Looking in the Crystal Ball

There's a lot Joy and I still don't know about what is going to happen in the next few months, but for anyone interested, we do have some decisions made at least. So here's a rough timeline, if everything works out the way we think. It brings to mind the old line, "If you want to hear God laugh, tell Him your plans." These should be worth a chuckle.

We hope to have heard back from any school still interested in me this week. Within the next couple weeks I will be flying out to visit Nigeria. We hope to have a final decision about where then or very shortly thereafter. So we'll stop being silent/coy/private in a few weeks.

Baby Lavinia arrives June 24 and we begin a frantic dash to get her passported and visad.

Early July we will move out of Ithaca and visit our families in California and Utah, blessing Lavinia in my parents' ward.

Late July or early August we leave for our grand, three year adventure.

I'm sorry we've been keeping rather quiet about things online. It's certainly not for lack of interest as we can find precious little else to talk about that is quite so engaging. Until a decision is made, though, we would rather not jinx anything. The places still on the table are each very interesting prospects that we are excited about and we'd love to tell you more ... soon. We just know we probably won't be in Ithaca for more than another 10 weeks.

Miracle in Sierra Leone

I was most fascinated to read the following account today about some of the first Latter-day Saints (Mormons) in Sierra Leone. The first converts in Freetown were baptized in 1988. By 1990 there were a number of LDS congregations with chapels, including several in Bo, second largest city in Sierra Leone. But then in January 1991, Ezra Taft Benson - then president of the church - sent a letter to the local leadership, Brother Touray,

in which he asked the Saints in Bo to abandon their meetinghouses and to gather again in their homes to worship. The young leaders were very discouraged, feeling that the buildings were such an important milestone for the Church in this part of Sierra Leone.
Uniformly, members were disappointed and unhappy about the request. Some members of the infant congregations were offended that the prophet in Utah would give such unwelcome advice. Others were heard to question whether or not the prophet understood their circumstances, and, lacking faith in the Lord's servants, they left the Church. Others felt the stirring of testimony and confirmation of the Spirit, and while they didn't understand why President Benson would ask such a thing, they knew him to be a prophet. They had also come to trust their mission president who they loved. President Touray spoke recently of those days with grateful appreciation. He was sad and discouraged, but "recognized that we had been given a formal commandment, and I had to obey. I realized it would be very important for us to obey although I did not know why at the time." The chapel doors were closed.
In March 1991, civil war erupted in Sierra Leone and this little nation became engulfed in a fiery battle that lasted more than a decade. Communities collapsed, infrastructures deteriorated, banks were shuttered, food was in scarce supply and repeated military coups left uncertainty as to who was a friend or foe. Churches were frequently targeted by the rebels with bullets and firebombs, and thousands of people lost their lives while sitting on pews hoping to pray and worship.
But the members of the Lord's Church were safe from this harm for they were home worshiping in obedience to a prophet's counsel.
President Touray spoke of the miracle that had come to the people because of their obedience. "No member of the Church died in Bo during the war — not one. The LDS Church was the only church that continued operating during the war in Bo — the only one. Every other church closed its doors. It was too dangerous for the people to walk to church and too dangerous to sit and worship. None of us (the Latter-day Saints) had any problem during the war. We worshipped through the whole war no matter how grave the situation was. Because we were obedient, our members received this great blessing."

Which of these is not a joke?

1 - Early last month the mayor of Topeka, Kansas stunned the world by announcing that his city was changing its name to Google. We’ve been wondering ever since how best to honor that moving gesture. Today we are pleased to announce that as of 1AM (Central Daylight Time) April 1st, Google has officially changed our name to Topeka. -- Topeka's Blog

2 - Harvard has decided to auction off 100 slots in next year's freshman class to the highest bidders. - Mankiw

3 - Blattman tells us to "Ask not what you can do for poor African children, but what poor African children can do for you."



4 - The Heritage Foundation is the originator of ObamaCare. - Sumner

5 - Let's turn the London subway into a super hadron collider. - The Independent

Brilliant ideas

The average person in Sub-Saharan Africa uses 4 gallons of water a day*. That isn't even how much they would like to use if it flowed freely and cheaply through a tap, but how much is used. Y'see, only 56% of SS Africans have access to an "improved" water source within a kilometer of their home (World Bank, 2008). So 44% have to travel over half a mile, and in some cases much much more, to find water that may or may not be of good quality.

How do they do this? Mostly the women and children carry the water by hand, and mostly that means in 5-gallon, 40-pound drums balanced on their heads. This is hard work (try carrying two gallons of milk around with you on a lap around the store and think of doing 2-3 times that weight for up to 5 hours a day).

Well, at least two projects have addressed this by going back to that most basic of inventions: The Wheel. Why rectangular drums? Make them big round drums and they can be rolled, pushed, or pulled by rope and put much less strain on head, neck, shoulders, arms, and back. It makes the work safer and easier, and reduces the time because they aren't as burdened. One project is called Hippo Roller (left) and another is the Q Drum (right, hat tip Chris Blattman). Pres. Obama's stepmother is even seen supporting the initiatives.

I have mentioned the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' efforts to bring improved water sources to the DR Congo here.




* - I have to wonder if that includes South Africa in the estimate and what the difference is between the arid Sahel and the tropic regions: Africa is not a country.

This in from ... Africa: Less Conflict than Advertised

The entry for today's correction of African stereotypes comes from Easterly's excellent and relatively new blog, Aid Watch where you can find the entire...
-----------------------
reaction to President Obama’s speech in Ghana by guest blogger Leonard Wantchekon, NYU Professor of Politics

Overall, I like the theme of the President Obama’s speech in Ghana. Africans must own their future by strengthening democratic institutions and the rule of law in their countries, and by becoming less reliant on assistance. I also like the idea of a real partnership between Africa and other developed countries based on trade. It is very much in line with what most of us would think. He said:

"America can also do more to promote trade and investment. Wealthy nations must open our doors to goods and services from Africa in a meaningful way. ..."

What I find a bit questionable is this:

"Africa is not the crude caricature of a continent at perpetual war. But if we are honest, for far too many Africans, conflict is a part of life, as constant as the sun ... These conflicts are a millstone around Africa's neck."

My sense is that in saying this he has helped to perpetuate, perhaps unwittingly, the very caricature that he questions. Conflict is NOT as constant as the sun in Africa. While this may have been the reality of the 1970s and the 1980s, it is certainly no longer the case. He forgot to add that many of these conflicts were proxy wars between the US and the former Soviet Union (such as that in Angola), or were manufactured by France (such as that in Congo Brazzaville).

The average African country is at peace. Moreover, it is a democracy, albeit one with relatively weak state capacity, such as Liberia, and Mali. Zimbabwe is the exception, not the rule. And even in Zimbabwe, where there is 90% unemployment, incredible hardships and repression, most people want democracy, not another war.

Freedom, especially freedom of the press, has also drastically improved in the majority of African countries, to the point where Reporters Without Borders have ranked several African nations above developed countries such as Italy and Japan.

... In terms of the strongman syndrome, things have changed for the better. All across Africa courts and unions have tried (most of the time successfully) to block and prevent constitutional changes that would allow the sitting president to run for an additional term (African presidents have therefore been less successful than the Mayor of New York City in this regard!). Afrobarometer surveys suggest that 75% of Africans reject military rule, 73% reject a one-party system, and 79% reject strongman rule. ...

[People responded to the initial blog post, and this comes from his response.]

How many countries that can be considered to be at war, in Africa? The two clear cut cases are Somalia, and Sudan. But you can add Chad and to some extent Congo. That is 4 out of 54 countries in Africa. That is 7 percent of Africa. You can throw in Nigeria or Kenya because of electoral violence. But would we call India a country at war? ...

[If] we want to promote investment and tourism in Africa, it is really counter-productive to exaggerate the security situation. We also need to report progress, which has been significant in the past 10 years.

------------

The map on the right comes from the US State Dept. Humanitarian Information Unit. I see only 4 countries where there is widespread conflict (as opposed to hot spots), but a number of other countries do have hot spots than acknowledged above. Even so, the percent of Africa in conflict is quite low compared to historical averages and stereotypes alike. I found a similar 1999 map from the BBC and it shows a similar, albeit less-detailed, picture.

Different Perspectives on Africa

Chris Blattman (Yale prof of econ and poli sci) has been in Uganda for his work and brings in the following report:

Where southerners fear to tread

I make my last trip down from Uganda's north to Kampala today, before heading back to Liberia on Wednesday.

I'm reminded of a trip south more than two years ago, shortly after the war ended and LRA [Lord's Resistence Army] rebels moved to cantonment sites in southern Sudan. The roads finally safe to travel without military escort, Jeannie and I took two weeks to drive a 4x4 from Kitgum down to the Rwandan border, visiting wildlife parks, mountain retreats, and lakeside villages on the way down.

As we crossed out of the conflict zone, we stopped for petrol. Southern Ugandans fear the north of their country, and hold all sorts of misconceptions. So we weren't surprised when the wide-eyed station attendant asked what we were doing driving out of the north. She'd never before seen two wazungu alone on the road.

We explained that we worked in Kitgum with war-affected youth, but were taking a short holiday. It was then our turn to look wide-eyed.

"Those poor people up there. How they have suffered," she replied. "I had no idea how bad it was, though, until I saw it last week on Oprah."

Now that is a national diconnect. Even today we have trouble finding drivers in Kampala who will brave a trip to the (now peaceful) north. As best I can tell, Uganda has surrendered reconstruction in the north to the hundreds of American missionaries and college students that flock to Gulu for internships. As we speak, I'm flanked by two 20-year olds updating their Facebook pictures.

It will be a long road to post-conflict development in Uganda...

------------------------

Some QWiki facts on Uganda:
31 million people;
about 84% Christian (40% Cath, 33% Anglican), 12% Islam;
lots of untapped natural resources including fertile fields, mineral wealth, oil and gas;
Landlocked next door to the DRC, Sudan, Kenya, and Tanzania;
GDP per capita of ... $300. No, there's no zero missing. And this represents an improvement.

"Africans have cell phones? Who do they call?"

So much in life is about our perceptions and understandings, and it takes a fairly wide variety of images to get a passibly correct idea about anything. Here's one picture from the multifaceted gem called Africa: Cell Phones.

Cell phones are transforming fairly large swaths of Africa - the western coast and particularly Kenya and newly Tanzania (the large red blob on the eastern part of Africa) are seeing massive widespread growth in cell phone coverage. (some) Rural towns without drinking water and sanitation have cell phone towers at the public school. Cell phones in Kenya do a good deal more than we make use of them in the US - they do their banking, job hunting, and find out market prices via cell phone. When I was at ATHGO last summer, our policy proposal dealt with using cell phones to increase political literacy, democracy, and participation - informing people of legislation that would affect them and giving them a forum to voice their opinions.


I found this short video today at Bill Easterly's blog where Kenyan businsswoman June Arunga discusses how some of the stereotypes we have of African poverty can stand in the way of the kind of investments that would help people lift themselves out. She was speaking at the Aid Watch conference at NYU.


June Arunga on Western Attitudes Towards Business in Africa from LF on Vimeo.

Again, this is one image of many. I'm not claiming cell phones will save the world. But it's a part, and it's a part less-understood.