Headline you almost certainly haven't seen...
AUSTRALIAN DOLLAR AT ALL TIME HIGH, PERFECT TIME TO DONATE TO OVERSEAS PROJECTS
If you have ever thought of giving a donation to an overseas project, now might be the time. Your Aussie dollar is worth heaps which means even a little donation is worth a lot. For anyone thinking 'sounds good, but I don't know where to put my cash,' consider supporting Caritas. This mob (the charitable arm of the Church) supports local projects rather than flying in with a big plane with a WHITE GUYS flag on it. Just a thought.
I'm still shrugging my shoulders about aid work in general but there can be no doubt that the individual lives touched are improved. Perhaps an economy improves best if allowed to develop on its own but individuals are still left to suffer as that development occurs.
It is interesting to note that when African countries got their independence in the 1960s, the citizens of China were living in poverty far worse than that of Africans. In the past forty years, billions of dollars in aid have poured into Africa from the west and virtually none has gone to China. Now, the Chinese, as the world's second largest economy are building the roads in Tanzania as their form of aid. I'll leave it to someone brighter than me to work out why.
I do know that millions of Chinese died or lived like crap to get their economy the way it is today, but millions of Africans died too and many still do live like crap.
I also meet so many people here whose lives have changed for the better as a result of aid. For example, one small boy down the road from us attends a school called St Jude's (the patron saint of lost causes) which is run by an Australian lady. Although to me the school looks to be taking away the need for families to aspire for social mobility by providing private schooling at no cost, this boy is thriving. He is nine years old and speaks fluent English. Most students here might achieve that at the age of eighteen or nineteen if ever. He will receive opportunities that the other children in his village will never dream of and as a result his family will benefit. The argument that direct aid damages societies may be true to a point but it would require that this boy miss out.
Far from painting a dismal picture however, much is changing for the better as a result of African people improving Africa. Currently, African economies are growing at a ridiculous rate while the west stagnates. Perhaps I shouldn't be saying 'give aid', perhaps I should be saying 'invest'. One great example is mobile phones. Almost every Tanzanian has at least one mobile phone. Local African companies are making a killing by finding ways to integrate services into mobile phones that we do other ways. For instance, even people without bank accounts can now transfer money electronically using a service called M-Pesa. You charge your phone with credit, punch in a key and your mate's phone number then she can go to the local phone shop and withdraw cash. Cool huh? I could go on but I already have.
Back to Arusha
I'm back from likizo (holiday) and I've taken up a position as teacher of senior literature. I'm a history/RE teacher, but that doesn't seem to bother anyone. It would seem some things are universal. Today I spent ten minutes convincing a student that no, learning quotes from his book was not a 'waste of time' and yes, the assessor will care if he bothered. On the whole though, the students are ace and they enjoy my lame attempts at Swahili in the classroom. Just the other day a gust of wind blew the door shut and I whispered 'mzuka' (ghost). They absolutely lost it. Mzuka is also a greeting that really gangsta guys use.
So, my week in Zanzibar. Let's just say if I wrote this checklist before I left I could check each one.
- Stay in bungalow that literally opens to the beach
- Scuba-Dive with sea turtles and sting rays over colourful reef
- Eat lobster on desert island
- Eat fish in a shack on the sand
- Visit remote village festival for the Muslim holiday of Eid El Fitr
- Snorkel through schools of fish
- Ride motorcycles along the beach at sunset
- Sail in a dhow that gets surrounded by dolphins
- Take drinks at a bar that is in the middle of the sea on stilts
- Laze on perfect white beaches with azure seas
- Visit the red colobus monkeys, some of the rarest in the world (they had a cold so were sneezing)
Gold. Pure Gold.
So I have actually had three shots at finishing this blog. I am so past due to post something that I have become slack. It reminds me of university students who, once past the due date for an assignment manage to stretch it out for a month or more rather than hand it in a day late.
A few days back I went to visit a school in Monduli, a town an hour and a half north-west of Arusha deep into Masai country. An American couple we met in town are living and working there and invited me to have a look. It is an amazing school in a spectacular location. One of the Masai mamas there boasted that where there was once just a herd of elephants they now have a school! The school is only three years old so does not yet have a complete complement of year levels but the students who are there are very friendly and engaged.
The trip was a great opportunity to see the difference between aid styles, locations and students. The school in Monduli is funded from the States, has a fifty fifty American to Tanzanian teacher ratio and is directed at students (105 of them) who would otherwise not get an education. The difference between this and Edmund Rice where I teach is marked. We are majority African funded, staffed almost exclusively by Tanzanian teachers and our students (1500 of them) are often high-achieving and a little self confident. Our school feels a lot more edgy than the idyllic school in Monduli. I wonder whether the feel at Monduli will last.
Last week we attended a trivia night run by a local NGO called food water shelter who run a sustainable model village for at risk mothers and their children. Theirs is a pretty amazing project. We came second and won a spectacular dinner at a very swanky restaurant.
Well thanks for reading through this rather belated and unusually theoretical blog. Do rest assured that I edited the willies out of the theoretical bit because it was starting to sound like an article from The Economist. It is left sounding a little unsure and that is probably a fair approximation of my current thoughts.
Matt
PS. After the last blog I was asked a few questions... thanks Bronwyn. I will write a question answering blog this week if anyone else has other questions too. Mfyfield @gmail.com
