Lalibela: Tastes like scam

Lalibela, as it turns out, is probably one of those tourist towns I mentioned, on par with Marrakesh, Morocco or the like. It’s THE holy city to Ethiopian Orthodox Christians, on par with Jerusalem, but it’s also the number one town to visit as a tourist. Consequently, there are scams here. Apparently the “sponsor my education” is a well-known line here, and the people of this town are just professional beggars. If I weren’t such a bleeding heart, I’d stop falling for it. Jacob is around to remind me, though, which is good because I need someone to save me from my naïve generosity.

The dictionary trick is apparently so the boys can sell it back immediately to the shopkeeper and everybody makes a little kickback. And the boy with the pink flipflops seemed so sincere…

What are you supposed to do if you help them and they take advantage of you? When they lie, steal, and cheat you under the pretense of friendship?

I guess the answer is: Kalli, stop giving people something for nothing. Don’t give money without people providing a service in return, don’t buy gifts, toys, or candy for children, don’t “help” beggars. This is my take away message and I hope I can live with it. The fact is, though, based on past experience, catch me at the right moment with the right sob story and I’ll do it again. Sigh.

Ethiopia, to us, feels like a peaceful, passive-aggressive, lazy Nigeria. You know, friendly scammers.

Funny story: I was taken to a police station with the tourist guide who scammed us, someone who told us he was security but in fact was another tour guide, and a police officer who was part of the scam. It was 3 against 1 (me) and little hope of justice being served.

Do you know what it’s like to live in a country where the entire system is corrupt and police officers can be bought off? When you can’t trust anyone around you to be honest, when everyone around you is hoping to steal from you and mislead, and outright lie to you? Where there is no one to be your advocate—you are a rich farenji, you deserve what happens to you? Where even in the hotel you are staying in, the place that should be looking out for its customers, is full of tricksters who even state different prices than the manager has instructed them to?

At least in Ethiopia, unlike Central and South America, the scammers aren’t armed. They’re wimpy and a little pathetic, so you feel sorry for them even as you are frustrated with them. You remind yourself:

Their situation is so much worse than mine, I shouldn’t get mad.

But then after all-day pestering you still do get mad and you tell the young, bright-eyed, talented-at-scamming boy who has asked for something in the exact same lying way the last boy asked: “You know what? In America we work for what we receive! We don’t ask for something from strangers without providing something in return! And even if I did buy a soccer ball, I wouldn’t give it to you!”

What makes a nation happy?

A nation’s level of happiness was most closely associated with health levels (correlation of .62), followed by wealth (.52), and then provision of education (.51). The three predictor variables of health, wealth and education were also very closely associated with each other, illustrating the interdependence of these factors…people in countries with good healthcare, a higher GDP per capita, and access to education were much more likely to report being happy…

Article from Sciencedaily

Something to think about when choosing a charity to give money to, as well as voting on laws in our own country.

And then…

…and then after my hope to see poverty as not so bad there comes a girl, her voice hoarser and deeper than any girl her age should have, dressed in rags, her hair gnarled, a cut across her forehead. She comes and tugs at my arm and makes motions that she is hungry and looks at my purse and my well-dressed self and begs for money and all the existential questions come back…threaten to overwhelm…why was I born in the circumstances that I was while she will live a life of deprivation, ignorance, and poor health?

I tell her no, accept that there is misery in the world, and walk on. She returns to the gutter where she came from, and I close my mind to life’s injustices, because if I think about her hauntingly big brown eyes too much I’ll lose faith. And I’ll hate that I’m wealthy, and that everyone I know is wealthy, and every single person I am friends with is living a life beyond this girl’s wildest dreams.

The people in India, however, as in Ghana, are so generally friendly, pleasant, and happy, that they make living on the streets seem like a genuinely not-so-bad lifestyle…until someone like this girl comes along and makes my throat feel funny and my eyes start to burn.

Going back to Calcutta

To have returned to Calcutta is both strange and familiar.

It’s not the way I remember it, and I attribute it to four things.

One, the weather is so much more comfortable here in January and it affects everything: now young boys are out playing cricket; people are bustling about with less sluggishness; it no longer bothers me to see someone napping on a sidewalk when it’s so balmy out.

Two, Jacob and I have been in sub-Saharan Africa which is much lower on the scale of human development. Here in India, it is possible to live a posh lifestyle; not so in Accra.

Three, hope and optimism are in the air. People are working hard. There’s a lot going on…Calcutta is westernizing and developing at a fantastic rate. It seems less polluted, less trafficked, less crowded than I remember. Ghana is not changing at this kind of pace. India is supposed to surpass the USA in a few decades. Between China and India, Jacob and I are rooting for India. We think they’d make pretty excellent world rulers.

And finally, my views on poverty have changed.

To feel sorry for someone can mean you are putting them on a lower level than you. It’s slightly supercilious, and as these people don’t pity themselves, I don’t see what business I have pitying them. When I see people sleeping on sidewalks, I remember what Jacob told me about someone he met in Fiji: when given a choice between a bed and the floor, the man picked the floor--he preferred it.

Besides, I envy Calcuttans. Their city’s soul vibrates with mine, and maybe I will live here one day.

Water.

There are periods of time in which I seem to get a little blog-happy. This is apparently one of those times.

But I had to do a post on one of the cooler ideas that I’ve seen for a nonprofit.

I’ve been following their newsletters for a while. It’s called water.org.

And I just found out today that it was Matt Damon who started it.

I love celebrities who do more with their status than get DUIs.

Anyway…

I’ve mentioned kiva.org in another post. It’s where you loan money to entrepreneurs in developing countries and they pay back the loan. Then you can reloan your money to new entrepreneurs. So far, we’ve loaned to people in Azerbaijan, Tajikistan, Pakistan, the Philippines, Nigeria, Indonesia and the USA…and we’ve been paid back 100% which enables us to reinvest in new entrepreneurs.

I think one of the biggest roadblocks to charitable giving is the fear that it’s going to be wasted. And to be honest, every time I give money to a random beggar on the road, I feel stupid, like I just got scammed. (I feel the same way every time I pay taxes.)

That’s why I like kiva.org, and that’s why this charity is pretty cool. It’s called water microlending.

Cities/communities are given a loan to build a well or renewable water resource. They are expected to pay it back. The way they can pay it back is because they have so much more time on their hands now that they don’t have to spend several hours a day fetching water, and they aren’t getting ill as often, so they can work and produce more. When they pay it back, the money is reloaned to a new destination. Amazing idea, eh?

 

At any given time, half of the world’s hospital beds are occupied by patients suffering from diseases associated with lack of access to safe drinking water, inadequate sanitation and poor hygiene.

Almost one-tenth of the global disease burden could be prevented by improving water supply, sanitation, hygiene and management of water resources. Such improvements reduce child mortality and improve health and nutritional status in a sustainable way.

Every 20 seconds, a child dies from a water-related disease.

In just one day, more than 200 million hours of women’s time is consumed for the most basic of human needs — collecting water for domestic use. This lost productivity is greater than the combined number of hours worked in a week by employees at Wal*Mart, United Parcel Service, McDonald’s, IBM, Target, and Kroger.

Caste

To explore a little more about this idea of the sense of contentment in Calcutta…

I’ll preface by saying that I have read travelers who have been around the world, traveled to Africa even, and never seen the extent of poverty that can be found here.  I have no idea what it is like in central war-torn Africa—I actually expect it would be worse there because no one would have money, unlike India where there are definitely wealthy people and there is a healthy tourism industry— but it’s enough to say that Calcutta has one of the most impoverished populations on the planet, if only because of its huge number of people who are living in such a small space.

Jacob and I have only met and talked with mostly Brahmin and warrior caste people which is probably limiting our perspective.

The four castes are these: Brahmin (priest), warrior (Kshatriya), merchant/businessman (Vastriya) and artisan/labor (Huiti). The bottom isn’t really a caste—they are the Untouchables, the Dalits.

This is the sorrow of Hinduism and karma—while it might provide a neat, packaged explanation for why there is such inequality, it also means there is a universal feeling that “you deserve what you get.”

Caste system has been outlawed in India. Everyone assures us it no longer matters, and I think each generation it matters a little less. But it is telling that we haven’t befriended anyone of the lowest castes. The reasoning being that they are less educated and less likely to speak English.

We meet people who live on the streets but they can only speak Bengali usually. Nevertheless they are friendly, want us to meet their families, want to know where we are from.

Our guest house

 

The caste system persists in that there is a servant culture. We have servants here. It’s like we normally would if we were in a hotel. The difference is, our cook and housekeepers are living in the house we live in. They don’t live with their families. It is one more sort of tragic situation that it seems a majority of low-paid people do not get to see their families but once a month or twice a year.

Our friend in Turkey, Ali, had a similar situation. He loved his wife and kids and talked about them often. But he had to live in Istanbul because there was no way to make money in the town he came from. He worked in a dirty little shop gluing Nike shoes together. India is full of stories like that. And so it goes.

But it doesn’t seem tragic to them and here’s why I think this is so:

It’s an improvement from their situation. Calcutta is actually one of the better places to be in comparison to its neighbors. Hence, the reasoning behind the lack of despair that I feel in the people of the city.

For example at a home we visited last night, the servant girl was from the Sunderbans, home of the Bengal tiger a bit south from here. She was very young and sent to a wealthier family to work. Is it sad that she is growing up away from her family and having to work as a maid? Or is it sadder that in her home there is no food and no hope for a better life? Here in her work place in Calcutta she actually gets clothing, plenty of food, and even a little schooling.

  Or take the people who live on the street. Most of them are from the poor surrounding states of Bihar or Orissa, or refugees from Bangladesh. Those places are worse than here, I’m told. Here there are public fountains where you don’t have to go far to get water. Here there are places to beg, and the Kali temple gives a bowl of rice every day to the city’s poor. There may be employment opportunities. Or take the boys at Daya Dan. They come from lying unattended in the streets. Their parents probably viewed the birth of a child with disabilities as bad karma and were ashamed of them. Now they get regular meals and tutors and books. It is an improvement—every person we see whose situation looks bad, there is always someone next to them whose situation is worse. Maybe this helps the feeling of optimism.

The Kalighat Kali Temple

Confusing

Calcutta is the first place I have cried myself to sleep from thinking about someone else besides myself.

Don’t worry—I don’t cry myself to sleep often. But when it has happened in the past, it has always been about my own personal woes.

But I have cried myself to sleep here both when I think of the loving, smiling boys at Daya Dan, and when I think about the thousands of strangers who I have seen doing the most shocking things I have ever seen in my life.

On any given day as I travel to the orphanage or go out with friends in the evening, I might see a man the age of my grandfather brushing his teeth with his finger with the water gushing out of a public fountain…a wizened old woman sitting in 100 degree heat on the side of the road, her arms bare and wrinkled…a woman with a terribly tiny baby begging for milk who probably would just resell the milk if she got the chance…a man retching into the gutter…people sleeping on traffic medians at nighttime…the smell of defecation greeting my nostrils because so many people here have no access to a toilet…naked barefoot toddlers playing on the sidewalks with nothing but a string tied around their waists…the piles of trash that line the sides of the streets with children, crows, and lean dogs picking through them, the buildings covered in black grime, the one long honk as taxis and buses and autos belching pollution slam by, and similar images and senses kind of just hitting me one after the other.

But as tough as those images can be, that’s not why I cry.

I cry because I’m confused. When people ask how I like Calcutta—the way most people still say the name of the city— and I assure them I like it very much, they smile knowingly.

“That is because Calcutta is the City of Joy,” they say.

This is why I cry. I am totally disarmed. The people here are happy. The boys at Daya Dan are happy. What a tremendous struggle that causes me inside myself to see that. What a mind-boggling dilemma. I know not everyone here is equally happy. I have no doubt many of them would love to see an improvement. But the level of friendliness here, the absence of crime, and the seeming lack of resentment towards me, a clearly wealthy Westerner, is undeniable. I’ll be honest when I say I don’t quite understand it.

Twisted Priorities

1998

 

Global Priority
$U.S. Billions

 

Cosmetics in the United States	8
Ice cream in Europe	11
Perfumes in Europe and the United States	12
Pet foods in Europe and the United States	17
Business entertainment in Japan	35
Cigarettes in Europe	50
Alcoholic drinks in Europe	105
Narcotics drugs in the world	400
Military spending in the world	780

 

Global Priority
$U.S. Billions

Basic education for all	6
Water and sanitation for all	9
Reproductive health for all women	12
Basic health and nutrition	13

 

Painful to think about, isn’t it?

I think, when we finally settle down, I might get into politics. I don’t know for sure, but I feel pretty passionate about this right now.

 

Shah, Anup. “Poverty Facts and Stats.” Global Issues, Updated: 28 Mar. 2010. Accessed: 20 Apr. 2010. <http://www.globalissues.org/article/26/poverty-facts-and-stats>

More…

I’m going to write more about this issue of poverty because I want to explain why I’ve experienced a change in thinking. And really, my thoughts are still evolving on the subject.
In this post, written when I was living in Berlin, I thought that international aid should be limited because it only contributes to the problem. While I still feel that way in some ways, my views have changed. I believe I was limited in my thought at that point because I had never seen true poverty. And since it’s in my face every day here, of course I can’t help but think about it more.
I still am not converted to the idea that anyone in America is really “poor.”
For example, In 2007, 46% of poor households in the US owned their own homes, 30% had two or more cars, and 63% received cable or satellite TV. What’s more, education in the US is free; clean water is free; welfare stamps are available. Opportunity knocks for people to rise above their situation. I just can’t be as passionate about the poor in the US. Heck, I don’t own a home, a car, or get cable.
Furthermore it is often pointed out that the poor in the US often can’t “even” afford to own a home. I don’t believe owning a home is a right or even a necessity. In Europe a significant number of people rent, not own their homes.
Reasons why I have changed my mind on international aid

 

It started when I read that Bill Gates congratulated Obama on the fact that we were continuing our international aid even as we experienced economic problems.

I really admire Bill Gates. One, he’s a genius and an entrepreneur and one of the richest men in the world. Two, he uses his wealth as one of the most philanthropic men who ever lived. Three, he votes about equally Republican and Democrat and I admire people who can see both sides of the political question.

                                           

I still think while the ideal would be for there to be an NGO to address every need of each impoverished nation in the world because they would run more efficiently and be able to focus more specifically on problems…right now that is not an option. The problem of global poverty as I can see it is much too big for the number of NGOs that currently exist and the financial support they receive.
Besides the overwhelming nature of the problem, the American government has the power to pressure other governments and to legislate and to dictate our foreign policy in a way that no NGO could.
In my last post I asked a question.

“Why aren’t there politicians addressing the questions that really matter?”

In its wake I am forced to question if these issues are not at the forefront of political discussion because American politicians would prefer them to be hidden.

Exploring more causes of poverty…

Government corruption and ignorance
I used to have an awfully romantic view of the American government. Not the politicians themselves, but the way the process is set up. But any amount of research will show you that while we often provide a lot of support, money, education, what have you around the world, our policies in dealing with other countries often cause a lot of violence and corruption. It is our ignorance as Americans that allows these practices to continue as politicians and business dealers privately wheel and deal and pay people off. If we want to make a purchase of something, let’s be aware of what price it comes at. For example:

Oil

 

Many countries that are rich in oil, gas and other minerals are nonetheless mired in poverty and poor government because the public revenues earned from selling these resources have been squandered through corruption and lack of government accountability to citizens.
Citizens of resource-rich countries cannot hold their governments to account, and ensure that mineral resources are used in a fair and sustainable way, unless they have full information about the management of these resources.
(Source: an interesting-looking NGO called Global Witness.)
Possible solution: Minimum standards in governance, transparency and human rights that must be fulfilled before approving oil, gas and mining projects in institutionally weak countries.

Diamonds

 

The practice of having to purchase a diamond ring when getting married never used to bother me. It’s just one of those cultural things that you take for granted. Of course, you get a diamond ring when you get married. So what…you have to go into debt to buy it. So what…when you get married you probably are going to be relatively poor and young. So what…it would probably be better to invest in your 401k than a diamond. So what…come to think of it, you don’t even like diamonds. Oh well, you will probably get one. Everybody does it.

Diamond rings are one of the most fantastically successful advertisement campaigns ever created. No other country insists on this practice. Here in India, married women put red chalk in their hair. Now that sounds like that would be tiresome to have to do that constantly, but the point is, diamond rings are cultural—Not a sign of love.

.
Diamonds are the cause of some of the bloodiest African conflicts. They have caused civil wars. They have resulted in the death and displacement of millions of people. That fact seems to be ignored, because, I mean, if you LOVE her you’ll buy her a BIG one! I’m going to post a picture of my beautiful ring on Facebook that only cost $2000 (plus 5 African lives).


I have a diamond ring, but honestly if I knew all of this at the time I probably would have insisted on an alternative. I don’t mean to be scathing. I think that people just honestly aren’t informed about the history of diamond rings.
Possible solution: Buy her a mutual fund. Okay, so that’s not romantic. Not all diamonds are blood diamonds. Do your research. Buy conflict-free or cultured (fake) diamonds. These are certified and traceable to be blood-free. Supposedly.
Drugs
The drug war is the cause of fighting all over the world. There is money in drugs. There will always be money in drugs. There is scarcity because they are illegal which increases demand.
Possible solution: Legalizing illegal drugs, regulating and taxing them. I honestly don’t know if that is the solution. I haven’t researched it enough. But right now a majority of the residents of our jails are in there for drugs. I feel like that is a huge cost to our economy and if they were legalized the trade would actually go down. It is a huge loss of revenue right now.
And if they were legal perhaps violence would abate…I would be interested in any opinions out there to influence me. For example how well has legalizing drugs worked out for the Netherlands?
Loans
Credit companies have been known to lend to Africa and other impoverished places knowing they would not be paid back, increasing the debt of both countries substantially.
Possible solution: Regulating more tightly international loans. Comprehensive debt relief should only be granted to countries that have demonstrated a basic commitment to good governance and tackling corruption.

Solutions to Poverty
I believe it comes down to education. A good education will make people more employable, develop skills, and bring power to the individual. Education of Americans in their actions in relation to the rest of the world will prevent them from acting contrary to their principles.

 

Currently, nearly a billion people entered the 21st century unable to read a book or sign their names. We could use our vast resources by creating literacy programs and schools in these countries.

   

Transparency in government. The media needs to dig into these deals that are going on behind closed doors and bring them to light. Politicians need to be held accountable for what sort of transactions are taking place behind closed doors.

A change in US foreign policy. Poverty in other countries is not at the forefront of our foreign policy. I think it’s more like “might is right”. We’ve got military stations all over the world. We do huge arms deals. We glorify war. We glorify our soldiers.

I know to some this is a treasonous idea. But perhaps if there was not glory in war less of it would occur.
A change in US budget priorities. Less than one per cent of what the world spent every year on weapons was needed to put every child into school by the year 2000. Of course that didn’t happen.
The 2009 U.S. military budget is almost as much as the rest of the world's defense spending combined and is over nine times larger than the military budget of China.
That makes me sick.
A change in the US media priorities. When have you ever seen in the national media that the policies of our countries could actually be the cause of the equivalent of a Haiti earthquake in the form of poor people’s deaths every 9 days?

Why does the kidnapping of one rich American news make the news for a week, but the death of I don’t know how many children every second in sub-Saharan Africa rarely if ever make the headlines?
Why isn’t it talked about that the global financial crisis, caused by rich countries, will cause an additional death count of 200,000 to 400,000 children in poor countries?
Why is this not talked about?
I want an answer…
I think that one answer might be that the US has to be primarily concerned with their own interests. But I see country lines as arbitrary distinctions. They didn’t always exist and they will change over time. Humanity can’t be divided by country lines.
I’m afraid that the answer is that if you are poor you don’t matter…at least not in the eyes of the United States. I’m afraid we believe that the life of one rich white American teenager is far more significant than the lives of 20 million uneducated, unrepresented, impoverished black children.
I have hope that this can change.

In an upcoming post I hope to delve deeper into American foreign policy and the reasons we choose to invade other countries.