Buying a Chicken in the Village

Our 2 main running biodigesters are within the city. That means that getting the cow dung requires planning and logistics from a countryside farm into town. Luckily AIDG Haiti has made a few buddies with  small dairy farms and the farms are pretty much in what you would  call suburbia, though that description is a bit of a stretch in an informal urban  sprawl. 

The evening before we have to deliver about 8 buckets, with lids, for the farmer to load them up (with you know what) the following morning for us to pick them up. On one of the occasions that I tagged along we walked into an opening with a cluster of houses, a dairy farm in the back and an enormous US Army tent, apparently donated to a tailoring co-op. If that wasn't bizarre, as I was walking into the compound with Isnido, trying to be as cool and local as I can, I didn't realise that an old lady was trying to talk to me in Creole. My cover was blown, so to speak, and I had to unleash my broken and battered franco-creole.

The savvy granny had her radar on and knew when a potential sale was apparent. She decided that she wanted to sell me one of her chickens. I hesitated then I asked Isnido to open negotiations. She started at 75 Haitian dollars (H$) but Isnido skillfully brought it down to H$ 50. This is the equivalent of about US$6. Now at this point I have to warn you about the currency conversation smokescreen in Haiti, a joy to the street trader, a curse to the gullible foreigner. For starters, the Haitian dollar does not exist.

Before you start thinking about cowry shells and trading with salt, the H$ is a dead currency but a common point of reference, even on restaurant bills. The main currency is the  Haitian Gourde, which is five times the value of the fictitious H$. Therefore the Gourde to US$ is 40:1. It takes a while to grasp 3 currency exchanges at once, whilst coming to terms with the value of things (and this varies a lot depending on whether the item is imported or made locally), and doing mental arithmetic at the same time.

So when Isnido told me the chicken costed H$50 I thought he meant 50 Gourdes which would be 5 times lower than the selling price. In my confusion I assumed that a chicken would be worth the value of a ball of chewing gum. To my embarassment as I whipped out just a 50 Gourde note, everybody looked at me funny. Isnido whispered to me that its in H$, as he returned the note. Doh!

So I removed a note that I thought was a 50 Gourde and continued to rummage for more but Isnido told me to stop. I had just handed him a 250 Gourde note.  The  colour and size of the 50 and 250 Gourde note are similar, and when they are marked (in Haiti, most marked notes are at the point of vapourisation, from overcirculation) even more so. More blushes.

To save face I insisted on examining the chicken, which was a spring chicken by the way. So in addition to handing over the shit buckets, half the village was chasing after the chicken for a whie. After it  was caught, I gave it a good look over. Apart from some feathers missing, it was in good condition.

Now any village scene has a United Nations of domestic animals roaming  around. Well this one had goats, chickens, dogs, cats, ducks, even guinea fowls (otherwise it was one hell of a wierd looking chicken). There was this really poorly looking puppy lying there. Miserable, drowsy, infested with sores and no doubt infections, and circled with flies. I started talking about it but savvy granny was already shoving the poor pup aside and wanted to sell me a healther looking but mangy dog. I'm not sure where my morbid expression was intepreted as another potential business opportunity. Non mesi (no thanks in Creole), madame!

K.

Lost in Translation

The AIDG office is in the centre of the tightly gridded city. All roads parallel to the coastline are lettered and roads going towards the coastline are numbered. The story goes that the French colonialists had them named in words after they were built, but during the American occupation after the 1st World War, the yankee doodle dandy solders couldn't pronounce the damn names and being all military in attitude, decided to codify all the roads in numbers and letters (this is not the last time in my blogs that the US will be blamed for everything!).

View from 2nd floor balcony. The lady is walking down Rue H. The car is going down Rue 25.

The building, taking up 3 floors has the office space on the ground floor, Isnido's family on the 1st floor and visitors and interns on the 2nd floor. But 1st and 2nd floors have balconies, which are great for escaping the inside stuffiness and absorbing the breeze from the sea and hills. Also great for just watching the hustle and bustle below. The photocopy shop next shop every now and then blast music, and Ive recently noticed, giving certain songs to much airtime. All the music here is great by the way, they mainly play Haitian music of all sorts of variety, I think the only genre I wouldn't expect being played here is heavy metal. There is a roof terrace for doing the laundry. It has great views of the centre-ville and the port.

View from rooftop of surrounding hills

On the 2nd day, I was given a tour of the ongoing biodigester installations, one at school and another at a seminary. In a nutshell, for all you regular folks, cow dung powers the generation of biogas for use, in the case of the current projects, for cooking. A mixture of fresh dung and water is poured into an airtight arrangement of modified plastic tanks (and/or or brick basin), creating a nice atmosphere for good bacteria to grow and generate the gas. Pathogenic bacteria are killed in the process and the effluent that is created can be used as fertiliser.

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The seminary biodigester was built as part of a training session for the local winners and runners-up of a business plan competition in Cap Haitien organised by AIDG earlier in the year. The winners are more commercially oriented i.e. more focussed on bringing "widgets to market then taking over the world" and the runners-up are technicians in general, and will need support to get a good business model. The business plan competition was not without its politics and confrontations as you will learn in later blogs. I was lucky to arrive when the dust was just settling.

The seminary Biodigester

On the third day, our voluntary translator, Emmanuel arrived in Cap Haitien. He is a Haitian based in the US, with an excellent knack of flipping between English-French-Creole-Spanish mid-sentence. He did the written and oral translations during some introductory technical training for the business plan competition winners, given by the AIDG programme manager from Guatemala. At a press conference organised by the 1st prize winners, Coopen (Cooperation pour l'exploitation de la nature.....exploitation of a green kind, of course!....multiple meaning in Creole-French!), I learnt that translation can be a headache here because after a Haitian stands up (whether its the press or Joe Public) to ask a question, he will make a long statement turning it into an observation complete with several reasons, inadvertently answering the question. Other times, it will be a speech and the translator has to interrupt.

Steve Lee talks about AIDG at the Coopen Press Conference

The Road to Kap

Some of you may or may not know that I am in Haiti on a renewable energy internship with a small NGO called AIDG (check out www.aidg.org). I got here in Cap Haitien last week and I hope to do the internship for upto 7 months.

Well, the jury is out on what Haiti is like and where the nation is going. But I can tell you there are more signs of a recovering country than a failed state. Infrastructure is pretty poor and so I couldn't just fly into Cap Haitien, though its international airport (the smallest international airport I've ever seen by the way) gets some light aircraft from Florida, the Bahamas and Turks & Caicos Islands.

After short stay in New York (getting there from London), I took a horrifically early flight at 7 a.m. to Santiago, a fertile economic hub to the north west of the Dominican Republic. Thank God the JFK T8 food court was open at 5 am because all American Airlines were going to give me was very very cold water. And while I'm on that topic, what's with the USA and excess air conditioning! The plane was a massive tubular icebox, and the irony was that most of the passengers who were Dominicans (from the Republic that is) were happily sat without a need for blankets. I clutched mine like Charlie Brown, sleep deprived and cranky in a pressurised, freezing, bumpy and dry environment (and the movie selections were crap) of a barely solvent (financially that is, wouldn't be surprised if it was solvent in the rain!) half painted A.A. aircraft.

The arrival in Santiago was smooth (the customs official barely looked at me), though I wouldn't say the same about the  bag carousel that after an eternal wait spewed baggage like dodgy dinner. Santiago has a lot of vehicle dealerships, mainly for SUVs and agri/industrial related vehicles, considering that it is just the 2nd largest city of a country with 10 million people. "Santiago de las Treinta Caballeros" (Santiago of the 30 Gentlemen) is the full name of the  city. Didn't see the gentlemen but on approaching the centre I saw on the top of a hill a phallic "Monument to Heroes of the Restoration", formally known as the "Monument to the Peace of Trujillo" until the assassination of the vainglorious and not so gentlemanly dictator, Raphael Trujillo.

We entered the city limits and the taxi driver put his seatbelt on (hmm). I was dropped off at the Hotel Colonial (in commemoration of the Christopher Columbus landing or the hundreds of years of civilisation, looting and pillage?) where I was to stay for just 1 night, in a room with a view of the other building's wall but at least with air con (the sun wasablazin!) and cable TV. If you went to Spanish school anywhere else in the world, just leave your phrasebook at home. Republican (Dominican, that is) words stick together like blue tack and accelerate like pinballs. You never know whether the shopkeeper is telling you something or is asking you for something. At least the lady at the eatery across the road was friendly and demonstrated the differences between the puzzlingly similar Dominican (Republic, that is...OK, lets call it DM!) Peso, unlike the pharmacist who couldn't understand my request for iodine tablets and rehydration salts as if water-borne disease is as rare as smallpox. Maybe if I said something nice about baseball I would probably communicate better as they as baseball nuts here. A lot of DMs become major leaguers in the US. But in Haiti, baseball is as uninteresting as rugby to most Indians.

I only spent 1 day in DM, and I got the feel of a chilled out and friendly people despite a history of dodgy authoritarian politics, international intervention, confused national identity and a love/hate relationship with Haiti. I was to take a 4 hour coach ride across the northern border to Cap Haitien. You are probably picturing a humid, rickety and noisy Leyland, sat at the back of the bus next to a fat smelly lady, clucking chickens and getting kicked by a billy goat. But oh, no. You just pay some money at the Caribe Bus Tour office and they stick you on an air-conditioned coach with fully reclining comfy seats, and hot food served by a hostess. Border fees all paid for in the fare so you don't even have to come out of the coach.

Another surprise, the whole road to Kap (Cap Haitien) was pretty smooth though the countryside contrasts were stark when we crossed the frontier. The crossing was eternal as a couple of Haitians were importing a lot of goods, and both DM and Haitian officials needed a bit of sweetening to smooth out the passage of the aforementioned goods. It was like a pantomime as I watched the scene from inside the bus of the Haitian gesticulating with his hands and the pot-bellied border official looking passive and emotionless. Meanwhile the hostess is catching up with old pals at the border, with the shoe shine boys playing sign language with the foreign looking passengers, looking for business. Finally the hostess distributed water bottles amongst the officials and the pantomime was over.

My first sight in Haiti was Styrofoam. Styrofoam boxes all over the river bed, where many were washing their clothes and bathing. The same Styrofoam in which my lunch was contained. Styrofoam is cheaper than a calabash, porcelain, clay plate or banana leaf but unfortunately doesn't germinate into a Styrofoam tree! Another Haitian passenger on the bus who has clearly been away for a while was tisking audibly every time we saw open sewers, random dump sites and clusters of shacks. However, as we edged away from Ouanaminthe, the border town, the scene got more country but the rice fields were in smaller plots than in DM, a marker of more subsistence farming than farming at an industrial scale. Houses were wooden, some thatched and a couple of stone buildings. The land seemed quite fertile but there were bits where it seems the land dried out, perhaps from over farming or deforestation.

I saw the first MINUSTAH (the UN peacekeeping mission in Haiti. check out: http://minustah.org/) base, and a couple more followed upto the city, with mainly Uruguayan and Chilean troops. We didn't see the sea until arrival at Kap, as Haiti is more vast than I thought. The plains are interrupted by mountain ranges before hitting the sea but the main road was flat all the way. The outskirts were random arrays of shacks of breeze block, timber and metal tightly packed, some stacked on top of each other, developing country style, with the steel rebars exposed at the top. This area of informal settlement, is just outside the colonially designed gridded downtown end but they line part of the coastline including all the plastic waste and raw sewage seeping out of the slums and the defunct USAID storm drains. The city was heaving with activity at 4pm, with the "tap-tap" public transport modified pick-ups whizzing by, traders balancing their whole shop of their heads,scooters, 4wDs etc. The ocean drive, known as the Boulevard, starts of with the smelly port and ends with a couple of nice bars and restaurants (but this isn't no Miami Beach, don't get me wrong!).

I was received by Roudelin and Isnido, the Haitian AIDG staff and Steve, the Director of Operations who is around for a month to help steer the AIDG projects. I'm playing catchup with this blog and I shall do my best to do an entry a day to keep y'all tantalised. So, welcome to the nation that whooped the Napoleonic army in 1804, still widely respected by many Africans for that feat and its initial enlightened period but the butt of "poor country jokes" elsewhere. Bonswa, en Creole Haitien!

K.

From Genocide to Continental War

I'm quoting the title of a new book on the recent conflicts in DR Congo by Gerard Prunier (Book info:http://www.amazon.co.uk/Genocide-Continental-War-Congolese-Contemporary/dp/1850655235), a hard talking, insightful, old skool historian with a slightly crude streak. I attended a book launch at a Demos (http://www.demos.co.uk/) presentation by him.

By crude, perhaps I'm being too modest in trying to explain his declaration that African-Americans couldn't possibly have the edge to help solve the central Africa conflict problem if they mostly hold similar "Western" lofty ideas of an interventionist and ideological solution. Or his dismissal of Africa as a key player in world trade when the statistics show the continent as a blip compared to its potential to supply the hungry industrialising East with raw materials. And his succinct response to the multinational corporation influence question, explaining that the multinationals value a stable and benign business environment as opposed to small /medium sized companies who "loot" at the lowest bidder, break national and international laws and hide in the Caymans, Virgin Islands or wherever else the proverbial white collar looters hide their booty. His deep experience in the intrigues of conflict politics make up for his feather ruffling abilities.

You are probably wondering where the hell I am going with this. After all, we are talking about the Congo right? Yes and No. The conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo, according to Prunier, from the fall of Mobutu Seseseko in 1996 until the Sun City Peace Treaty of 2002 was not just an anecdotal war that managed to kill millions of people in 6 years, it was a mega medley of wars within wars, a mishmash of proxy wars involving neighbouring nations. The biggest war that has ever been forgotten.

I lost track on which country was supporting which Congolese rebel or governmental group. All I remember from the talk is that Angola and Zambia had interests in Congo whilst undermining South African interests: Undermining being the operative word - the mines of Katanga! Angola provided troops and hardware to the government whilst Rwanda were funding rebel groups in the Eastern part, with Uganda fuming in the background without upsetting Rwanda (who helped Obote get toppled by Museveni).


By the way, since we are in gossip mode, the cold war had a role here. Apparently Nyerere of Tanzania a well known Marxist was only happy to help in finding a replacement for Mobutu (another son of the CIA), but to appease all the compromise was a political incompetent called Laurent Kabila but so neutral in allegiance that what happened was that a ragtag cabinet of barmen, PhDs and former ambassadors daughters was formed. The ministry of finance consisted of a dishing around of wads of cash. Government ceased to exist and proxy control was the game. Oh and Sudan got stuck in as they didn't want Uganda using Congo as a staging area for supporting the SPLA. And Chad as Prunier puts it, a typical French client state, was in its suspended animation stuporferic tendency to shift along the lines of the leading sponsor was prodded by Libya to get into the conflict sending troops with only desert warfare experience into the jungle.

What about Genocide? Prunier uses the client state analogy again to describe Rwanda. It seems that the French were happy to have post-colonial client states, meaning enjoying the patronage of these countries for certain strategic decisions (quite dissimilar to former British colonies who have tried to wrestle away all influence) but they underestimated Rwanda. Apparently les Francais would have been expecting a go ahead from Habyarimana to launch an inter-tribal conflict and it was only after months of muted silence after the genocide did the rest of the world realise that post-colonial client state stereotypes don't always work. Where was globo-cop? US of A? UN? Kagame is only right in saying that France could have had an influence to limit the genocide or stop it, but he was wrong in saying that it was complicit (Thats my opinion as a side comment). At the moment he is harbouring Laurent Nkunda, a Tutsi rebel from Eastern Congo wanted by the ICC for crimes against humanity (crimes against his own people!) who seems to have suddenly become Rwandan and in exile in the comfortable Milles Collines. Who you are fighting for depends on what uniform you put on that morning, as the saying goes.

But the question that was on people's minds at the event was not whose fault it is. Rather who can stop it. Prunier talked about a reorganisation going on in Africa where some nations are showing promise with stronger civic society, well scrutinised politicians under waning corruption, disciplined armies, serious economic policies etc etc, with the true solutions only coming from the continent. He cited comparisons with the brutality of the European 30 years war in the 17th century that ended with treaties and fixed borders preventing destabilisation of nations until the 1st world war but I felt that argument was weak as today conflicts are different in nature and influences are different. Globalisation, militarisation i.e. sophisticated arms trading, economic Diasporas not to mention the post-colonial stigma that hangs on everyone's heads. I don't buy the Africa's problems solved by Africa only line. It's like flood victims in Mozambique saying global warming is China's fault. Though the solutions need to be originated by Africans and supported by those abroad who care, not those who think it makes business sense. Let me jog your memory: Iraq!

These are not just my counter arguments. They are also the concerns of a very vocal member of the audience, Leah Chishungi amongst others. When I spoke to her I thought she hated Pruniers guts but she explained that she respects his candid talk but chastises his impersonal outlook. She is a human rights campaigner focusing on violence against women and children. Only after reading some blogs later on did I find out that she is a Rwanda Genocide survivor.

(See some blogs on her:

http://www.everythingisabenefit.org/

http://en.wordpress.com/tag/leah-chishugi/)

Comrades! Shareholders! Lend me your ears!

I was profoundly amazed at work a couple of months ago. Who would have thought that a draft corporate policy paper could read like an oppressive communist manifesto? Read on, see my translation and the "original" (some details adjusted for obvious reasons!) text....



1.1.1 Solidarity & the ideals of the party

The revolutionary party is centred around its omnipotent and experienced Chairman, Comrade Clarkson, who stewards the proletariat. There is an iron clad willpower within Yenob; many party members commented that Comrade Clarkson galvanises activities in the various socialist republics such that the geographic separation is not evident in the peoples daily calling, from the loyal workers in their factories to the gulags for dissident bourgeois pigs. As the union of free states and revolutionary republics grows this close involvement will become increasingly difficult as we proceed to banish serfdom and smoke out every elitist class enemy from their gold plated cages. Many of our dear comrades also commented on the culture of openness to the teachings of our founding father, Comrade Clarkson within Yenob;, again stimulated by strong and clear leadership from the Central Committee.

The organisational structure is highly relevant to the sustainability of peoples republic of Yenob and its union of socialist republics; Nations on the other side of the proverbial iron curtain organised as a web of vain, idol worshipping (with the centralised control of greedy capitalists, whether a small team or individual) bigots have eventually to evolve into other structures, typically a unified cluster of the proletariat, guided by the Central Committee. To maintain some of the benefits of the technologies that they stole from us in the Grand War, the submission of buffer states to our will must be planned and implemented with ruthless efficiency in order that Yenob thrives in the long term. A model for the future handover of reformed states and the enhancement of the executive powers of Comrade Clarkson as "Guardian of Equality For The Proletariat" may need to be addressed (for example: Chairman Earl Drummond and the CCP of the Liberated Serfs, Peasants and Fishermen Peoples Republic chose to place the nation in the trust of the crimson book and the great plunge forward with eternal mantra of "steel not cabbage, pork and sushi"!).

1.1.1 Culture & the nature of the organisation

The company is centred around its highly respected and successful Chairman, Gregory Clarkson, who owns the company. This is an enormous strength within Yenob; many people in the company commented that Gregory pulls together the activities in the various offices such that the geographic separation is not evident in daily operations. As the company grows this close involvement will become increasingly difficult. Many also commented on the culture of openness within Yenob; again stimulated by strong and clear leadership from the top.

The organisational structure is highly relevant to the sustainability of Yenob; Companies organised as a web (with centralised control, by a small team or individual) have eventually to evolve into other structures, typically a hierarchy. To maintain some of the benefits of the web and to ensure a smooth transition this change must be planned and implemented with care in order that Yenob thrives in the long term. A model for the future ownership and self-determination of the company may need to be addressed (for example: Earl Drummond and Partners chose to place the company in trust on behalf of employees past and present).

Contrite Hearts

It's always the same storyline. A community or a group of people within a region get ill. This time we are in Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire. They have the same symptoms, this time respiratory complaints. Several deaths are reported and more follow after a couple of weeks. Local leaders get concerned, doctors are overwhelmed and the people are angry. The complaints started after items were mysterious dumped at different spots in the city. In this case, it is toxic waste derived from crude oil. Fingers are pointed and lawyers are hired. A thread emerges when a loose end is tugged at. It leads to a corporation, this time based in Europe, and it's called Trafigura.

The legal action by the community in Abidjan ended with a massive payout of about $200 million from Trafigura to Cote d'Ivoire for the dumping of 4oo tonnes of this toxic waste from a vessel named Proabo Koala. Trafigura's statement, that accompanied the compensation, denied responsibility over the actual act of illegal dumping, but only accepted ownership of the toxic cargo until handing over to an unscrupulous Ivorian businessman, with no track record of safely handling toxic hydrocarbons, who is now languishing in jail. He was the convenient fall guy. Because he is Ivorian I'm sure that deep in the recesses of his mind and soul he is more remorseful, as the horrific stories of an 18 year old man suddenly dying from a respiratory disease or of women miscarrying creep through the jail cell.



Despite Trafigura flouting all sorts of international regulations on waste handling, and numerous traces of falsified papers no one from the organisation has actually been found guilty of a single crime. The big man never gets touched. But is he well and truly sorry? The co-founder, Eric de Turckheim was repeatedly asked by the bullish Jeremy Paxman of the BBC, "why were you sending toxic waste to Africa?". He kept dodging a direct answer by issuing pseudo-statements on Trafiguras ethical and safe practices and when finally the repetition was exhausted he said, as if he was actually in Abijdan on the fateful day: "these materials were not dangerous for human beings. It was smelly, but not dangerous." Spin.

The vessel, Proabo Koala, was turned away from Amsterdam port during an attempted treatment procedure that resulted in the fire service and safety officials being called in after the foul stench of Mercaptan, one of the most pungent organic chemicals in the world, emanated for miles. If the atrocity happened in Amsterdam, de Turckheim would have paid dearly for the rest of his professional life in a Dutch jail. For Corporate Manslaughter perhaps.

$200 million. The value of a contrite heart and a good night's sleep for the Executives at Trafigura.

Check out:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/may/13/trafigura-pr-campaign-pollution-ivory-coast

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

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/8048626.stm

By-Gone Legends

Will Dubai ever become the stuff of legends? In terms of by-gone legends, some sort of Atlantis / Roman Empire hybrid.

Photograph by Maggie Steber (National Geographic)

I am amazed that we as humans can build so much at breakneck speed and, awash with cash, make attempts to contain nature - reclaiming land as residential property - and make the stuff of dreams - ski slopes with real snow at the edge of a desert - to the point of utter vanity and little substance. At the height of the Dubai success story, all we were hearing were the virtues of a deluxe carefree life and the transformation of fishing villages, beyond the oil boom to a new world finance hub with ivy league universities opening campuses there. Secure in the rising value of snapped up houses - that were not yet complete - oil money being seeded and bloomed using the sophisticated financial instruments that shook the world economy recently, who the hell were they kidding?

Yet, perhaps, hundreds of years from now people might write about Dubai in a folkloric manner, trying to understand what motivated humans back then - today - , what really caused the economic collapse - we may never know as the mechanism of the economic downturn is hysteria driven and hard to define -, and ultimately what the lesson is.

Some interesting reads if you really want to understand the Dubai legacy and what went wrong.

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-hari/the-dark-side-of-dubai-1664368.html

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2007/01/dubai/molavi-text.html