another matter.

Mr Correa insists that it will. He says the new constitution puts an end to “partyocracy”, “neoliberalism”, and the rule of economic “mafias”. One of his main aims is to reduce the clashes between the executive and a powerful but fragmented legislature that has seen the past three elected presidents fail to finish their term. The new text does this by substantially increasing presidential power. The president will be able to dismiss the legislature. Mr Correa’s nominees seem sure to form a majority on a powerful new Constitutional Court.

The constitution officially declares Ecuador to have a “social and solidaristic” economy. It gives state-owned companies a dominant role in oil, mining, electricity, transport and telecommunications, reflecting the government’s mistrust of the private sector. “The market is an excellent servant but a terrible master,” says Mr Correa.

This socialist pitch is popular in Ecuador largely because the country was scarred by an economic collapse in 1999, which featured a mishandled banking crisis, hyperinflation and the adoption of the dollar as the currency.

Opponents of Mr Correa worry that the constitution imposes an earlier failed economic model on the country. Although the state already controls much of an oil-dominated economy, the private operators of a handful of water utilities and airports face an uncertain future. The new constitution bans international arbitration and gives priority to local investors over foreigners. So it is certain to drive away almost all foreign investment. The Central Bank will come under presidential control: that paves the way for a possible future abandonment of the dollar in favour of a new local currency, and for the potential massaging of economic statistics.

Mr Correa, a youngish Catholic economist, who took office 18 months ago, remains popular. High oil prices have given him money to spend on social programmes. Public investment is running at twice last year’s level. He is likely to win the referendum, and a fresh election next year. But his success depends on oil money. By writing into it his personal political creed, Mr Correa has almost certainly guaranteed that Ecuador’s latest constitution will not long outlast his tenure of the presidency. And if Ecuadoreans do see much of the good life, they are likely to have to pay for it dearly in the future.

The Ultimate Mark CD 2008

2008-08-14T15:02:00.004-05:00

For the last couple of years, I and a few of my friends have been sharing music via The Ultimate CD Project, in which we make CDs of our favorite songs and swap. I now anticipate the UCD Project every summer like I used to wait for opening day at the swimming pool.

But I've never written a blog post about why I choose the songs that I do. For nothing else but grins, here is this year's playlist, with a bit of explanation.

--------------

"Boy With A Coin" by Iron & Wine

I have two Ecuadorian friends here, Emilia and Dani, who are professional flamenco dancers. If you've never seen a flamenco show, go see one this weekend. If you can't, at least watch the youtube video, which is magic.

"Boy Named Sue" and "Man in Black" by Johnny Cash

Johnny Cash is a recent obsession of mine, and these two songs represent two sides of Cash - light, fun Johnny and Damn-the-Man Johnny.

"Seen It All Before" and "Black River" by Amos Lee

It doesn't get any better than black spirituals, and when you combine that with a little acoustic guitar, you've earned a fan out of Mark. Cf. previous UMarkCDs with Ben Harper and Martin Sexton.

"Mi Swing Es Tropical" by Nickodemus & Quantic and "Ojalá pudiera borrarte" by Maná

If you live in Ecuador, you've gotta end up with some Spanish music on your Ultimate CD. to be fair, though, I'm pretty sure that Nickodemus is from New York, and I picked them up off of an iPod ad.

"Three To Get Ready" by The Dave Brubeck Quartet

I didn't mean to inherit my father's love for jazz - it just sort of snuck up on me after college. Brubeck just sounds like home, even if he is from California.

"That's The Way" by Led Zeppelin and "Up All Night" by Counting Crows

Every year there are a couple of surprises that sneak their way onto the Ultimate CD, just because I happened to be listening to them when I made the playlist.

You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go - Madeleine Peyroux

Iduhwannatalkaboudit.

"Hard Sun" and "Rise" by Eddie Vedder; "Apertura" by Gustavo Santaolalla

Into the Wild and Motorcycle Diaries, two Kerouacian travel movies, will likely never fall out my top-ten (but they're up there with Batman, so I don't know how seriously I'd take the list).

"Trouble" by Ray LaMontagne and "It Ain't Me, Babe" by Bob Dylan

Raspy, acoustic, shouldn't-have-smoked-that-many-cigarettes music.

"Perpetual Blues Machine" by Keb' Mo'

On a blues kick these days. Can't get enough of it.

"Fever For The Bayou" by Tab Benoit

I miss home.

Second Brother on the Right

2008-08-12T18:11:00.003-05:00

I don't even think he's that good-looking:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080812/od_nm/guard_dc

I'm beginning to think the Chinese are almost as weird as America.

Ecuador v. Chevron, Part II

2008-08-10T10:55:00.006-05:00

A couple links my parents found on the lawsuit between Ecuador's Amazon tribes and Chevron. First, a 2003 press release from Chevron; second, the transcript of a Democracy Now radio show that discusses Chevron's actions in Myanmar, Ecuador and DC.

When I studied abroad at St. Andrews, I took an International Political Economy course with Ben Thirkell-White. In addition to mountains of information, one of the most useful tools I took away was the idea of contrasting narratives. Every story has at least two versions, every debate at least two sides.

Narrative number one:

For the last fifty years, big bad Chevron has been operating, with total impunity, across the globe. In Myanmar, they constructed a pipeline that has provided the financial life support to the vicious Burmese junta. In Ecuador, they carelessly dumped/leaked 18 billion tons of toxic waste into streams and lakes, contaminating the only drinking sources in an isolated area the size of Rhode Island. Now that it looks like the latter decision might pinch, Chevron has ramped up its lobbying efforts in DC, pressuring the Bush administrationto punish Ecuador if they don't squash the case.

That's a pretty compelling narrative, at least literarily speaking. It sounds like a plot for a Michael Moore film, or a companion to Blood Diamond.

Narrative numero dos:

In the tradition of American litigiousness, a handful of high-powered American lawyers have convinced a couple of Ecuadorian NGOs that they can pretty easily suck some cash out of Chevron for alleged contamination of lands in Ecuador by Texaco, which Chevron purchased in 2001. Ecuador's schizophrenic political system makes it as likely as not that a friendly administration will award damages in an otherwise frivolous case. If the coin flips well, the lawyers and NGOs (not the indigenous folks, mind you) will be swimming in cash.

The key question, of course, is: How then to tell which is more accurate? More background information welcome.

-----------

Aug 12 update:

An article from CNN yesterday suggests that Ecuadorian president Rafael Correa is resisting involving the Ecuadorian executive branch in the case (suggesting that Chevron's lobbying in DC has proven, or will prove, ineffective).

Ecuador v. Chevron

2008-08-09T16:18:00.003-05:00

So far I know next to nothing about the current lawsuit between Ecuador and Chevron-Texaco. Can anybody give me some solid background on it?

Job hunting in The Economist

2008-08-08T15:17:00.008-05:00

If you know me well, you know most of my information comes from The Economist. As I've started to think past Manna Project, I've kept my eyes peeled for job ideas. Found two in the July 5 edition. Speaking on Kofi Annan's recent efforts to diffuse the political crisis in Kenya:

Originally, Mr Annan had flown into Nairobi with just two people from the [Centre for Humanitarian Development], a Swiss-based organisation of mediators. During his six weeks or so of mediating he drew on the considerable resources of the UN, but he also made constant use of his CHD backup.
They provided him with tactical advice on the mediation process, such as when to take the negotiators on “retreat” and how to involve the media. And they also drafted agreements as the two sides spoke during the negotiations, so that at the end of a day an agreed statement could be issued immediately to the press. This gave the mediation the vital momentum that Mr Annan wanted.

The Kenyan talks provide a good example of the sort of skills that a new kind of international mediator can bring to the age-old work of conflict resolution. For as the nature of the world’s conflicts has changed in the past decade or so, so the demand for a new type of mediator has grown too.(See article)

Interest piqued. But maybe Coca-Cola has an even better bead on Africa than CHD:

'We see political instability first because we go down as far as we can into the market,' says Alexander Cummings, head of Coca-Cola’s Africa division. The ups and downs during Kenya’s post-election violence this year could be traced in sales of Coke in Nairobi’s slums and in western Kenya’s villages... Mr Cummings admits that Coca-Cola is “on life support” in Zimbabwe. (See article)

Published!

2008-08-08T15:04:00.004-05:00

(Sort of)

A blog entry of mine was published on a blog called Beyond Good Intentions, discussing MPI-Ecuador's evolving philosophy of development. Check it out!

http://beyondgoodintentions.wordpress.com/your-stories-from-the-field/

Remembering free time

2008-08-07T16:19:00.007-05:00

Having worked myself and the rest of MPI's volunteers to exhaustion last year, I am making a special effort to bring down to equilibirum the number of hours I devote to MPI. Slowly, and in fits and starts (I seem to be applying that phrase a lot lately), I am rediscovering what 'free time' feels like. I'm not sure I like it.

That said, I've discovered that the activities I gravitate toward during my free time involve building things. Below are two photos of things I am been particularly proud of building in the last couple of weeks: our first successful pit-fire and an easel for Holly.

When worlds collide

2008-07-31T16:14:00.001-05:00

My political world and my actual world, that is.

Ecuador, one year in

2008-07-30T12:49:00.003-05:00

This Sunday, I will hit my one-year anniversary in Ecuador. Our second year volunteers have arrived, our first year volunteers have already begun to trickle out. It´s all a bit surreal.

For those of you not on our update list, MPIE sends out a monthly update, which we also post on our blog. If you´d like to see pictures and hear stories, let me know and I´ll add you to the list!

More indecipherable news from Ecuador

2008-07-09T13:17:00.005-05:00

The government of Ecuador seized two television channels and 200 other businesses yesterday, in what they called an effort to recover debts owed by failed Ecuadorian banks that are somehow related to the television stations. You can read more about it here:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7497030.stm

As seems so often to be the case, this bit of Ecuadorian politicking is clear as mud.

Where not to go when traveling in Ecuador

2008-07-07T16:14:00.005-05:00

I've made two trips recently to Tena, Ecuador, a tourist-friendly town in the Amazon jungle. Some tips:

DO NOT go to:

Amarongachi Tours. They will charge you an arm and a leg, and if my sources are accurate, work pretty hard to keep a monopoly on tourism in Tena so that they can keep it that way.

DO go to:

Amarongachi Lodge, some of the local folks that get stiffed by Amarongachi Tours. They'll charge you a third as much, give you the same jungle experience, and actually benefit from your having come. Eduardo is the guy you want to talk to. Let me know if you'd like his number.

Big difference or big money

2008-06-24T09:37:00.004-05:00

‘We came to Harvard as freshmen to change the world, and we’re leaving to become investment bankers — why is this?’

- one Harvard graduate, quoted in a leading NYTimes story about some ivy schools' encouraging students to do something other than consulting as they graduate.

I don't statistics on this, but I have the growing suspicion that the Times is behind the curve on this question. From what I gather, top university graduates in the nineties headed straight to investment banks; at some point in the early aughts, the "best and the brightest" seemed to filter toward strategic consulting. Consulting was the new badge of best-and-brightest-ness.

But then came along Teach for America, with its soaring vision of changing the US education system entirely. TFA has been around since the eighties, but it wasn't until my junior year at Vanderbilt (2005) that it became a familiar name on campus. Only this year did its founder make the Time 100. But as I was graduating, I watched TFA hunt down - and win over - some of Vanderbilt's finest.

Again, I have no statistics for this, and probably a strong self-selection bias. But as I watch the trajectories of college graduates bending away from Wall Street and toward TFA, WorldTeach and others (?), it's easy to be encouraged.

Many paths, one god(s)?

2008-06-23T13:39:00.001-05:00

“Seventy percent of Americans with a religious affiliation say that many religions — not just their own — can lead to eternal life. Most also think there is more than one correct way to interpret the teachings of their own faith.”

- from a new Pew survey on American religion. You can read more about it in this Politico.com article.

Insomnia

2008-06-18T00:59:00.002-05:00

(this will make no sense to non-guitar players)

I picked up my duct-taped and superglued guitar tonight when I couldn't fall asleep. This is what came out:

|--------3-2---------------------|
|--3---------3---------3-------3-|
|----2---------2-----0-----------|
|0-----0---------2h4-----4p2p0---|
|--------------------------------|
|--------------------------------| ...and repeat.

If you're a guitar player, help me figure out where to go next! If you can't read it in facebook, change the font to Courier and you should be able to see what I'm doing. Also, try playing in drop-D.

The problem with our Democracy

2008-06-13T12:16:00.002-05:00

“People’s responsibility, first and foremost, is to get reelected."

- Congressman Artur Davis (D-AL), on the priorities of our legislators

Welcome to Absurdistan

2008-06-02T22:27:00.004-05:00

Follow me, if you will, around this Kafkaesque - and very real - circle of logic:

In order to work legally for MPI in Ecuador, I need an Ecuadorian visa.
To get a visa through MPI, MPI must be registered as an Ecuadorian nonprofit.
For MPI to be registered as an Ecuadorian nonprofit, we have to find five people living in Ecuador who have bank accounts with at least $400 in them to serve as Directors.
To make sure MPI retains control of its Ecuadorian organization, I have to be named President of those Directors.
To be named President of said Directors, I have to have an Ecuadorian bank account.
To get an Ecuadorian bank account, I have to show two forms of identification: a passport anda "censo," an immigrant ID card.
In order to get a censo, I need an Ecuadorian visa.

---

God gives the nuts, but he does not crack them. (Franz Kafka)

On climbing mountains

2008-06-01T11:59:00.003-05:00

My eyes are red and dry, I can't move my ankles around, my legs didn't work this morning and a twenty-minute back massage felt nice but didn't really solve much.

...and this is awesome.

Yesterday Mike (summer volunteer) and I climbed Iliniza Norte (5125 m, 16814 ft, also known as Tioniza) south of Quito. If the peak were in the US, it would be the fourth tallest and the tallest of any mountain outside of Alaska.

Denali (aka McKinley) here I come?

For more about Iliniza and some pictures, check out Craig's blog entry from last fall. We didn't get to take pictures because we summited in a thunderstorm and had to head back down once our heads started tingling and the rocks started buzzing. (?)

-----

"Mountains should be climbed with as little effort as possible and without desire. The reality of your own nature should determine the speed. If you become restless, speed up. If you become winded, slow down. You climb the mountain in an equilibrium between restlessness and exhaustion. Then, when you’re no longer thinking ahead, each footstep isn’t just a means to an end but a unique event in itself. This leaf has jagged edges. This rock looks loose. From this place the snow is less visible, even though closer. These are things you should notice anyway. To live only for some future goal is shallow. It’s the sides of the mountain which sustain life, not the top. Here’s where things grow."

~ Robert Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

The Union of South American Nations - why isn't this a big deal?

2008-05-25T16:51:00.003-05:00

Yesterday twelve South American nations signed a treaty creating UNASUR: the South American equivalent, ostensibly, of the European Union. You can read a little about it here.

But, curiously, the summit got little attention. Why? I'm not sure. I'm also unclear why the death of the founder and leader of FARC has not made many front pages. The end of FARC, which his death may be prelude, may mean the beginning of a new era for Colombia and therefore South America.

Changes are afoot in the Americas. When will the United States of those Americas start paying attention?

Don't do it, Bobby!

2008-05-21T18:15:00.002-05:00

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/21/us/politics/21cnd-mccain.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

As great as it would be to have a Louisiana boy in line for the Presidency (and really, how long would John McCain last in the Oval?), I've got one message for Bobby Jindal as he meets with McCain this week:

Don't do it.

Why? First and foremost, Governor Jindal, we need you. Ethics reform was a crucial first step in your administration, but just that: a first step. There's so much more to accomplish.

Second, we'll all be very, very upset. You think Louisianians were mad about Saban going to Alabama?

Third, you'll probably lose. You may be the anti-Obama, and you may make Republican insiders swoon, but the chances of a McCain victory in November are slim. Which brings us around to what some of your staffers must be whispering: hey, Bobby. If you're on the ticket in November, think how much press time you'll get - and if/when McCain loses, what a great position you'll be in for the 2012 race. Maybe. But how much better off would you be if you could point to four years of executive-level accomplishments in a state that needs them? Consider how potent the attacks on Obama's experience level have been in 2008.

So please, take the free press that comes with being courted by a Presidential candidate. And make buddies with him, please, so that Louisiana doesn't lose all its clout in DC in 2008. But don't take the bait. Louisiana needs you.

Better than casinos

2008-05-21T10:53:00.000-05:00

Shreveport gets some NYTimes buzz:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/20/movies/20shre.html?_r=3&ref=movies&oref=slogin&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

The little stuff

2008-05-15T11:22:00.005-05:00

The weather is perfect today as we approach summer. To that end, I have made myself a glass of sweet mint tea, complete with hammer-crushed iced, and am sipping on it the way my mom always does: making a cup last two hours, or three. I am still unsure how she does that - I can only bear it because the caffeine makes me restless, and leaving it in one spot means that I can work out a little bit of the caffeine by going back and forth for more. In the meantime, I remember all of the little things that I ought to be doing, such as posting on the blog.

(sweet mint tea break)

In literacy class, which Seth has taken over, the older students read a section out of El Alquimista, or The Alchemist. I hate the book, and every bit of the philosophy behind it. But the kids love it. So much so that one of our regulars, Luis, told Seth yesterday that he had bought his own copy - no small expense for an eleven year-old when books here in Ecuador run about $15.

(sweet mint tea break)

My friend Carmen gets here on Monday, carrying with her a handful of stuff that my parents have bought to help me replace what got stolen on the way to Montañita. People have been so helpful and gracious, with one friend even offering to get me a new guitar.

(sweet mint tea break)

Summited Pichincha last weekend with...

(sweet mint tea break)

... Luke, Kayle Dave and Taylor. Didn't make it last time I tried.

----------------------------------

Nothing is so beautiful as Spring--
   When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush;
   Thrush's eggs look little low heavens, and thrush
Through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring
The ear, it strikes like lightnings to hear him sing;
   The glassy peartree leaves and blooms, they brush
   The descending blue; that blue is all in a rush
With richness; the racing lambs too have fair their fling

-From "Spring," by Gerard Manley Hopkins

Said the universe

2008-05-04T17:28:00.001-05:00

My recent visit home to meet my new niece inspired me to make a few changes in my life. I would work a little less than I had been, I told myself, cutting back to no more than, say, 70 hours a week. I would travel more and I would play more music.

Ready to implement these new changes, I took advantage of a four-day Ecuadorian weekend and headed to the beach in Montañita, guitar and five other MPI volunteers in tow.

Blow number one to my newfound enthusiasm for life came at the bus stop in Manta, when I realized that someone had slipped my Timbuktu bag out from under my chair in Puerto Viejo. Passport, wallet (license, debit card, $250 for the weekend), new copy of Friedman’s Freedom and Capitalism, iPod, cell phone, three brand new pair of smart wool socks, and a good chunk of my already pared-down granola wardrobe, gone. Gone too was the nearly complete journal in which I recorded my entire year in Ecuador.

When life hands you lemons, make whiskey sours

My remaining possessions: a guitar, the clothes I was wearing, a pocketknife (with bottle opener), a four-day weekend, and a plan for an open-mic night three weeks from now.

After a solid weekend, blow number two came on the overnight ride back from to Quito, when I was jolted awake by the sound of my guitar crashing from the overhead rack onto the bus floor. Neck cracked, it no longer holds a tune for more than a couple songs. I’m not putting much stock in my superglue-duct-tape jerry-rigging.

Fine, universe. I’ll go back to work.

-----------------

A man said to the universe:
"Sir I exist!"
"However," replied the universe,
"The fact has not created in me
A sense of obligation."

On Social Capital and Community Assets

2008-04-03T20:51:00.002-05:00

Over the course of the last couple weeks, we have begun to plan and implement a series of surveys in five communities around where MPI operates. But there will be something a little different about these surveys.

Instead of traditional needs assessments, we've decided to take a different tack on surveying our communities. To do so, we've combined two parallel methods: the first, called the Social Capital Assessment Tool (SOCAT), is a World Bank-developed methodology that, instead of focusing on problems and needs, asks detailed questions about social cohesion, communication, and collective action. The second methodology, asset-based community development (ABCD), grew out of Northwestern University. It also shifts attention away from the needs of a community and instead looks for the capacities and assets that a community already contains, with an eye to connecting people and strengthening institutions.

In practice, what this means is that as a result of these surveys, we may not know the prevalence of parasites in these neighborhoods, or how many people feel unsafe after 10:00 at night, or what percentage of residents consider public transportation to be inadequate. What we might know is where someone in the community can find midwife, or who might be capable of establishing a cooperative of local corn producers, or whether there may be English-proficient neighbors who can help tutor students before they go to high school.

That's important for a number of reasons. First, it's proactive rather than reactive - building up strengths rather than plugging up holes. Second, it focuses (positively) on the assets a community has rather than (negatively) on what it lacks. Third, it provides the community itself with a tool - a local "who's who" of sorts - so that anyone can see where their community's strengths lie. Fourth, it precludes outside organizations from (often vainly) assuming the mantle of responsibility for change in the community, and devolves it to the community itself, where it should be in the first place.

We've got our work cut out for us - but hopefully, with the end result being that we'll help these communities cut out some work for themselves.

running a nonprofit

2008-04-02T21:58:00.003-05:00

I'm an uncle!

2008-03-29T18:45:00.002-05:00

Welcome to the world Genevieve Michele Hand (or, if you're calling her by her Latin American name, Genevieve Michele Hand Crain).

She's perfect:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=31266&l=785ff&id=505941618

What in the world...?

2008-03-05T12:06:00.003-05:00

Last week, Colombian forces entered Ecuador and killed the #2 man from the Colombian group FARC. Depending on who you talk to, the FARC is either a revolutionary movement, guerrilla movement, terrorist organization or camouflaged drug cartel.

The response has been the largesgt diplomatic crisis in Latin America in recent years. Both Ecuador and Venezuela have sent troops to the Colombian border, Colombia is accusing Venezuela of collusion with a terrorist organization, Venezuela's Chavez has called Colombia the "Isreal of Latin America," and Colombia's Uribe wants to take Chavez to the International Criminal Court.

Behind all of this sits the US, a staunch ally of Colombia who gives that government some 600 million USD a year as part of the "War on Drugs." The involvement of the Evil Empire to the North has not been overlooked, nor have US lawmakers ignored the import of the situation. Bush is using the tension to call for immediate ratification of our potential free trade agreement with Colombia; both Obama and Clinton have weighed in on the situation, giving a preview of their own foreign policy leanings.

So, does this mean war? Not likely. And who is in the right? Also not clear, despite the stark rhetoric from all sides; this is a dizzingly complex situation. And now what? well, any conflict like this brings both problems and opportunities for any party involved. The best analysis that I've read of the stakes is here, but here are a handful of possibilities I see:

1) Rumors from inside the Ecuadorian government (totally unsubstantiated) are that Ecuador's endgame is to use this context as a pretext for pushing the US out of its now-controversial base in Ecuador.

2) As mentioned before, President Bush is hoping to use the incident to push the US even closer to Colombia, an unflagging US ally under current President Uribe.

3) Venezuela's Hugo Chavez will be out of office within four years, thanks to a recent referendum defeat. He will surely use this as a pretext for arguing that he should remain in power in some form, even if not as President, for national security purposes.

4) US Presidential candidates will be highlighting how they would act as Commander in Chief. Read here about Hillary and Obama's positions. McCain has been rather mum, but long ago labeled Chavez a terrorist.

5) I'm just hoping this will mean people visit my blog more often, and maybe we can recruit a few more volunteers for Manna Project next year.

For more background, see articles from the Economist, NYTimes, and (my favorite) the Center for International Policy.

Somebody's going to make a million dollars

2008-02-29T10:27:00.003-05:00

Back when instant messenger was cool, there were handfuls of programs with which you could talk to what seemed to be the entire world (omg, ur 2 cool 4 skool): AIM, MSN, Yahoo, Jabber, etc. Now, however, Mac users can download a single program called Adium that sticks them all together in one nice little window.

So where's the million dollars? Come up with an "Adium" for social networking sites. At last count, I had accepted friends' invitations to exactly eight different networking sites:

Facebook - basic.
MySpace - sleazy. Got off a couple months ago.
Goodreads - for sharing book recommendations.
LinkedIn - for people who want jobs but never leave their computers.
Doostang - same thing. I guess they've got an HD-DVD v. Blu-Ray thing going on.
Hi5 - Facebook for Spanish speakers. Still can't figure out why it's "Hi-Five" and not "Hi-Cinco."
Couchsurfing - Let's search for people who have couches you can crash on for free.
Razoo - A site for international do-gooders.

So please, someone, make you million dollars and simplify my life a little bit. And throw some bones my way when you do, please.

Why Barack Obama will be our next president

2008-02-28T20:46:00.005-05:00

This is not a political blog, but I couldn't help this one - maybe partly because of the cultural ignorance displayed by the following photo, or of the fearmongering that I hope my travels and writings can help fight. So:

There is nothing short of meteoric about Barack Obama's presidential campaign. Nothing short of a chappaquiddick, I believe, will stop him from sitting in the Oval Office a few shorts months from now. The rather desperate response from his current opponent? Circulating this picture:

This is Barack Obama trying on traditional dress from Western Kenya, during a visit to his father's homeland. One might conclude that he is well-traveled, in touch with his roots, even worldly. So why would a Clinton supporter post such a photo? Let's cut to it: the Clinton supporters who would pass around this photo do so in hopes that the average American is dumb enough to look at Obama wearing a turban and make some fuzzy connection between him to the turban-wearing terrorists of whom Americans are currently so terrified.

Pathetic. No, Mrs. Clinton and friends, we are not that dumb.

My Nuevo Look

2008-02-25T21:12:00.003-05:00

I am clumsy. It's not the altitude, it's not the workload, I just break things. Like my glasses, two weeks ago. Thankfully, a handful of Ecuadorian foundations specialize in sight, and so I was able ot get some new ones on Saturday -

- that I broke Sunday afternoon.

I think it just makes me more authentic when I read Harry Potter in Spanish during our literacy programs.

Let's Dance

2008-01-26T16:44:00.000-05:00

When we returned to Ecuador in January, we had a few changes to implement to our after-school care program here. One of those changes was the addition of a two-day literacy program, and a weekly music program.

We launched out music program yesterday by learning that everyone is a musician, and that musicians all over the world speak the same language. By way of example, we pointed to Wyclef Jean and Lauryn Hill’s cover of Celia Cruz’s “Guantanamera” and the Gipsy Kings' cover of “Hotel California.”

For the next few weeks, we will hop around the world learning about different kinds of music and how they are related – from Bob Marley to the Beatles to B.B. King. But, given that I spent an unfortunate amount of my youth listening to bad religious music, I need a little help. The hypothetical:

Let's say Ban Ki-Moon and the rest of the folks at the UN decided to set up a “World Musical Heritage Collection,” along the lines of the World Heritage Sites. What songs and artists would be in it?

Send me an email with your ideas. If you own them and aren’t a Luddite, attach them as well.

Go to Colombia: Part III of III

2008-01-11T10:07:00.000-05:00

I left Salento, Colombia, in much the same manner I left Taganga: wondering why we were leaving at all. Luke was ready to party, however, and we had heard from multiple sources that Cali, Colombia was the place to do that.

If that is true, Luke and I were in the wrong spot. Along with a new Austrian friend, we went to the main strip identified in our (less than) trusty Lonely Planet. We attempted to pretend to be having fun, then went back to the hostel and crashed.

The following morning, we went with our new Australian friends (aren`t we wordly) straight to the bus stop to buy tickets back to Quito. As I found during my EuroTrip, ten days is about my quick-stop backpacking limit. But the overnight bus, the only one that wouldn`t put us in FARC country overnight, left at nine. How in the world were we going to spend the rest of the day?

We had promised to bring back to Ecuador some Colombian coffee, and Luke wanted a Colombian hat - both of which we found, the latter of which I lost on a bus back to Quito. Sorry Luke. The interesting bit about Colombian coffee, however, is that unless you are in Bogota, Colombian coffee is almost impossible to find in Colombia. Sounds nuts, right? The basic economic deal is that producers can make mountains of money by exporting coffee, and precious little selling it to Colombians. So it´s all exported. Which means that Luke and I, along with a new and entirely random Colombian friend, traveled all over Cali - and I mean all over Cali - and wound up buying untoasted coffee in a small shop that sold birdfood, fish, rice, beans, and dehydrated meats. We got ten pounds of it, called it a day, and headed back home.

Go to Colombia: Part II of III

2008-01-06T12:29:00.000-05:00

After spending a few extra days scuba-diving in paradise (see previous post), Luke and I hopped on a bus back through Santa Marta, Colombia, and on to Medellin. Medellin is, supposedly, one of Colombia´s gems. But given our Cartagena experience, Luke and I decided to head out of the city immediately and wound up, mostly by accident, in a village called Salento.

Located in the middle of Colombia´s coffee zone, Salento´s main attractions are a marvelous hostel and access to hiking, horse back riding, and some of the most beautiful scenery (and people) I have laid eyes on. As in Taganga, Luke and I doubled the amount of time we had planned on staying in Salento, and were there through Christmas.

At this point, mind you, my parents did not know I was in Colombia. I told my brother, and Luke´s family knew. But I was not willing to have my mother lose two weeks´ worth of sleep just because some guerillas used to like snatching gringos in Colombia (they only snatch rich locals now). So, aspiring CIA operative that I am, I lied to the folks about being in Ecuador, until Christmas Day.

Christmas at the hostel was wonderful - we had a genuinely cross-cultural Christmas feast and Secret Santa gift exchange, and Luke and I even cooked up some sausage jambalaya to share with the others. I was explaining all of this, vaguely, to the parents, when I began to describe my Secret Santa´s gifts:

Me: "Really cool, it almost feels like Christmas. I got this little pen with a flashlight on it, and a Colombian poncho, and-"

Mom: "Is that a hint, Mark?"

Me, to self: *$¿%! Maybe I can wiggle out of this one...

Me, to Mom: I´m in Colombia. But it´s really safe, I promise! They haven´t kidnapped any Americans since 2003, and those guys were probably in the CIA anyway.

Mom: Mark, if you got kidnapped, it´d be like The Ransom of Red Chief all over again. They´d be paying to give you back."

Merry Christmas, Mom.

Go to Colombia: Part I of III

2008-01-02T19:17:00.000-05:00

Before I talk much about my recent two-week Christmas trip to Colombia, let me answer what seems to be most people´s first question:

Yes.

Yes, Colombia is safe for Americans, as long as you don´t go rubbing elbows at cocaine factories deep in the Amazon jungle. The last gringos kidnapped in Colombia were US defense contractors - local rumor holds also CIA operatives - and that was in 2003. Yes, Colombia is gorgeous. And yes, the people are as stereotypically friendly as any Latin American country I have ever visited. Luke and I had a blast, and except for our rather brainless wandering around the ghetto in Cali, sniffed not a hint of personal danger.

Now, on to the meat of things. State Department be damned, Luke and I flew north to Cartagena on December 16th. We landed at night, spent three hours fending off pimps and cocaine dealers, and fled as fast as possible the following morning. Cartagena could have been great - it´s a coastal city with beautiful beaches and French Quarter-style bougainvillea-covered balconies overlooking narrow streets. But it´s just so much grimier even than New Orleans that Luke and I couldn´t stomach it.

So away we fled to Taganga, a tiny fishing village east of Santa Marta. I am scratching my head as to why we´re not in Taganga today, to be quite honest. Luke and I spent three days eating fresh-cooked fish, drinking fresh-squeezed orange juice, and puzzling over whether to spend our afternoons after scuba diving reading on the beach or relaxing in the hammocks of our favorite beach-view restaurants. Go to Taganga. Yesterday.

Next up: another set of urban disappointments, lying to my parents about traveling in Colombia, and the day-long search for coffee beans/bird food in Cali.

On Colombia

2007-12-30T16:38:00.000-05:00

My friend Luke and I just got back from a ten-day trip through Colombia. I plan on writing more about our experiences, but in the meantime check out some of Luke´s pictures here.

Casinos are guarded by Dementors

2007-12-10T13:07:00.000-05:00

In the world of Harry Potter, "Dementors" are the undead guards of a magical prison. Their particular gift is being able to suck the happiness out of a place and, provided proximity, suck out your soul without killing you.

When I turned twenty-one, my buddy Luke took me to one of Shreveport's glitzy casinos. I quickly lost twenty dollars. More quickly, however, I discovered casinos to be what I imagine as my own personal hell.

Therefore, looking back on last Saturday night, I continue to scratch my head as to why I followed the rest of my friends to the casino attached to Hotel Quito, where a visiting friend of Annie's was staying. I walked into the casino and was immediately dizzy - as on the Red River, a flood of noise and lights and smoke and soulless people inundated my senses. I immediately told everyone I was leaving and then dizzily bounded out the side door, inside just long enough for most of the happiness to be sucked out of my body.

My friend John tells me that because of the rapid-fire angle changes on television shows and commercials, Americans are trained to have their occipital lobe overstimulated. That information, plus the fact that I watched about thirty minutes of TV a week as a kid, might go a long way to explaining my aversion to stimulant-suffused casino halls. So, while I understand the potential economic benefits of casinos and have no illusions about their impending disappearance from the Shreveport or Quito skylines, I think I can safely say that I'm finished with them. When I need a scare, I'll just go pick up Harry Potter.

Death in the Afternoon

2007-12-05T11:16:00.000-05:00

Last Sunday, I went to my first bullfight - my first real Spanish bullfight, at least. Every year, for the fiestas of Quito, the city brings in from Madrid and Sevilla the world`s best bullfighters to satiate Quiteños´ homicidal palate. What I didn´t anticipate was developing a homicidal palate of my own. Despite whatever tree-hugging and animal-loving tendencies I may have inherited from my mother, I loved it (as soon as the nausea from the first kill had passed).

Thanks to Craig, who had been an avid bullfighting fan in Spain, we actually had a clue what was going on. The progression went something like this: first, at the sound of the judges´ trumpets, the bull comes out of the chute to be goaded by a handful of what I took to be the spandex-clad equivalent of rodeo clowns. Those are followed by two picadores, guys on armored horses with long poles that they stick into the bulls´ necks. Thus piqued, the thousand-pound beast faces two more clowns on foot with hooked, flower-covered, meter-long poles. They also aim for the bull´s neck, jumping away from the horns at the last minute.

Then, once the bull is bleeding and panting, out comes the brave torero. He waves his cape around for a while, goading the bull to exhaustion, then finally plunges his sword down through the bull´s neck and into its heart. If he hits his mark, the beast collapses and is finished off by another round of clowns. If he does extremely well, he is gifted with some hacked-off part of the bull - an ear, two ears, or a tail.

Not exactly the Bossier-Shreveport Mudbugs, right?

N.B: if you´re reading this in facebook, you`ll have to head to my blog to see photos.

I wish it would Rain

2007-11-23T20:01:00.001-05:00

I really do. Which is strange, because from the months of September to February, it rains every afternoon in Quito. Or at least five times in a week. Mornings? Beautiful, sunny, warm, stereotypically Latin American. Afternoons? Think Scotland, Seattle, Vancouver, or Nashville in February, depending on your reference point.

So why, do you ask, do I wish it would rain more? A full answer to that question would require a mind-numbingly boring description of Ecuadorian plumbing: electric shower heads, overflowing water reservoirs on our roof, stopped up pipes and leaking sinks. At the moment, however, our liquid issues have nothing to do with the infrastructure of our house, and all to do with Quito's city waterworks. Apparently (we discovered while I was in the shower yesterday afternoon) the city decided to cut off all the water to our neighborhood for an hour's worth of pipe cleaning. That was yesterday. Now it's today. Tonight, to be precise. Even by Ecuadorian math, that's longer than an hour. Yes, we've called. Yes, they've promised to send technicians. Yes, they lied.

So, I wish it would rain. Because if it does, then maybe our roof-top reservoir will fill up enough for me to finish washing my sheets. Just maybe.

This is why I'm here.

2007-11-13T15:23:00.000-05:00

About two months ago, two brothers from Ecuador's coast moved into San Fransisco with their mom. She works straight from Monday to Saturday in Quito, but can't afford to send her boys to school this year. The oldest is nine years old and can't spell his name yet.

Luckily, UBECI has a long-standing scholarship program for kids in this situation. Unluckily, it's pretty empty right now. Monica asked me if MPI could help find the money necessary to send both boys to school for the year - roughly $200.

We were a man down at our weekly MPI meeting last night, since Zak got stuck in New York after a plane crashed on the Quito runway. But we also have a friend from the States visiting this week who sat in to see what we're about. When he heard how much it would take to put our two boys in school, he didn't hesitate. "$200? That's it? Here's your $200. Done."

And just like that, the two brothers get to go to school this year.

Cultural Erosion

2007-11-06T11:55:00.000-05:00

During one sleepless night in Shreveport this summer, I was browsing my dad’s bookshelf when I ran across Bayou Farewell by Post journalist Mike Tidwell. Tidwell wrote about the devastation of Louisiana’s coastline that was taking place long before Katrina and Rita and which continues to suck a football field off of LA's coastline every twenty minutes.

One of the saddest parts of Bayou Farewell deals not with coastal erosion but cultural erosion. In his book, Tidwell points out that along with its coast, much of Louisiana’s cultural heritage is washing away: young people are moving out. Those that stay have little incentive to learn Cajun French. Once those linguistic roots that bind together a culture get washed out, all else - music, art, food - follows quickly.

But this kind of cultural erosion is not restricted to south Louisiana. All over the world, local cultures are losing ground as regions and countries become more interconnected ("globalized") than since before the First World War. In Ecuador, and specifically in the neighborhoods where MPI Ecuador works, community leaders do not speak anymore about preserving local indigenous culture. They speak of rescuing it. Soon, as we Louisianans have to do with our own culture and coast, they will only be able to speak of somehow rebuilding what has been lost.

Some uneducated observations of Ecuadorian education

2007-10-30T16:03:00.001-05:00

In elementary school, one of my favorite classroom tasks was "logic grid puzzles." In these brain-busters, we would be given the first and last names of four or five people, and then something like the names of their dogs and the various prizes they might have won in some grooming competition. Then, given a set of clues like this...

"Mr. Bombadil, whose dog did not win first place, was sitting next to Sally when she found out that Ms. Mochachino's dog had dropped out of competition after vomiting all over the Fluffy the Labradoodle."

... we had to figure out who won, whose dog belonged to whom, and so forth. Such torture boxes undoubtedly aimed to develop pretty strong critical thinking skills, and potentially some creative thinking (another highly prized attribute). In contrast, if I were to look at the homework of our Ecuadorian students and guess which skills their school system rewarded most highly, I would guess 1) uniformity, and 2) obedience. With tasks like "color this page yellow" or "write the numbers from 1000 to 10,000 in multiples of 10" or "copy ¿? one hundred times," it seems that if these tykes are going to think outside of the box, it'll be in spite of their education, not because of it.

Therefore, I'm hoping to translate "logic grid puzzles" for the kids in San Fransisco, Ecuador, straight from South Highlands Elementary school in Shreveport, Louisiana. Perhaps:

"Maria, Byron, Emelia and Jorge are all planning on going to college, but can't decide which. Four universities in Quito - UDLA, ESPE, Catolica, and San Fransisco - all specialize in different areas: Engineering, Arts, Literature, and English. Can you help our friends figure out where to go to college?"

Other creative thinking and critical thinking activity suggestions welcome.

Catching up

2007-10-27T11:52:00.000-05:00

Given the amount of time between my last blog and this one, it would probably make a lot of sense to give some sort of programmatic update on Manna Project - but both Abbie and Craig have already done that, probably better than I could have. So, I´ll indulge myself a little bit by sharing some of the reading that I´ve done here in Ecuador. Given that I spent enough of my childhood in books to wreck my back at age twenty-three, you can likely imagine how much I am enjoying the amount of reading time I have here in Ecuador.

A Good Man in Africa, by William Boyd. Sorry William, but I probably would not have finished this book had I had any other Englsih material available to me in Santa Isabel during September. Although I will give Boyd credit for introducing me to more GRE words than any book I´ve read since high school.

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, by Robert Pirsig. After a few years rotting on the shelt, my decades-old copy of Z&A finally got another run. It is now held together by the only two rubber-bands I brought with me to Ecuador, and I have refused two people who have asked to borrow it for fear of its total disentigration. Remains one of my two favorite books of all time.

Baseball Dynasties: The Greatest Teams of All Time, by Rob Neyer and Eddie Epstein. As I mentioned in a previous post, baseball has come back in to my life swinging; part of that re-entry was brushing back up on my stats and trivia, which I was able to do thanks to Neyer and Epstein. Two thumbs up.

The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries are Failing and What Can Be Done About It, by Paul Collier. From what I can tell, there are three books out that are defining the conversation within the world of international development: The End of Poverty by Jeff Sachs; White Man´s Burden by William Easterly; and most recently, The Bottom Billion. If Jeff Sachs is overly whiny and optimistic about the role aid can play in development, and Easterly is overly pessimistic about aid´s failures, Collier deflty reminds us that aid, good or bad, is only one (small) factor in development. If you´re interested in why so many countries are still poor, start here.

Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life, by John Lee Anderson. This image of Che, taken during a funeral in 1960, is the most widely reproduced image in the world. I figured it was worth finding out about in detail, and detail is what Anderson does. 700 pages worth. From the trip that inspired the Motorcyle Diaries (go watch that right now) to helping Castro overthrow Batista in Cuba, to his failed attempts at revolution in Congo, Argentina, and ultimately Bolivia, Anderson leaves out only the occasional cold-blooded firing squad episode.

Finding My Way Home: Pathways to Life and the Spirit, by Henri Nouwen. It is not often these days that a spiritually-oriented book catches much of my attention, but when my brother Robert recommends one, I read it. What I appreciated about Nouwen is his liberation-theology-influenced orientation toward the poor. His admonition to be "surprised by joy," instead of expecting it, is sound counsel for those from the West living outside of the developed world.

Ensayo sobre la ceguera, by José Saramago. My first attempt at reading a legitimate piece of literature in another language is a story about a contagious blindness, and the lives of the infected who are quarantined in an old military hospital. I found out only after starting it, however, that Saramago was Portuguese, and wrote accordingly. No matter: I´m about 150 pages in, have at Abbie´s advice determined to power through without a Spanish dictionary, and am enjoying this story as much as any I´ve read in English. I guess those Nobel Prize folks can read Portuguese.

The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time, by Jeffrey Sachs. I guess I had to read it at some point, and Zak brought a copy. And as a clarion call for people in the US, and its government, to pay more concerted attention to the rest of the world, its important. Just started yesterday, and am so far unimpressed - likely in part because of Abbie´s poor report on Sach´s experimental "Millenium Village" in Kenya, which he touts in the introduction as the way forward for international development.

A different kind of election

2007-10-08T11:22:00.000-05:00

With campaigning for the US Presidential election in sickeningly full swing, I´d like to draw some attention to another election that occured last week here in Ecuador.

Ecuador, a country the size of Nevada and only thirty-six years younger than the United States, is about to rewrite - for the nineteenth time - its constitution. That may sound a little strange to most of us, who are used to having the Constitution placed somewhere just below the Bible and Shakespeare. Ecuador, however, goes through constitutions almost as fast as it goes through Presidents (six in the last ten years).

Because I know Ecuadorian presidential politics may not be everyone´s favorite dish, I´ll sum up: The new Ecuadorian president, strongly reminiscent of one infamous Louisiana governer, called a snap referendum to write a new constitution. The referendum pass widely in a country fed up with a corrupt and self-serving Congress. Last week, again by a wide margin, President Correa´s troops won a majority of the seats in the new Constitutional Assembly. That assembly will rewrite Ecuador´s constitution over the next six months - and has the power to disband Congress and/or vacate the presidency if it sees fit.

A lot more interesting than which Repuclian candidates in the US are most monogamous, don´t you think?

For a more informed article about Ecuador´s recent election, see this Economist article.

Ecuadorian and American babies on the way!

2007-10-03T15:28:00.000-05:00

...and no, neither of them are mine. I´m happy to announce the pending arrival of two nephews/nieces, one Ecuadorian, one American, one blood, one adopted. My brother Robert and his wife Michele are happily expecting in April, and the founders of UBECI, our partner organization here in Ecuador, will be having their third child sometime next summer!

Name suggestions for either baby eagerly welcomed. And if you´d like to share congratulations with either set of happy parents-to-be, I´m happy to share their email addresses.

Setting up Shop

2007-09-20T15:40:00.000-05:00

Thanks to Craig Smith and John Newman, MPI Ecuador at last signed on a house lease yesterday. The place is a pretty great deal - six bedrooms, two atriums, two living rooms, three baths and a terrace from which you can see both mountains Pasochoa and Cotopaxi - all for less than a third of what I paid for one room at Vanderbilt University.

At the risk of overloading my any Luddite readers out there, I'd like to share a Google Maps image of our house as well as the areas in which we'll be working - the house is the northernmost blue dot. And if you scroll way out, you'll find Gringolandia, where I'm currently surviving.

View Larger Map

If you're reading in facebook, go to my blog to see the embedded image.

Also, if you'd like to see photos of us climbing Pichincha, the mountain overlooking Qiuto, check out Zak's Photos.

Crawfishing

2007-09-16T13:44:00.000-05:00

Moving from Louisiana to Ecuador, I resigned myself to giving up good seafood - crawfish especially. Last week, however, I was happy to find that during the months with an r in them,* coastal Ecuadorians eat the dirty little things with gusto.

From what I could gather during a conversation with one of my costeño friends named Byron, Ecuadorians fry crawfish tails inside of mashed plantains, making a sort of crawfish cake. They spice the masa (the Spanish word for mashed stuff) with oregano, parsley, garlic, sour orange juice, and something that may or may not be spelled paetaña. The cakes are topped with a kind of tomato paste, lime, and more paetaña.

I explained to Bryon in turn how we do things in Louisiana. He liked the idea of three-hour meals over folding tables covered with newspaper, beer cans and potatoes, but was less impressed with the thought of "sucking the heads."

I also explained to Byron the meaning of the "crawfishing" for which we had to invent a new Spanish word: cangrejeando. The idea seemed to translate somewhat more easily than did the thought of boiling the bottom-dwellers alive without cleaning them first. Whatever - fried, boiled, steamed, grilled - I'm looking forward to Ecuador's cangrejo season however they decide to serve them.

---

*September through April.

Underpants

2007-09-08T13:57:00.000-05:00

Ecuador doesn´t have a lot of washing machines. Even pretty decent houses typically have a place to hand-wash clothes rather than put them through a machine.

The discovery I made, as I attempted for the 15th time to wash the remnants of soap out of my jeans, was that underpants do in fact have a purpose - they keep you from having to wash your jeans so often.

But for those of you back in the States with laundry machines, who can wash your jeans every time you wear them, I continue to maintain that underpants are silly.

(unless they´re the lucky rocketship kind)

Moving on up to Gringoland

2007-09-02T12:23:00.000-05:00

In the northern half of Quito, there is an area which maps call "The Mariscal," but which locals and everybody else knows as "Gringolandia."

Gringolandia is a three or four-block chunk of bars, fusion food restaurants, internet cafes, laundromats, hostels and Spanish schools. Beers cost about four times what they do two blocks in any direction, and lunch about eight times.

For the month of September, my Spanish school has placed me with a wonderful family whose apartment overlooks Plaza del Quinde, the heart of this mess. Mornings will be filled with Spanish classes, afternoons planning the next few months with UBECI, and evenings cooking, dancing, planning, and getting to know the rest of Team Ecuador (what´s that called, HOD folks? Storming or something?). In October, we hit the ground running.

One member of that team, Craig Smith, arrived last night. We´re busting out of the Mariscal shortly to get back to the valley.

!

Fotos, Finally

2007-08-25T21:23:00.001-05:00

Apparently, before the advent of USB, came my camera. Oh, my camera also predates standardized memory chip sizes. So the fact that I forgot my camera cable has meant that I have had some difficulty getting pictures uploaded. Sorry, Mom and Lori. But here they are:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2074010&l=d3bde&id=4704956

Witty commentary included at no extra charge.

For the love of the game

2007-08-23T18:12:00.000-05:00

My first love, and my first heartbreak, was baseball. No doubt about it. The players´ strike of 1994 was the first blow. Curveballs, which came around 1999 for me, were the nail in the coffin.

Baseball is back. I still don´t give a rat about major league ball, but when I was in Botswana last fall, there was a group of guys that played across the street from my house. I also brought a book to Ecuador called Baseball Dynasties, about the greatest teams of all time. And here in Santa Isabel - in a country where Soccer is God - one small group of kids spend every single recess playing the Grand Old Game.

Well, sort of. There are five bases, rather than four. A pitch is only a ´ball´ if you don´t swing at it. Foul balls don´t exist, and a team gets to keep batting until every single one of its hitters has gotten out (or, in Spanish, been ´burned´) once.

I´ve been lucky enough to be invited to play a couple of times, though I always seem to get burned because of some crazy local rule that I don´t know. I also blew out my ankle again this afternoon chasing Johnny´s homerun (jonron) into the outfield (cow pasture). Whatever - I´ve got an ankle brace and will be back on the diamond tomorrow.

I love this game.

Mi familia Ecuatoriana (my Ecuadorian family)

2007-08-18T11:29:00.000-05:00

As I eagerly anticipate the arrival in September of seven other gringos, I am living in the tiny rural neighborhood of Ecuador called Santa Isabel, just outside of the country´s capital. What´s more, I live with a local family, the Rivadeneiras-Guacales.

My family consists of a one mother, one father, one brother, one grandfather, one nameless cat, countless guinea pigs, about fifteen huge pigs (or chanchos), and two dogs named Doogie and Gringo. Yes, Gringo.

By about a foot, I am the tallest member of our household. Doña Rosa, the boss, can´t be taller than about four-foot seven. She and Michelle, a cousin of indeterminable relation who comes for work during the summer, are Ecuador´s most closely guarded culinary secret in addition to managing the farm out back. Rosa´s husband Jorge runs a mechanic shop in Quito, and has served thus far as my main source of information on everything Ecuadorian. David, my seventeen or eighteen-year-old brother (ñaño, they say), helps out with about everything and can´t quite remember which year he dropped out of school.

Then there´s the grandfather, alternately señor and abuelito (which literally means ´little grandfather´). At ninety-one years of age, you´d think he´s not up to much. You´d generally be right, as he mostly moves his plastic chair around the patio, following the sun. But yesterday, spurred by a visit from a doctor who told him he had at least three or four more years left, we found him with a hoe in the garden out back, sweating and cussing up a storm in his house shoes. I haven´t found out yet if he was trying to extend the doctor´s prognosis or shorten it. Ninety-one is a mountain of years - though I have been able to get from him that his father lived to one-hundred-twenty.