Sunday, April 29, 2007

Inspirations

David Suzuki is my hero. My friend Robyn Agoston has a pet name for him: "the Suzuk." While I was wandering around Kigali on Friday in the Suzuk t-shirt pictured above the man himself was giving Canada's Conservatives hell over their Orwellian plan to continue changing the climate. What an inspiration! The first time I wore the t-shirt on the streets of Toronto I walked past two Greenpeace activists without stopping to chat. Moments later a sparrow flew over me and deposited a serious amount of excrement on my shoulder. Some might say that it was karma. Perhaps John Baird should keep his eyes pointed skyward over the coming weeks....

At the inter-personal level, the woman pictured to my left is another inspiration and a true friend. Tomorrow, with a mind freshly pumped full of French I depart for Dakar and another phase in my research adventure. Look for substantative blogs to start again after my arrival in Senegal.

Monday, April 23, 2007

The Light of Grey

I have had a great time this past week in Kigali. I spent most of my days analyzing my interviews and working on my French. One reason that I am now in better spirits is that the mood around the city seems to have shifted. I arrived here at an especially dark time: the start of the annual genocide Commemoration Week. Over the subsequent days I heard several Rwandans express their hope that the horrific events of thirteen years ago be remembered with an eye towards the future. However, as an outsider, it seemed to me that these were lonely calls. For example, drawing upon observations I made during my first visit in February, I noted subtle changes to the street scenes that indicated to me that during that many Rwandans remain essentially preoccupied with the past during mid-April. Shared taxis whose patrons typically converse loudly so that they can be heard over the high volume East African beats that the drivers favour, were silent. Rather than seeing many groups of conversing men on the street corners in the city centre - a common sight in this part of the world - I noticed people going about their business quietly and individually with ultra-serious looks upon their faces. The organized remembrance events were the only exceptions to this conspicuous muting of public space. After attending several such powerful gatherings, including an evening at the genocide film festival and an all-day function for a community of households headed by genocide orphans, the grief became overwhelming for me too. I very nearly lost it as I sat through a church service last Sunday at a mission that houses aged genocide survivors. Mass was interrupted at consistent intervals by the wails of a woman who in 1994 had been raped repeatedly by the men she had watched murder her family. Later, after feeding a few babies at the mission's over-capacity orphanage, I tried to escape into a copy of The Economist but found myself unable to focus on the current things that were being done to the world by empowered elites. I was struck by the importance of collective memory and the extent to which it bears upon Rwandan society. I had read about this phenomenon many times before, seen it deployed and manipulated by politicians to advance their agendas and even felt touched by it once per year on 11 November. Even so, I had a newfound respect for its power. History certainly imbues the present-day relationships that keep most Rwandans in all-too visible grinding poverty. Yet each of these particular histories - the kinds of stories my own work focuses on - are encompassed by the emotions, memories and narratives associated with an event that continues to define this place.

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As my parents pointed out to me in an email, the questions I posed last week were too black and white. As you now know it was also a particularly hard week. My thinking on the matters I raised is under construction. For now, suffice it to say that I do believe that principled career-advancement is possible in the field of global 'development'. However, I'm not yet sure how common it is....

Tuesday, April 17, 2007

People or Paper?


Here in Kigali I am finding myself questioning whether or not I am as principled a person in the flesh as I appear to be on paper. In my writing, as some of the material in these pages attests, I can make arguments for particular policy or governance changes that I believe will lead to a more equitable and sustainable world order. Researching and writing about the world in an effort to make it a better place is something that many consultants, researchers and activists do to earn a living. Someday soon I hope to count myself amongst their number. If I can establish a reputation for producing informed and honest scholarship and policy advice then I might be well on my way to a jet-setting career as a recognized development professional. As I enjoy the company of a truly selfless crowd of community development workers I wonder about this self-advancement drive of mine. Is it possible that at some point my careerist ambitions might interfere with or even trump the principles I hope to advance through my work? How can a drive to be considered 'successful' in academic and policy circles be squared with a quest to promote global justice? This past weekend my new friends taught me quite a few lessons that could help me to answer the latter question. I hope to impart these lessons, and some partial and contingent answers, later this week.

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The above picture was taken close to the cotton dependent village of Mwamanongou, Meatu District, Shinyanga, Tanzania

Saturday, April 07, 2007

4 April 2007


Early in the morning somewhere West of Dar’s Millennium Tower I found myself having to call ESRF’s Dr. Mashindano for the second time in less than fifteen minutes. After three months in Tanzania I had finally secured an interview with the most in-demand economic thinker in the country, Professor Wangwe. I had no idea where his office was located and my anti-malarial meds had induced a pounding headache. Needless to say I was quite frazzled. I looked up from the phone and watched a Land Cruiser glide by. To my surprise, I saw the man whose portrait adorns the lobby at ESRF in the passenger seat. “Follow that truck,” I very nearly shouted at my new and reasonably priced driver while I contemplated the fact that this was only one stroke of luck amongst many over the past weeks. The meeting that ensued with Professor Wangwe – my sixtieth ‘elite’ interviewee in Tanzania – was truly brilliant, and I felt blessed once again to be in such a privileged position. After saying our farewells and expressing our excitement about the North-South Institute conference we will both attend at Wilton Park next month, I headed to the city centre for my next big catch. Or so I thought.

If I were to generalize about my interviewees, I would say that they have been consistently informed, giving of their time and happy to assist a young mzungu that wants to explain problematic realities in a way that helps people. Save for one, that is. Suffice it to say that during my second interview of the day my project came under the microscope. I became the interviewee. As I emerged into the light of the street I thought about the visceral and negative take on the orientation of my project that I had just been subjected to. It was a first, and a cue for me to think more concretely about the limitations of my work. Even adversity, it seemed, could teach me things.

To clear my head I borrowed a page out of a book that I had recently finished – “The Economist’s Tale” – and made an impromptu drop-in at Pamba (Cotton) House on Pamba Road to see if I could meet briefly with Dr. Kabissa, the Director of the Cotton Board. He received me for a quick visit with a smile and complimented me on my work. As I was planning to write a short preliminary report on my findings, I asked him if there were measures that I could take that would enable me to write it in a way would that would be acceptable to most Tanzanians. Like Professor Wangwe, he advised me to stick with the facts and to avoid any pretensions to having all of the answers. Wangwe had noted that there are many things that people like me do not know about Tanzania, and many things about Tanzania that many Tanzanians do not know too, and that that message had to be front-and-centre. He impressed upon me that I must make it crystal clear to my readers that I am writing a contingent story about complex relationships and that what I have to say will add new empirical content to many diverse debates. After echoing these comments, Dr. Kabissa opined that he looked forward more to the finished dissertation than to a little report. I told him that his suggestion would be music to my supervisor’s ears.

I proceeded up the road to track down a copy of the 2004 Environment Act. After inquiring at the office that had provided me with a copy of the 2005 Biosafety Protocol, the staff suggested that I go around the corner to the “duka da vitabu wa taifa” (the National Bookshop). A comedy of errors ensued. “Around the corner” I made at least eight inquiries of different passerby regarding the exact location of the shop. Under the influence of the latest directions I’d been given in Swahili, I potentially walked past it four times as I crossed and re-crossed a traffic circle with no fewer than six roads jutting off of it. Curly blonde guys in aviators can be comic relief for the locals, and I was happy to oblige. Persistence paid off though, and I actually procured a whack of legislation, including the Employment Act and others that will be useful as I probe the question of potential child labour that came up more than once in Geita District.

Leaving the bookstore, to my surprise, a truck with the logo of the International Fund for Agricultural Development painted on its side was parked directly in front of me. I approached and asked if the Country Officer, Dr. Juma, was around and if it would be possible to say farewell to her. She had previously provided me with a wealth of information on the organics movement. I interviewed at least eight people as a direct result of the things I learnt during our first meeting, and it was great to thank her in person.

Later, after editing the day’s interviews from home I felt the need to do a workout. I set out on foot for the Gymkhanna Club. The Ocean Road evening traffic jam was in full effect and as I approached the Aga Khan Hospital the SUVs were at a standstill. At the corner, as they do every day, local street peddlers were hawking ice cream, shirts, bananas and pineapples. I saw a woman finish paying for some ice cream and then watched in seeming slow motion as she unwrapped the product and then flicked the wrapper out the window of her Range Rover and into the street. I stopped and without thinking twice picked up the wrapper and tossed it back inside the Range Rover’s open window and onto her lap. A few people that had witnessed my response started to yell at me in Swahili, presumably because the government employs labourers to clean up the road. Perhaps I was endangering those jobs! However, I paid no attention to the fuss and continued on my journey. It was a direct action that had sprung from somewhere in my subconscious mind and I was at peace. I think my Grandfather would have been proud.

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My time in Tanzania has come to an end for now. I have many people to thank for making my adventure thus far an incredible success. As I sit down in Kigali next week to piece together my thoughts on the past months I will be thinking of the many wonderful people that have helped me along the way. So, to my new friends: farewell and I’ll see you in the future.