The Poverty-Weather-Suicide Correlation

I’m enjoying the conference I’m currently attending because there are people here from all over.  Aside from me there are only two Americans, but there is a large contingent from Europe and Africa.  Since I am a bit unusual as I haven’t left Africa for the past year a number of people have approached me and asked a variety of questions about my time here on the continent.  Today I had a conversation with someone about poverty in Africa.  I told her that most government officials in Africa regard poverty as being out of their control, something they simply can’t change.  Just like they can’t predict or influence the weather, they can’t influence or change the occurrence of poverty.

Botswana is considered an upper middle income economy, but according to the World Bank 32.9% of the population still lives below the national poverty level.  Of course, Botswana is the wealthiest country in sub-Saharan Africa.  I know I’ve mentioned some of the unemployment issues in countries like Nigeria (54.7% of the population lives in poverty) and Zimbabwe (72% poverty), that Lesotho (56.6% poverty) used to be so poor that one of their primary exports was human blood, and that Congo (71.3% poverty) is so unfortunate they can’t afford to eat the cassava and instead they eat the leaves from the plant.  Poverty alleviation is a huge key term which you hear all over the place.  But the truth is most African leaders don’t think poverty can be cured, so they don’t really sweat it.

It should be noted that poverty alleviation is different from economic growth.  I have a friend who works for the World Bank.  His job is to identify aspiring entrepreneurs, give them micro loans- typically $1,000 or less- in an effort to get them to improve their socioeconomic status.  He can’t GIVE this money away!  He told me about a conversation he had with a fisherman.  The fisherman said he caught three fish each day and then sold them; that would meet his needs.  Mr. World Bank explained he would loan him money to buy a new boat, or new nets, or whatever he needed to improve his business so he could catch more fish.  The fisherman’s response: “I don’t need to catch more fish.” Mr. WB explained if the fisherman caught more fish he could send his son to university, or have the money if his wife got sick, or maybe just buy some milk for his family.  The fisherman said he didn’t need money in case those things happened.  He said when his wife got sick he would just catch five or six fish that day to buy her medicine or pay the doctor.

The reason the fisherman in the story didn’t want to earn extra money is because he would never get to save that money, so it was pointless.  The challenge with elevating Africa out of poverty and improving standards of living is because the culture here does not encourage future planning.  Family ties are important and everything is communal.  This means if the fisherman catches 10 fish and suddenly has more money his aunt in the village will show up and ask for the money to pay her medical bills.  If he catches 20 fish he won’t see any profit from that either because his distant cousin in the next village will ask for the money to pay the bride price for her son’s upcoming marriage.  If he catches 50 fish then the niece of his neighbor’s granddaughter in the country next door will show up on his doorstep asking for a loan to pay for her father’s funeral announcement.  And the cycle continues and never ends.

As I continued my conversation with the woman at the conference today she asked me how Africans are able to withstand so much poverty, violence, government instability, persecution, disease and everything else they put up with.  Just last night I finished the book David and Goliath by Malcolm Gladwell.  In his book, Gladwell states that happiness is measured on a sliding scale in relation to one’s peers.  He states that Switzerland has the happiest people in the world.  However, Switzerland also has one of the highest suicide rates.  By contrast, Africans are significantly less happy because of all the challenges associated with living here, but since everyone else here is miserable (at least in terms of material possessions, wealth, etc.) the suicide rate is very low because they can’t look at others and be envious since everyone is in the same (sad) boat.

Money, Money, Money, Money...MOOOOOO-NEY!

Though I’m not scheduled to leave Africa for a few more weeks, I thought it a good idea to start going through all my belongings and trying to downsize as much as possible.  Believe it or not, I spent a good 20 minutes trying to streamline my wallet this morning.  As a rule, when I travel, I eliminate all unnecessary items from my wallet.  When friends come to visit and I see them carrying a wallet full of 10 different credit cards, their library card, their Red Cross blood donor card, their Social Security card, and countless other cards they will never use, but are highly likely to lose here, I cringe.  When I moved to Africa I brought the following: 1 personal credit card, 1 credit card for university-related/business purposes, 1 bank debit card, my travel insurance card, and my emergency evacuation/I’M IN A LOT OF TROUBLE GET ME THE HELL OUT OF HERE! supplementary insurance card.  That’s it!  I have since added a Botswana driver’s license.

Despite having the two credit cards and the debit card, I only use these about half the time.  Southern Africa has begun using plastic on a more regular basis, but Zimbabwe and most of central and east Africa still operate on a strictly cash system.  I knew cash would be necessary, so when I came here I brought $5,000 with me and have since changed or used most of it.  Similar to the patriotism displayed in my blog post about how I was proud to be an American and would NEVER give up my passport to obtain citizenship elsewhere, there is a lot to be said about the power of the U.S. dollar.  You know the commercial, “Visa: Accepted Everywhere”?  Not true.  It should really be, “U.S. Dollars: Accepted Everywhere.”  Though I should add that when travelling to Africa if you plan to bring a credit card, choose Visa.  My university card is a Master Card and I haven’t been able to use it several times because Master Card isn’t as widely accepted as Visa.  Apparently those Olympics commercials with Morgan Freeman ARE telling the truth.

As I was organizing my wallet today there was no need to go through my cards as those have remained stagnant.  But my supply of banknotes and coins has changed considerably.  My stash of U.S. dollars is barely enough to get me through the next couple months, but I can now rest assured that if I get stranded in any one of a dozen African countries I can buy a bottle of water, and in some cases, even dinner if necessary.  Here are some of the bills I’ve collected during my tenure in Africa:

(Left to right, top to bottom): Ugandan Shilling, Rwandan Franc, Congolese Franc, Ethiopian Birr, Zimbabwean Dollar (This is no longer in circulation. Zimbabwe has no official currency, so the U.S. dollar is primarily used, but you can now use 8 different foreign currencies as legal tender), Zambian Kwacha, U.S. Dollar, Kenyan Shilling, Namibian Dollar, Botswana Pula, Sierra Leonean Leone, South African Rand, and Lesotho Loti.

None of these bills are worth more than a dollar or two, except for the Rand and Pula which are about $20 and $23, respectively.  But I will definitely spend those as SA and Botswana are where I will be most of the time until I leave. 

Dinosaur Fingerprints

As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, I was recently in Lesotho.  While the drive-thru passport control was quite interesting, it was definitely not the highlight of my trip.  That would have been hunting for dinosaurs.  Well, not really dinosaurs, but dinosaur footprints.

Sixty-five million years ago several dozen different types of dinosaurs lived in Southern Africa.  Compared to the Americas, Africa cannot boast nearly as many Jurassic inhabitants.  But most of the dinosaurs which did inhabit Africa were found mostly in the southern region, and the remains of them “abound” in Lesotho according to the Lonely Planet guidebook.  Based on this description we thought we could just walk around and look at the ground and see the footprints the guidebook mentioned.  Not quite.

Mike and I set out for Leribe, a two hour drive north of Maseru, on Friday morning.  Based on my research Leribe is the best place in Lesotho to see the dinosaur footprints.  I should mention that we attempted to visit the Tourism Information Office in town before setting off.  After spending an hour trying to find the office, then finding out the office was closed, then finally being told there were no maps of the country in print, we decided to take the horribly ambiguous directions provided in the guidebook and wing it.

When we got to Leribe we started asking everyone we could find where the dinosaur footprints were located.  The 10+ people at the gas station didn’t know.  The two police officers doing traffic security checks weren’t sure what a dinosaur was.  The group of mothers attending a school sports competition looked at one another perplexed.  Obviously NO ONE comes to see the dinosaur footprints!  Mike had the idea of asking where we could find the school, “There has to be a Social Studies teacher who should know something about this.”  So we got directions to the school.

As we pulled up to the school (I was driving) I said, “Where should I park?”  Mike instructed, “Under the tree, just look like you belong here.  You are a white woman at a primary school in the middle of nowhere in Africa.  They will be so surprised to see you here no one will care whether or not you have the right to park here.  Stay out of trouble while I go ask for the Social Studies teacher.”  The staying out of trouble was the problem.  The next thing I knew there were fifty kids all around me asking me to take their picture, and subsequently forgetting they were supposed to be plowing the fields (what we might call manual labor is more like chores here):

Mike returned with obscure instructions to keep heading up the mountain toward the next village and to ask the kids tending the cows and sheep along the way if they could help us.  This proved to me that tourism infrastructure could definitely stand to be improved, particularly given that this was one of the very few attractions available in Lesotho.

Along the path we met Paolo, who was tending sheep, and was excused from his duties temporarily by his father to guide us to the top of the mountain.  We began climbing over rocks, some of which had water coming down them, making them particularly slippery.  About thirty minutes into the climb Mike asked Paolo, “Are we almost there?”  At this point I should mention that Mike had put his complete trust in my ability to plan this trip.  He told me, “You can plan anything you want and I will follow.  You are the expert, so I trust whatever you want to do.”  When he asked how much further we had to climb I began apologizing profusely for him having blind faith in me.  At that point we were about halfway there.  Here is the view from that stage of the climb:

Eventually we reached the location of the “dinosaur fingerprints” as Paolo called them.  These pictures don’t really do it justice, but hopefully you can recognize the outline of the prints which are more of a light brown against the darker gray background:

And then here is a close up:

In the end Mike enjoyed the hunt for the dinosaur fingerprints.  After we descended the mountain he said, “Thanks for making me do that.  Regardless of what else we see here, the dinosaur fingerprints will definitely be the highlight of this trip.”  While I do believe he meant that, it may have also been a veiled complement in an effort to make sure I wasn’t going to force him to learn how to charm snakes or walk on burning coals next.  Maybe on our next trip, maybe.

Lesotho: The World's Only Drive-Thru Passport Control

Last week a friend and I decided to visit Lesotho.  Most people haven’t actually heart of Lesotho, but it is a very small, landlocked country, which is entirely surrounded by South Africa.  As you can see here it is the white country with the star indicating Maseru, the capital:

Lesotho is one of only four countries in the world which are “contained” within another country.  The other three countries are San Marino and Vatican City (both in Italy) and Monaco (inside France).

The population of Lesotho and Botswana is actually the same, just over 2 million people.  The difference is that Botswana is the size of Texas in terms of landmass, while Lesotho is about the size of Maryland.  About a quarter of the entire population lives in Maseru, but it feels as if everyone in the country lives there.  Maseru is incredibly small for a capital city, with only one traffic circle and five main streets.  And the streets are FULL of traffic, mostly combis (mini bus taxis) and TONS of people walking, EVERYWHERE.  We drove to Lesotho and I was so thankful we made it out without getting in a car accident.  We saw several and they are so common people don’t think anything of them; they just ignore them and keep driving.  Perhaps they don’t even have car insurance there.

One of the things that was really interesting about Lesotho was their border.  I’ve entered and exited over fifty countries and never seen a border with a drive-thru passport control.  You don’t even get out of your car.  The driver just hands the passports of everyone in the car through the window to the woman sitting inside the office and she stamps the passports.  However, what surprised me was that she only stamped the passports, she didn’t scan them.  In fact, there was no machine in which to scan them.  If you are unsure what I am talking about, when you enter a country, the passport control officer checks the passport to make sure it is really you in the picture.  Then he/she scans the passport on a special passport scanning machine.  This pulls up all your personal information which stores it in the system and alerts the officer in case you are wanted by InterPol (basically the International Police) because you are a criminal or a missing person.  In Lesotho they skip all steps and just stamp the passports, no questions asked.  It definitely makes the process quick and painless, but then again, I can’t imagine a lot of criminals going to Lesotho to hide out.

Welcome to Lesotho, “I’ll take a cheeseburger, fries, a chocolate milkshake, and a passport stamp please:”

A Very Busy Few Months Ahead

One of the interesting aspects of being a Fulbrighter is that you are given a lot of freedom.  As long as you are fulfilling your obligations to your host institution it is up to you how you spend the rest of your time.  There are no hard and fast rules in terms of what you are expected to accomplish, which is a good thing as red-tape and politics can make some objectives much more difficult than others.

Last year before I came to Botswana I contacted another Fulbright Scholar.  I asked about the process you had to go through in order to get permission to do research.  She informed me it was much more arduous than in the U.S. and that while she had applied for a research permit in August it wasn’t granted until May.  She left in June.

Fortunately for me I didn’t have nearly as difficult of a time obtaining my permit and IRB approval to conduct my research.  But a lot of that is pure luck; catching the right person who actually knows the answer to your question on a day when they are happy and willing to help you. 

Over the past seven months I have been busy teaching, doing research and travelling.  Most of my travel has been work related for data collection or serving as a guest speaker at other universities, though some of it has been for fun as well.  Since I arrived back from Christmas I’ve had several tourism colleagues throughout the continent invite me to visit them at their universities to guest lecture for a few days.  In order to juggle all the requests, along with other side trips I wanted to take before I left I decided to sit down and plan out the next six months.  Thank goodness I did otherwise I would have never been able to squeeze in another commitment.  This is my calendar for the next six months.  All of the shaded blocks are when I am travelling:

To give you a rundown here is what is on my calendar:

Tomorrow: Head to Cape Town, South Africa for three days to teach at Stellenbosch University.

March: Johannesburg for three days to obtain my DRC visa and visit a colleague at Vaal University with whom I am writing an article.  Then on to Lesotho to visit some of our students currently there on internship.  From Lesotho, go to Mozambique to meet a fellow Fulbrighter for some fun. (This trip takes place during our mid-semester break.)

First week of April: Zanzibar, Tanzania to meet an Egyptian friend who lives in Nairobi, Kenya to hang out on the beach for a long weekend.

Middle-Late April: Fly to Kigali, Rwanda to teach at the Rwanda Tourism University College.  From there head to Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo to teach at University of Goma and then climb the volcano over the weekend.  On the way home stop in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia for three days to give Ethiopia a chance to redeem itself after the luggage fiasco.

May: Amanda and Ashleigh come to visit me in Botswana!  Finally, I get to play host to friends from home.

June: Back to Tanzania to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro.  Then Dad comes to visit for 10 days and I get to show him around Botswana.  The day Dad departs I go to Mauritius where I am presenting two papers at a conference.

July: Perhaps return to the U.S.? 

I would have to say if nothing else I have certainly taken full advantage of my time here.  And I think Fulbright has also gotten its money’s worth. I may have to give my passport a rest whenever I finally make it back across the ocean.

36 Books in 2013

It always amazes me how often people tell me they don’t read books.  Even professors tell me this quite frequently.  Fortunately for me, I am my father’s daughter; he is a voracious reader.  I’m pretty sure if he and I were in a reading contest he would beat my score by a long shot.  In 2013 I read 36 books.  I don’t consider three books a month a particularly high number, but it isn’t low by any means, especially when I compare it to those around me.

I don’t normally have a theme to my reading, but this year I did.  During the first three months of the year I was awaiting my notification regarding whether I would receive the Fulbright and be moving to Africa, so I began reading about the place that would hopefully become my new home.  After I received my Fulbright notification in early March I started reading even more about Africa, and particularly tourism on the continent, in order to prepare me for my teaching and research here.  And of course, once I got here, the theme continued.

I’ve obviously learned a lot living here in Africa, but I’ve learned even more from reading, and subsequently asking questions.  Here are what I consider the most interesting things about Africa which I learned from books over the past twelve months:

·        Less than 20% of the people in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) have access to electricity.

 

·        Since 1950 Nigeria has pumped more than $400 billion of oil- enough to cancel all of SSA’s debt- but 80% of that money goes to less than 1% of the Nigerian population. Apparently those people don’t know what to do with their money as one-tenth (1/10) of all champagne in the world is consumed in Lagos by the oil tycoons.

·        Luanda, Angola is the most expensive city in the world (the average hotel sells for $600/night) but more than 70% of the nation lives below the poverty line.

·        Taking a lesson from Stalin who said, “It’s not who votes that counts, it’s who counts the votes,” President Obiang of Equatorial Guinea had ballots pre-printed with his name on it during the last election.  Soldiers “supervised” voting and he amassed a victory with 97% of the votes.

·        Eighty percent (80%) of coltan is found in the Democratic Republic of Congo.  In 2000 the price of coltan spiked tenfold to $365 a pound due to the launch of the Sony Playstation 2 game console.

·        Most of the pirates off the coast of Somalia are former fishermen whose livelihoods were destroyed due to illegal fishing and the dumping of toxic waste by foreign fishing vessels.

·        Forty percent (40%) of the countries in Africa are landlocked, meaning that to ship from South Africa to Zimbabwe costs as much as to ship from South Africa to China.

·        In the mid-1970s Lesotho was so poor that one of its primary exports was human blood to South African hospitals.

·        For the first six months of 2002 Madagascar had two presidents because the defeated incumbent refused to step down after ruling the country for 20 years.

·        The Congo Free State (1885-1908) was the personal property of King Leopold II, King of Belgium who wanted the ivory, minerals and rubber from the region.  Nearly 10 million people, or 20% of the population, were killed for failing to meet the required rubber quotas.  The rubber extracted from Congo went to produce car tires in the U.S. and Europe and condoms, which was credited with the drop in the European birth rate.

I brought another 32 books about Africa with me from the U.S. when I came here that I still have yet to read.  I’m not sure whether I can get all those finished in the next five months, but I certainly plan to try.

Here are a few of the books I read during 2013: