Review: It's Our Turn to Eat

It's Our Turn to Eat by Michela Wrong

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Terrific book. By now I have a real soft spot for Michela Wrong so I'll probably like anything she ever writes again, even if that's a turgid write-up of all the Chinese meals she's ever had. It's Our Turn to Eat is, to borrow an over-used term from the literary "cognoscenti", a very important book. For anyone not convinced (how could you not be?) of the deleterious effects of corruption and tribal / ethnic loyalty (as against loyalty to principles or ideas), this is a must-read.

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Conquering Kilimanjaro. Almost.

[The events hereunder described took place from 5th to 10th July 2010.] 

Day 1
 

The glory of Kilimanjaro was first apparent to me in 2006 during a visit to Amboseli National Park in southern Kenya. Scraping together what remained of my holiday allowance from work, I headed to visit my girlfriend who was a journalist with Reuters in their Nairobi office. A five day trip packed in three days in the wonderful game park on the border with Tanzania whence we could see, from our hotel room window, the still snow-capped peak in a remarkable couple days when the entire mountain appeared free from its usual nebulous shroud. In yet another demonstration of the turns life can take it probably wouldn’t have occurred to the Erik of April 2006 that a little over four years later he would have been living in Kigali for a year and a half via Mexico, Peru, California and Nevada and would be climbing that mountain from the other side in Tanzania.
 

An early wake-up, for a vacation. Up not long after sunrise to have breakfast, ensure all our gear is packed and get on the bus which is to whisk us to the start of the Rongai route. After multiple stops we eventually get under way around two in the afternoon. Rongai is a quieter, less traveled path up the Eastern side of Kilimanjaro. The more popular means to climbing the mountain is via the Marangu route, colloquially known as the Coca Cola route. We set off from an altitude of two thousand meters, through a forest landscape. Eventually the forest gives way to tall shrubbery. Our guide is Hadji who claims to be from Chicago but who is clearly Tanzanian born and raised. No sign of the mountain which is obscured by cloud. We’re hiking in t-shirts but it’s not long before we’re adding fleeces at the first rest stop. After just four hours we have arrived at our first camp (altitude 2,650m). We set up in our tents and almost immediately it’s time for dinner. Just as with the hikes I went on in Peru (Choquequirao and Macchu Pichu) our meals are served in a tent with chairs and a table. The food isn’t as good as it was in Peru but then the South American country is well known for its culinary artistry whereas, for the most part, East Africa isn’t. An hour or so of chatting and in bed by nine. We all sleep until nearly seven.
 

Day 2
 

Wake-up call with coffee delivered to the tent. Hesitate a few minutes before emerging from the tent whereupon a slice of Kilimanjaro and an entire neighboring peak called Mawenzi appear majestically. As we prepare for the day the clouds clear until we see Uhuru Peak, the Roof of Africa. The Sun hits the two snowcaps and behind us the rising sun casts a red glare across the entire horizon and the mountains of western Kenya. After breakfast we set off as the clouds close in again. Still in t-shirts we ascend to three thousand meters before our first rest. The fleece goes on as the temperature drops. The guide informs us that we are halfway to our objective for the day and it’s yet to hit ten in the morning! As we resume the tall shrubbery recedes. Yellow, white and purple flowers (elder flowers we are told) appear. Bees, so unusual to the Rwandan resident, fly by. The Sun breaks through the clouds and in no time we’re above the white haze looking back on an endless expanse of off-white cumulus. A little further ahead and we’v reached camp (altitude 3,480m).
 

Lunch is served and is swiftly followed by a guilty stretching out under the warm afternoon Sun. The landscape has morphed yet again into a cross between the lowlands of Scotland and the hinterlands of the Cote d’Azure; dry, craggy rock, parched earth and green heather and gorse. After a couple hours of intense Sun a cool breeze sweeps across the mountain from north to south enticing the dry grass and heather into a lazy dance. Mist begins to form just above the clouds and threatens to engulf our camp at two in the afternoon but the breeze and Sun do their part to ensure a few more hours of basking in the warm embiance. The sensation is not unlike skiing in April, stripped as we are of shoes, socks and sweaters. Little birds provide a sonorous backdrop while large black crows lend a vaguely ominous air to the scene. Every time we crane our necks there looms Kibo Peak which marks 5,000m, two snowcaps bookending the crown with a small smattering of white in between. In the afternoon we go for a stroll a couple hundred meters up at which point our guide declares that the snowcaps used to extend to the point at which we are now standing, a good kilometer and a half in altitude below the lowest evidence of snow today. We are surrounded by thinning bush and tenacious tussock grass. From here we can see that no more than half a kilometer away the vegetation line delineates yet another terrain. From this vantage point it appears moon-like and portends a strenuous final day.
 

Our original itinerary had laid out a six day roundtrip with Uhuru Peak reached by sunrise on the fifth day. Following two days of no more than four hours of less-than-challenging hiking and the prospect of a pathetically short two-and-a-half-hour effort scheduled by our guide for the third day, our group puts in a polite request to up the pace. (In retrospect this was a misguided determination, the effect of which would be strongly felt on day four. Six alpha-type individuals with no mediating influence bar the accompagnateurs whose salaries we were paying.) An alternative plan is hatched; we’ll be climbing over a kilometer tomorrow instead of less than half that and beginning the final 1,200m ascent to the summit at around midnight on day three. This fine day draws to a close with what we believe will be a cinematic viewing of a spectacular sunset over the northern ridge of Kilimanjaro and out over the vast expanse of cloud stretched out ahead of us. And then disaster strikes. For the third time in the space of just a few hours the white blanket spews forth a wall of mist which rapidly clambers up the mountain towards us. In under five minutes we are enveloped. All hands snatch warm clothes from their resting places and our hopes for a technicolor show dissipate into the surrounding fog. And just as soon as it comes in, it goes out. The Sun lingers a few finger-widths above the ridge and our show is back on. And what a show! Every shade and hue from lemon yellow to ketchup red backlights the ridge and accents the clouds. The orange-glowing orb swiftly dips below the ridge and leaves in its wake a strong chill. The final act of this dramatic scene has the slopes of Kilimanjaro turn orange-grey before the curtain falls.
 

Day 3
 

“Tea!” Our wake-up call comes just after daybreak and the tea delivered to our tent flap provides welcome relief from the night spent tossing in unsuccessful attempts at avoiding contact with the ineffectual sleeping bag rented from the guide company; the cold permeates the inner lining with such ease and at such low altitude that concern brews all around at what is to come. In the small hours I had had to slip out of my sleeping bag and tent to answer nature’s call and found myself not only shivering wildly but struggling for breath camped as we are two kilometers higher than is my habit. Not even a glance up at the starry, starry night could break the mild panic my body was experiencing so I scampered back inside and told myself to calm down. Our hike that morning sees the vegetation thin until there is virtually none left. The tree-line is in sight when we stop briefly for lunch. By this point our group has developed its dynamic; Barbara and her boyfriend Tobi lose their individual identities and become simply, “The Austrians”; Courtney spends the entire time reminding us to, “hydrate!” in her regressed-to-the-age-of-five voice; Asli sleeps; and I stride ahead of the pack at my natural pace which occasionally has me turning around to search for my companions like a child who has wandered away from her parents in a supermarket. Joe was too busy taking one of five hundred or so pictures to notice any of this.
 

By mid afternoon we are well on our way to completing the 1,200m ascent for the day and mysteriously found ourselves traipsing across the moon; Kilimanjaro is a dormant volcano which hasn’t unleashed its fury for many thousands of years. Given our surroundings it would have not been in the least surprising to see Neil Armstrong bouncing by in a space suit. Someone suggests the we should all sing our respective national anthems, better to make the time go by. Asli the Turk kicks off and because no-one is quite sure whether she is singing the Turkish national anthem or a Klingon nursery rhyme, her rendition elicits little comment. Next up are the Austrians who meekly mumble Saxon lyrics without much national pride (which seemed to appear more emphatically whenever Red Bull was discussed). Then it is the turn of the US contingent which gets off to a shaky start when Joe, a US Marine, admits to knowing perhaps a fifth of the lyrics to the Star-Spangled Banner. By way of explanation or apology, I cannot say which, he assures us that he could recite backwards the Pledge of Allegiance. Our assumption that his more complete recollection of these words results from years of commencing each day at school with a collective recital proves amusingly misplaced. It turns out that this is Joe’s proven mechanism for staving off an embarrassing early finish with the ladies. In any case Courtney and I do Francis Scott Key proud. And I round off proceedings with a breathless version of La Marseillaise. In mid afternoon we stumble into Kibo Hut having completed by far the longest day in terms of distance hiked and altitude ascended.

For the first time on the trek we have all expended some energy and are grateful for the opportunity to down poles for the day. Taking in our surrounds it feels as though we have arrived in a mountain-top skiers rest-stop albeit with no snow and not a sprout of vegetation to behold. There are stone huts for porters and trekkers who have paid for the privilege and dotted around them are various tents for the likes of the rest of us. A larger proportion of the trekkers present have come up the (in)famous Coca Cola Route (Muhanga). The setting has more the look of a refugee camp in the Hindu Kush than an international mountain-climbers’ campsite. Plans are made for the final assault due to begin at midnight, the idea being to reach the summit in time for sunrise. Dinner is swiftly inhaled and all are in bed as early as possible. As Joe and I, tent buddies all along, get settled in he starts complaining of stomach pain. It has become common by this stage for all of us habitually to produce an impressively reverberating array of bodily excretions, which we ascribe primarily to the food. What begins to emanate from Joe however is of a different order entirely. Sufficiently so for Courtney to enquire from her adjacent tent as to Joe’s well-being. It soon becomes clear that for Joe to take part in the approaching climb would require a significant focus on mind over matter. Any thought that he might do so is however laid to rest when in one rapid acrobatic movement he sits up, reaches for the tent-flap zip, dives head-first through the opening and violently expels the full contents of his stomach. He lays back down, apologises and concedes defeat.
 

Day 4
 

Not much sleep has been had by the time our porters announce it is time. Given the low temperatures we are all fully attired in our sleeping bags, and consequently not a little fragrant. Preparation is quickly completed, plaintive expressions of regret directed towards Joe and headlights illuminated. The terrain is now what climbers would refer to as scree, something of a cross between gravel and shale. Looking up the mountain one sees many groups that have set out before us, their headlights indicating the path up to the peak. The five of us march up the slope at a clip which matches our pace over the previous days but which is perhaps ill-advised given the steeper incline and higher altitude. Our goal is to ascend from 4,700m to the Roof of Africa at 5,895m over the course of the next six hours. The means to achieving this is to zig-zag in single file up the slope , attempting to lose as little forward momentum as possible with each step in the scree. Our heads are all pointed down at our feet; in the absolute darkness this is the only means to assuring we know where we are placing our feet. It is not long before we hit traffic. With few opportunities to pass this slows our progress considerably. By this stage many trekkers are already feeling the effects of the thin air and consequently speed of movement is variable. One lady is moving so slowly, not more than three quarters of an hour into our effort, we are left wondering at what time she will reach the summit.
 

The folly of our speed has yet to have its impending deleterious effect on us. At advantageous points where the path widens to allow two bodies to walk side-by-side our group is ready and moves up a few gears to pass slower walkers. With each zig and zag the temperature drops a little and the amount of water available to us decreases through consumption and gradual freezing. All along the trek I have been consuming Haribo bears to keep my energy levels up. I am by now throwing them in my mouth three by three every ten minutes. Much of the first minute in my mouth is spent warming them back into their normal chewy state but the impetus they provide is vital to my progress. About halfway to our target the altitudinous effects become more pronounced. Courtney is experiencing significant discomfort from the cold on her extremities. Asli is slowing and expressing that she has begun to hallucinate that she is treading a wide asphalt road with her a band of her close Turkish friends. I am feeling light-headed with a dull ache beginning to pulsate in my crown. The Austrians are complaining of the cold and Tobi’s knees are beginning to bother him. Everyone’s humor is ebbing. Our guides, well used to this sort of collapse in fortunes among their charges are firm in their demeanor. We will get to the top. A little further up and Courtney is buckled on the ground, the lack of sensation in her fingers and toes breaking through her mental barriers and causing her to lose faith. One of our guides slaps her gloved hands together to restart the flow of blood and cause some heat to permeate. The loss of warmth is starting to affect my hands as I witness Courtney’s pain. A constant chorus from our guides of “nearly there” drives us on. The Austrians soldier on in silence. Asli is reaching her breaking point and starts to fall behind. One of the guides insists that she will make it to the top even if he has to carry her.
 

Our path to the Roof of Africa takes us first to Gilman’s Point at 5,685m, whence a much more gentle gradient transports hikers to the summit. After what seems an eternity, the Austrians, Courtney and I reach the rocky outcrop which marks Gilman’s and are greeted by an icy wind. We clamber over some rocks to a pocket of relative stillness but the elements have by this stage done for me; my hands hurt from the cold, my head is a thumping, pulsating mass and my emotions have spilled into tears. Courtney has by this stage recovered sufficiently to whisper comforting words in my ear and apply the same hand-warming technique the guide had taught her. It occurs to me that this experience ranks with running a marathon as the most physically challenging of my life. All I can think of is wanting to climb back down, and we are still 200m below our goal. That objective is however no longer an option in my mind. A quarter of an hour later a hoarse shout from below signals Asli’s arrival and the strength of her resolve; she has made it. The sky has been very gradually changing in hue and now portends the imminent arrival of the Sun. A few minutes pass and the red ball breaks through the sea of cloud below us, a few degrees to the left of Mawenzi. It is a magnificent sight. A sense of wonder and accomplishment are however no palliative for my physical distress. No sooner have we taken photographic evidence next to the sign indicating Gilman’s Point than I am on my way down. Note to self: next time, get a helicopter!

Enjoying the Calm While It Lasts

It's a beautiful Summer evening in Kigali. There is neither even a whiff of a breeze nor a cloud in the sky as the Sun heads swiftly for the Horizon, glowing bright red as it does the closer you are to the Equator. Being as close to the Equator as Kigali is (2 degrees south) the days don't vary enormously in length from Summer to Winter. At their longest, as they are now, the Sun sets at around 6.20pm. In Winter closer to 5.30pm. Which means no long, sunny evenings to sit on a terrace having a beer during the Summer (as I recently enjoyed back in New York, London and Toronto) nor does it mean mood-destroyingly short days during the Winter. At the other end of the day, the Sun is always up by 6am and the Rwandan people on the move not long after. This is still a country that walks to work even in Kigali. Only the elite and the taxi drivers have cars. Some can afford to take the little mutatus ("bus" in Swahili lingo, exactly the same little vans were in use in Lima and were called "micros"). Otherwise as you drive to work in the morning or home in the evening you see lines of people walking along the sides of the roads, which are frequently lacking in pavements / sidewalks. The reason that activity starts so early here is that everyone is in bed very early. After darkness descends only 28% of urban residences and a very low 2% of rural ones have electricity to make use of. What else is one to do but sleep? Or that other activity which the Rwandan government is actively discouraging in order to bring down the 5.5 fertility rate amongst Rwandan women.

In case anyone happens to be interested in further stats on Rwanda, mostly related to health, check out the newly released Interim Demographic and Health Survey (http://www.measuredhs.com/pubs/pub_details.cfm?id=936&srchTp=home). If you're a geek like me, it makes for fascinating reading. It has its drawbacks as a survey (much of the data is self-reported and impervious to verification and there is little comparison to previous years for trend analysis) however it's still for the most part pretty good as an indication.

As for work it never sits still. When I arrived three new people had been hired all starting the same day as me who would form the team I would manage. Two of those have now left, one to do a masters in Belgium and the other on loan to our sister organisation Partners in Health. What's more we're on the verge of hiring nine or ten additional people who will all have the misfortune to be managed by yours truly. It's exciting. I'm engaged in three broad areas: advising the Ministry of Health in Kigali on policy and planning; working in one of the 30 districts of Rwanda to help them manage their health system, consisting of a district hospital and thirteen health centres; perhaps most interestingly of all developing a large-scale data collection, storage and analysis tool/engine which will collect several hundred data points on every health facility in the country (450 and rising) every six months and allow every level of the health system (from rural, isolated health centres to the Ministry of Health in Kigali) to manage their investment and operational decision-making. This last piece of work is all the more fun because it's probably one of the first to be developed on the continent and is being built with one eye on other countries where we could deploy it. Right now we're going through a certain lull as most CHAI (Clinton HIV/AIDS Initiative, just one of several initiatives run by the Clinton Foundation) staff are out on vacation. However the storm clouds are clearly visible and due to arrive in the first couple weeks of August. From then until Christmas, and beyond, work is going to be wild. Our donors and the Ministry expect.

A New(ish) Beginning

Four and a half months into my life in Rwanda and I’ve managed to say virtually nothing about my life here so far! My intention was to round out my experience working on the Obama campaign with one further entry detailing the micro-managed, super-focused, hugely rewarding and in the end massively successful two months that I spent in Las Vegas but the task of writing that piece has seemed so overwhelming that all I have to show for it is two months of silence. So I’ve decided to skip that and move on to the present.

Where to start? Let’s begin with the personal. That large house I referred to a few posts ago which was one of two options I was considering to move into is now my home. My bedroom, whence I’m writing this, is large enough for a huge bed and could comfortably accommodate a table tennis table and a pool table besides. I’ve no doubt this is the largest bedroom I will ever inhabit and would probably compare favourably in size to the entire flat I lived in before leaving London. It’s ridiculous. I share the house with three people, all girls and all Canadian. That they are all girls is entirely unsurprising; the NGO crowd here is overwhelmingly female (clearly not a problem, at least not for the minority gender). That they are all Canadian is much more so albeit that they’re an interesting mix: one Scottish-Canadian; one Eritrean-Canadian; and one US-Dutch-Canadian. In Kigali though one mostly comes across Americans, Belgians, Germans and Brits. And virtually no French. For those who don’t know the history, these last have not entirely covered themselves in glory in their dealings with this country and continue to shoot themselves in the foot diplomatically by pursuing government officials for war crimes and generally being on the wrong side of the argument. However I’m teetering into the political sphere about which I will unfortunately have to be less talkative than I was in Peru. (Incidentally the trial of Alberto Fujimori which I discussed a fair amount over a year ago is due to come to a close very shortly. A conviction is likely assuming the trial doesn’t collapse on the technicality that he’s in ill health and his absence from the courtroom for 12 days would entail starting all over again.)

Work at the Clinton Foundation is fantastically fun and extremely rewarding. And constantly in flux. Amusingly in some ways it’s very similar to what I was doing at Goldman Sachs, i.e. sitting in an office working with Excel all day. In important ways though it’s very different. Whereas my work at GS for six years was almost entirely inward facing, here I am daily in meetings with Ministry officials and every couple of weeks am out in the field meeting with regional health managers. At GS it was always difficult to explain to people what I did, particularly to those who didn’t work in finance, which led some to think I really worked for the intelligence services, but here it’s essentially very simple. We are here to help the Rwandans build up their capacity to successfully manage their own affairs and to do ourselves out of a job.

Unfortunately success isn’t going to come rapidly and someone will likely still be doing what I’m doing by the time I’m considering retirement but you would go mad in this line of work if you didn’t consider and accept the long view. And in Rwanda things happen. I’m constantly hearing from my NGO colleagues who work across African countries that there’s a level of thought, coordination and direction here that isn’t to be found anywhere else on the continent. From the Big Man on down there’s a will to pull this country up and to do so in a systematic, government-driven and clean way. It’s impressive to behold even for someone as inexperienced as me who has nothing with which to compare it. Of course the Rwandans have no resources. There’s very little to drive tax revenue so the country is massively dependent on foreign funding. And as previously said, this will not change anytime soon. But there is the will and there is the understanding of how to do it even if with other people’s money. It’s extremely exciting to be a part of. Over time I want to talk more about the challenges and the opportunities, the hopes of this tiny little over-populated country, the expectations of the international community and the tensions that result when the two rub each other the wrong way. There are endless anecdotes that constantly have us thinking about how to improve and make more effective our work to help Rwanda. The goal is nothing short of colossal.

A Short Backgrounder, Part Two

Amongst the political entertainment during my time in California (New York Governor Eliot Spitzer the unwitting tangential prize of an organised prostitution-ring bust, Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick charged with eight felonies, Alaska Senator Ted Stevens charged with improperly compensating a building contractor, etc), a very serious one was continuing its eighteen month-old machinations. What had begun in the snows of Iowa had really started in February 2007 when Barack Obama declared his candidacy for President of the United States and even much before that. My memory of Barack Obama entering my consciousness is a little hazy although I recall that by the time he delivered the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in July 2004, I had been following his progress for some time. When the Big O declared he would run for the Presidency two years after becoming the junior US Senator from Illinois this came as little surprise to any political egghead.

Around early June I slowly started to realise that a golden opportunity lay before me to engage in a political process which I had enthusiastically been following from the comfort of my armchair and the earphones of my iPod for well over a year. Being the type who respects those who walk the walk rather than talk the talk, it became clear that not only would my job-search take time, but if I were so convinced that the Big O would be a better alternative to any Republican then I ought to do some’at about it. By this stage Hillary was for practical purposes already out of the race. So in amongst travels to Europe for aforementioned family reasons and a fantastic 4th July holiday around the southern United States (I highly recommend Savannah and New Orleans) I looked for ways to become involved. One aspect of the Big O’s now famous campaign was his harnessing of the “new” technologies first employed on a large scale by Howard Dean during his not-so-successful run for the Democratic nomination in 2004. Obama’s website, being designed as it was by the guy who developed Facebook, was set up such that people could publicise events, rallies, organizational meetings and so on and allow others to get involved. I started attending various events, mostly talking up Obama to people passing in the street and at summer fairs. Obama had also decided that his policy framework (for which read high-level principles) would be decided democratically by a wide swath of his supporters rather than just those who attend the Convention. Thus I attended various policy discussions to elaborate a submission to Obama’s staff which taught me a whole lot about education and healthcare in the States. And allowed me the opportunity to educate a few people on what goes on in “Europe” (expressed by some as though it were somewhere close to the Moon).

Another event posted on the website, MyBO as it became known, was a voter registration drive in Las Vegas. One of the most impressive organizational decisions by the Obama campaign was to pair rock-solid states with geographically proximate swing states. Thus California was paired with Nevada and a large number of events were set up for Californians to travel to Nevada to help the local effort. So I drove up to Las Vegas with three other people I’d never met before, a girl who does public health work in developing countries and who was in LA between jobs, a guy who had run for local elected office in Southern California unsuccessfully and whose day-job is computer programming and an octogenarian battle-axe who provided constant hilarity. She was part Muhammad Ali, part Erin Brockovich. We spent the weekend standing outside WalMart (not generally considered Democratic-friendly terrain) and signed up large numbers of voters. It was hot. It was very, very hot. But it was also a lot of fun. The best ploy to get people to stop is to make them laugh combined with an overly strong appeal to their better sense. And never ask a question to which the answer is “yes” or “no”. “I would love to register you to vote today.” “I don’t have time.” “It will only take a few minutes to register and it will give you a voice.” “It doesn’t make any difference.” “Yes, that’s how Floridian Democrats feel too.” And so it went.

That weekend was so much fun that I went back with Sara (the public health girl) and a friend of hers the following weekend. And that one turned out to be so much fun again that I started talking to the regional managers about coming up full-time to volunteer. At the time I was semi-serious about it. But by the time I’d got back to LA I realized that it really was something I should do. When was I going to get the opportunity again to work on a presidential campaign? When was I going to get the chance again to work on a campaign which I had heard from at least a dozen people had not roused their passions to such an extent since 1960? So a week later I packed up my car and headed back to Vegas, this time to stay until the election. I had little idea of what was to come; 60 uninterrupted 16 hour days at the grindstone. No weekends. No days off. The hardest I’ve ever worked.

A Short Backgrounder, Part One

How did I get here? And where have I been? Questions I’ve asked myself a few times of late. After seven months in Lima, the last one and a half of which I spent separately traveling with parents and friends from London, I decided the time had come to move on. But move on to what? I had looked into a few jobs which would make some use of my combined experience in the finance and non-profit arenas. I had even had a telephonic interview between Lima and my interlocutor in Nairobi (where she was visiting on business) for a job based in Washington DC. The line was bad and my interview sharpness not much better. The outcome was as expected.

Around the same time I pursued a connection I had made shortly before leaving London. During the whirlwind few weeks between leaving Goldman Sachs and leaving on a jet plane in June 2007 I had breakfast with the lovely Cassia who I’d been put in contact with by a colleague. Cassia worked at the Clinton Foundation, regularly commuting between London and various places in Africa, working in a division of the Foundation called CHAI. It sounded like tea, it sounded like fun. We spoke for about an hour at the conclusion of which she told me to give her a call when I was done in Peru because they were always looking for “people like you”. At the time my thoughts were more focused on microfinance than health system strengthening as I felt my finance background was more suited to the former. However a few months’ reflection led me to realise that my passion lay in international development generally not microfinance specifically. So come December 2007 I did what Cassia suggested. Unfortunately she didn’t answer my emails and I had no contact number for her. I did find out through our mutual friend the Goldman Sachs colleague that Cassia had gone on maternity leave but that she didn’t know much more than that as they hadn’t been in touch for a while. As practitioners of the espionage trade would say, the lead went cold.

As my pre-planned departure date of mid February slipped to late February, I did at last book my flight out believing that my future lay in the States, leaving behind some great friends and a wonderful Peruvian family who had taken me in as their sixth (and eldest) child. My grandmother in California was in failing health and I decided to move in with my uncle there to spend some time with her, a grandmother who had been a major influence in my life. This turned out to be fortuitous timing as just eighteen days later I watched as she breathed her final breath, thankful that I’d been able to spend a couple weeks with her. Her passing was to foretell further sadness in the family as both my French grandparents succumbed to old age just three months later and within a week of each other. My French grandfather had similarly loomed large in my formative years and I was fortunate to be able to spend some time with him just prior to his passing when I visited France in June.

From early March, when I arrived in California, until exam day in early June I had been studying for the second level of the CFA, the first level of which I had passed in 2003, since when I had concertedly avoided any further participation. By this time my decision to resume the qualification resulted from the combined desires of pursuing something useful to my career as well as giving me space to contemplate my next move. It succeeded on one of those fronts at least. By early June I was back into job-searching again in full force. Applications went out to various non-profits and a further attempt at contact with Cassia was made, this time successfully. I was extremely saddened to hear from her that she and her husband had experienced a tragedy in the intervening period and despite this Cassia was as helpful to me as could be and excited that I’d contacted her. She ran me through the various possibilities available at CHAI (Clinton HIV / AIDS Initiative) and asked me to forward my curriculum vitae.

A set of interviews ensued for a position which would have involved travelling around a third of Africa on a fairly constant basis assisting countries in their procurement and internal distribution of drugs. (That would be malaria prophylaxes and HIV anti-retrovirals rather than cocaine and ecstasy tablets.) Fortunately for me some combination of the three interviewers decided I wasn’t suited to the post and immediately it was suggested that I consider a “managerial” position. The job would have been very satisfying but too restless and clearly would have upped my carbon footprint by a not insignificant number of cubic metres. The Foundation’s suggestion was well taken. There followed two interviews, one with the CHAI Country Director for Rwanda and Burundi, Pascal, and t’other with the gentleman I would be replacing, the Program Manager for Rural Health, a Kenyan by the name of Kisimbi (which, I would later learn, is his family name; apparently all six sons in the family refer to themselves by their last name which causes no end of amusement when friends call their house in Nairobi). The interviews failed to entice me to say anything controversial or stupid and a visit to Kigali was hastily arranged for a tête-à-tête. After a mammoth Las Vegas – Washington DC – Rome – Addis Ababa – Kigali country-hop I arrived in Kigali for four days to seal the deal.

Thus am I now in the employ of the Clinton Foundation providing technical assistance to the Rwandan Ministry of Health. This has prompted several observers (as though I have those) to ask what exactly in my professional experience qualifies me to provide technical assistance on health matters to an African government. Or any government for that matter. Allow me to explain.

And onwards to Rwanda

[ This is an entry which I had previously circulated via email, not knowing whether I'd resume the blog. Since I have now decided to do so, I'm republishing this November 26th summmary from shortly after my arrival in Kigali. For those who are wondering "Kigali? WTF? How did you end up there and what have you been doing since you left Peru? When did you leave Peru? Why did you leave Peru?", the short answer is 6 months in California, 2 months in Las Vegas, now Kigali, Rwanda working for the Clinton Foundation. I'll come back to all these themes later! ]

13 days into Kigali life and it has flown by. I feel I'd better grab every experience by the horns else two years will go by in a flash and I'll look back wondering what I've been up to! I can't wait for some visitors to tell me they're coming so I can book a trip to see the gorillas! There's a trip prospectively happening in early January to Bujumbura (capital of Burundi). Two girls I've met here have recently moved to Buj and I figure what better reason to go to Burundi! I mean it's not like I'll be sitting later in life thinking, "where should we go on vacation, hmmm, Burundi is a good option". Apparently it's very different to Rwanda. There's a fairly spectacular beach there from what I hear, on the shores of Lake Tanganyika. Of course another likely trip in 2009 will be to Dubai to visit an old friend.

Work is starting to become a little clearer in its goals and responsibilities. I have a team of two and a half (two people full time, one person who works with me half of the time). One Kenyan and two Rwandese. Almost everyone I met when I came in September [for the interview] will be gone by Christmas, which is a little strange but I knew that was a possibility. So I have a brand new team. My boss is still the Swiss guy, Pascal, who hired me. He's a really interesting character who grew up in a UN family and who is very well respected within the Foundation and without.

Our dealings are entirely with the Ministry of Health, other NGOs working in the health field and the regional governments of the 30 districts of Rwanda. We had a meeting last Wednesday with the Permanent Secretary at the MoH, the number two person at the Ministry – she's quite the character. We were having a call with a large international NGO about getting some funding from them and she was impressively and amusingly firm in her approach.

On the personal / social side I'm in the midst of figuring out where I'm going to live. I'm currently living in the house of the guy who I'm replacing, but it's too far from everything. It's a pleasant if quiet neighbourhood but a 20 minute drive from the office. Ideally I'd like to be walking distance to the office, or at most a 5 minute drive. I will indubitably have to buy a car. Kigali is not a walking city. I've got two houses in mind, one of which is currently occupied by Guen and Felicia, two girls who currently work at the Foundation but who will both be leaving Rwanda and who have been extremely generous in welcoming me to Kigali. The other used to be occupied by the Minister for Education and is a grand place but a little off the beaten track.

Thus far I've found a tennis partner, a friend of Phil Bowen's who used to work at the Home Office and who now works for Tony Blair's initiative here. And Sunday afternoon is ultimate frisbee with a fun mix of Rwandese and mzungus (including some combination of the six Marines who are stationed in country to guard the US Embassy – they're pretty good). I might potentially take up Swahili but the jury's still out on that one.

Kigali is an amazingly safe place. After spending time in Nairobi where people live in barbed wire-encircled compounds, Kigali is surprisingly different. Even my female colleagues tell me they feel comfortable walking around at night and getting taxis home at all hours. Of course there's a cottage industry here set up just to serve the mzungu crowd. A bunch of taxi drivers whom everyone has stored in their contacts. Real estate agents who only deal with the high end of the property market. Stores which only the elite Rwandese and foreigners can afford. Although even the foreign crowd find the only decent supermarket in town to be excessively expensive. The difficulty is that Rwanda produces very little apart from coffee so even some basic food stuffs are imported. I bought five oranges yesterday and paid £4.60!!

Rent is going to turn out pretty cheap but other aspects to Kigali life will be surprisingly expensive. Thankfully it turns out that the US government is generous to people who earn their living outside the US and promise not to spend more than 30 days per year in the States: no federal income taxes!

Let's not lose sight of human weakness

Is it incompetence? Or pure dishonesty? Sadly, probably the latter. There have been stories in the press recently (see links below) reporting suspected fraud at credit unions in Uganda. These Savings and Credit Cooperatives are set up as societies where members can deposit funds and take out loans, in essence much like any microfinance institution, but due to the law limiting its remit, the Bank of Uganda has no jurisdiction to oversee these institutions. And the body that does oversee these credit unions is reportedly understaffed and lacks expertise. Many clients are reporting that the institutions are making it difficult for them to withdraw their savings. Recent pronouncements by the Bank of Uganda indicate that some of the poor clients may well lose their savings entirely.

It behoves those in positions of authority not to lose sight of what must be one of their primary objectives, supervision. The lack thereof doesn't only exist in Uganda and sadly closer to (my current) home, there are anecdotal stories of heads of microfinance institutions (MFIs) using their loan portfolios to curry favour with friends and influential people. Sad but true. Fraud can occur even in an arena which supposedly attracts those who want to help others. No harm in helping yourself at the same time, I guess the argument runs.

There are three responsible parties when it comes to supervision. The first line of defense is the board of directors. Some may treat being invited onto a board as another line to be added to their curriculum vitae with a couple of meetings to be attended per year as the price to pay. However being on the board carries responsibility and the senior management of the institution must be held to account. Regulators have their obvious role to play and as in the Ugandan case, microfinance institutions (MFIs) of whatever kind must not be excluded from the remit of the banking regulator. These are financial institutions just like those which cater to better-heeled clients. There may be a cost burden to the MFIs of providing information and of course the resultant bureaucracy should be kept to a minimum but this is a necessary precaution. Lastly the rating agencies have an important role to play. There are a handful of agencies which specialise in providing ratings for microfinance institutions, entirely on a voluntary basis for the MFIs. It is an important function of these agencies that they adopt a hard-headed mindset and ask the difficult questions. One would hope that the development world would be immune to such human weakness as defrauding the poor, but knowing that it isn't, all necessary steps should be taken to prevent it.

Microcapital article on Ugandan credit unions
New Vision first report of problems