Ethnography and Alcohol

Although we officially began building the shelter last Thursday, the real work started Wednesday morning at the home of Mwalimu (teacher) Richard, who is selling us the timber for the shelter. Throughout this process, we have attempted to show our commitment to the community: initially by moving up to Shimbwe and later by participating in the building process. Wednesday morning offered the first shot at the latter. We arrived at Mwalimu Charles' home just past 8 a.m. prepared to help load hundreds of wood planks onto a massive lorry to be transferred to the building site at the school.

Yet to grasp the slowing effects of dirt terrain and extreme inclines and declines, we were a few minutes late. The four carpenters had already started loading wood of various widths and heights aided by hordes of school children currently on vacation. While we had been warned that school children would be assisting us, we were slightly taken aback at the sight of tiny bodies hoisting large planks on to their shoulders. Uncomfortable though we were by the idea of unpaid child labor, we felt it wasn't our place to challenge the local customs and traditions. To do so might contradict our desire for a grassroots development project and possibly place a wedge between ourselves and community members.

With the lorry loaded to the brim, we joined the carpenters atop of the surreptitiously placed wood and drove up and down a gravity-defying hill. (To our parents and friends who have visited: we're talking about the final massive hill to Leta School). Sitting on all the wood and waving to idlers and passer-bys, we looked like kings in a castle - an image with which we are hardly comfortable. We loathe coming off as "white knights" riding in and saving the day (though a lorry is far less picturesque than a white steer). However, riding on top of the wood that would eventually become the goat shelter, we acknowledged that there was little use to getting caught up in such imagery and be content with the grassroots nature of the project itself.

Having arrived at the school in one piece, we started the entire process over - this time unloading the wood. The school kids, unable to reach the wood in the truck, were given a break. Exhausted, we all agree to call it a half way (though it was only 10:30) and begin the real construction on Thursday. Content with the day's labor, we joined Mwalimu Richard and Mwalimu Sebastian for a stint at a local bar (ran by the owner of our home). Although we thought it a tad early for drinking, we didn't want to be ...err... culturally insensitive as the teachers bought us round after round. Drinking with the two teachers turned out to be a tremendously captivating anthropological experience. As the engagement ended, we rushed home eager to type and remember everything we could. The following paragraphs was our attempt to recount the evening's conversations. We have left the writing in the same frantic, slightly intoxicated form as when it was first written. Please forgive any lack of clarity.

- In response to our slightly perturbed reaction to child labor, the teachers explained: the children work as a group. They can't be legally hired until they finish primary school, but they can work for free before that. The teachers argued that working builds a community, ushers development, and brings profit. It adds to their education, their strength, and character.

- Mwalimu Richard asked how America came to be? To me, he said, "You don't seem to like talking about America." I explained that the teacher was welcome to ask question, but I had difficultly talking about it without prompt. We talked about England's ownership of America. They asked why England and America are allies. We said because they trade a lot and both speak English. They have a common natural interest. England owned America. The teachers suggested that it seems like whatever America's leaders say, England's leaders go along with.

- Mwalimu Charles talked about Mwalimu Richard's second car to which Richard shushed him and said that "That's my secret." Jake said, "But you already told me about it." But Mwalimu Richard said he told us because he wanted to use the car to pick up the goats. Jake asked why Richard didn't want other people to know about the car. Richard said it's because people are jealous. They want to know why you have something that they don't. And they might try to harm you. Richard said jealously is normal. It was as if he was rationalizing and understanding the jealousy.

- Where did the grant money came from? What is a foundation? There was confusion about whether our country sent us here or the foundation did. They didn't understand what the foundation got from sending us here. We explained that foundation is just happy to see a good project. Somehow that turned to receipts. We explained how the foundation needed know where its money went since we were spending someone else's money. And how we could get in trouble and brought back to the US for spending money without accounting for it. It appeared to be a epiphany moment for the teachers who may have understood why we were hesitant to give Mwalimu Fisher the money for his dala dala ride to see his mother. Jake explained to them that we took the teacher's write up and translated it to grant language and that's how the whole thing came to pass.

- What does America get from your project? What do we get? Why did the Foundation choose our project? We said that we get to learn Swahili, development, and help people. Jake explained how interesting the question was and how we had no idea. He said it would be worth it to ask the foundation why we were chosen. Mwalimu Richard said that people wouldn't do anything without the possibility of profit (child labor not included apparently). The concept of altruism seemed completely foreign to them during our conversations.

- We discussed our idea of starting a micro-credit bank. I asked whether they were using SACCOS (a local micro-credit bank here that takes objects such as bicycles as collateral). They explained that they use Teachers Saccos (which allowed Mwalimu Richard to purchase his lorry) rather the the KNCU Saccos (farmer saccos in Shimbwe). Malissa left Pride (another micro-credit foundation) because they didn't offer high enoughs loans. He couldn't take loans from the National Microcredit Bank (a major bank in Moshi) because it was too risky and collateral is too high. They don't give him another chance. He failed for the first two years after purchasing the lorry, and SACCOS allowed him more time to repay.

- At some point, Mwalimu Richard and Charles criticized Duma for not doing anything productive. They may have noticed us glance at each other with because when discussed later, they were loathe to critize. The teachers said they didn't want Duma or us to turn against them. We explained that we were with the people. They said that Duma pretended to help but was just trying to make a profit. We explained how while there was interest in the goat loans Duma is making to the school, Duma wouldn't be making a profit itself. The teachers said that we needed to work with individuals rather than Duma. Jake explained how since we are mzungus, we need to work with an NGO to get access to the community and make sure that nobody screws us over (perhaps ironic since we may have been thoroughly screwed over by Mwalimu Richard that day). But we are learning, Jake said. I explained to Mwalimu Charles that the reason we moved to Shimbwe is because we did want to work with individuals. Charles drunkenly approved.

- Jake asked how we could make a profit and help people. Jake asked about the poorest of the poor who have a quarter of an acre of land. Mwalimu Richard said that there is nothing you can do for them since they have so little land. He described himself as middle class. Richard takes his crops (as well as for-fee cargo) to Dar es Salaam where it sells higher than in local markets. He says it's not worth it to sell to Moshi. Richard's idea for making money and helping people was since he had 20 acres but could only use five, if you brought the expertise and the capital, you could use his acreage and give him some of the profit (he suggested 3-10 percent). So Richard would be renting out his farmland and he would learn from those people with the capital and the expertise (who were presumably Western). We explained how that concept was similar to Islamic Banks whose customers are religiously forbidden from interest-accruing loans. Jake asked why, if he were to start a business here, he should come to Kili? Why not go somewhere else where he could buy a lot of land for very cheap and make the profit himself. Richard responded, "I have an answer for you. You wouldn't be helping people." We felt this a fantastic point. Jake asked again about the poorest of the poor. Richard suggested that after seeing the expertise that foreigners brought to his middle-class farm, the Westerner could bring poor farmers together and do a similar sharecropping system. He also mentioned that people like him, they have the education and know-how and the skills to be able to implement a system given a right amount of capital. But the poor people who we are talking about don't know anything and wouldn't be able to do it (according to him), which is the reason why organizations like Duma are necessary.

- Used to frequent complaints in Uganda about a lack of market, I asked Mwalimu Richard and Charles what they could do with the capital. The teachers discussed how they would use it to increase their output by expanding the means of production. I asked Mwalimu Richard whether there was a market for an increased output. Richard was secure in his belief that the markets were far from saturated. That being said, he owns a lorry and take his goods to the largest city in Tanzania. However, I was shocked to hear this discrepancy between Uganda and Tanzania. After my experiences researching self-help groups, credit and loan groups, and farmers associations, the issue seemed to be powerless farmers and producers undercutting each other to obtain a market (third world beggar thy neighbor policies). The crux of the issue is not how to capitalize on high volume but how to generate high volume in the first place. That is to say that demand exists but only for those who can supply. The lingering question is whether or not once these farmers are capacitated, they would run into the same sorts of marketing issues that I observed in Uganda. In our project, for example, we're very conscious of marketing. One of Duma's main future roles will be to search out markets for the high quality Toggenburg goats. Small owners will not be able to generate the same sort of market interest that Duma may be able to. We're also encouraging the community to work with Duma to sell their goats in order to avoid undercutting prices.

- Mwalimu Richard talked about how people talk more when they drink. Jake said we're not that drunk, we're just talking normally. Mwalimu Richard said that people become abnormal when they drink too much.

We've had a difficult time negotiating alcohol and anthropology here in Shimbwe. On more than two occasions, we've had fascinating conversations with community members over many a beer. On the other hand, we are consciously trying to stay in shape. Shifting from white rice to brown and removing fatty oil from our cooking preparations does little when we're drinking multiple beers a day. (It's worth mentioning that these aren't normal American or European beers - these are half-liters bottles ranging from 5.5 to 10 percent alcohol content). However, one could make the argument for the necessity of development workers cracking open a beer and taking it very seriously. It's not that you're drinking to get drunk, but rather that you're drinking to do participatory observation (or at least that's how I'd like to justify our all-too-regular drinking habits).

Since our last drinking date with the teachers, we have decided to limit ourselves to drinking the occasional beer on Friday and Saturday only. Whatever gains we make in physical health, we can't deny the anthropological loss this decision has resulted in. However, sometimes it's important to remember that we're not anthropologists. Yes, part of the purpose of being here is to have as culturally in depth an experience as possible, but the primary goal is to get this project done well and efficiently and set it up for future success.

Posted by Sam

Issues Covered in Meeting with Duma Members Interested in Receiving Goats

The purpose of our second meeting with Duma members was to tackle several issues revolving around the mechanics of loaning with women who were interested in receiving goats. First was the question of how to pass loans within bounded groups. It is becoming clear that the one-size-fits all model that we envisioned -- where each uniform group receives a goat and passes it down a line of women until they pay the loan back -- is not going to work within the Shimbwe context. One group, for example, has scrounged the money and materials to build a shelter but doesn't have enough pasture land on their personal plots to build shelters or plant sufficient fodder crops. Instead, they've asked a wealthier neighbor with an uncultivated field for permission to plant fodder on his farm. He agreed. They plan to initially build one shelter on one of their plots and to share fodder. Their approach clouds the clear-cut Grameen-esque model Sam and I once envisioned. On the surface, it also goes against the grain of the way women normally like to work in Shimbwe, namely, alone and on their own plots, independent of others. My gut reaction to hearing this plan was to welcome it as a rare instance in which Chagga women were willing, even keen, to work together. But my instant impression that the one shelter/one pasture pasture per group model these women proposed would undercut the concept of individual ownership that last year's research showed to be prevalent in Shimbwe, and that our model (really the Grameen model) of incentivizing the repayment of credit hinges upon.

I brought the issue up with Francis, asking if we need to to take collateral out on owns in cases where group ownership is the norm. In consultation with her members, Francis clarified the issue saying that although a group might start with one shelter, they plan to save money and will build shelters for the other women in the group as resources become available. Furthermore, individual women will retain ownership over specific goats, which will indeed be passed from one group member to the next (even if ownership is marked cognitively rather than by physical location). What appears to be emerging are a cluster of small groups, each of which has a unique set of capabilities, social dynamics, ecological limitations and corresponding solutions that lead them to a particular methodology of caring for goats and exchanging them between individual members. The groups, as I understand them, are going to operate as bite-sized savings and loans organizations. These have formed based on women's knowledge and experience in hearing about and participating in such schemes, and in response to our outside intervention. This intervention appears to have generated what women perceive to be a strong economic opportunity, and to have incentivized the formation of hybrid collectives (with individual ownership and some shared work, credit, and resources) that women find distasteful under most other circumstances.

The internal politics and resource-sharing within each group will therefore depend on the nature and composition of the group in question. Group members themselves will be responsible for determining how to pass goats and how to pay loans back. Duma will work individually with groups, which will in turn operate according to unique verbal bylaws. The women present seemed to like this way of doing things. I do too: It allows us to leave as much to group members as possible while allowing them to respond to a basic set of financial rules and conditions. These meta-rules will be flexible and dependent on factors such as group size and financial capacity. Most remarkably, this approach is actually Francis's idea, which signals her faith in poor women's capacity to manage their own affairs. It suggests her commitment to a participatory process.

The meeting itself was generally participatory - women responded to our various questions and continually posed their own, mostly assuring us that our concerns could be addressed through group work and shared responsibilities. For example, we asked, "What should be done with male goats?" Women replied in various ways: (a) pass within a group, and mandate that recipients of male kids raise and exchange them for females, (b) raise and sell for profit which can be divided in various ways within a group or for individual profit. But Francis suggested women simply sort the issue out in groups. This seem fine to us and we welcomed what amounted to a method for decentralizing the power structure of our loaning program. Personally, I feel the fairest approach to male goats is probably to sell them and reinvest in the group by building shelters or otherwise investing in group capacities. We can suggest this, but ultimately such decisions will be left up to groups.

Another point of controversy we expected to have to deal with was the order in which groups ought to receive loans. Sam and I expected fierce contention over the pecking order. But as different groups discussed their disparate preparations, the solution to this would-be conundrum materialized quickly: groups will receive goats in the order they are ready to receive them. This is an obvious solution in terms of animal husbandry - you can't give a goat to women who can't house or feed them. It has the added advantage of ensuring those who receive goats are (a) serious about the project and making personal investments in order to participate, and (b) that their seriousness is manifest in sufficient group cooperation to get the group off the ground.

One thing worth nothing about the participatory process: a group of relatively wealthy teachers dominated most of the conversation save for a few select others. In terms of project methodology, this suggests that a more inclusive financial strategy might (a) organize meetings so that the poor, rather than the rich and powerful, sit front and center and (b) use smaller group meetings or individual interviews rather than clunky meetings with all interested parties. Since we are going to work with small groups,we will eventually hear those whose voices went unheard in this initial meeting. Another lesson: imploring women to speak when they're feeling overpowered and alienated is futile. When I tried this, several women insisted they agreed with everything said and that they would chime in when necessary.

More on these poorer women to follow. First a note on haves:

Sam and I took an exploratory walk around Shimbwe as women continued to arrive two hours past the announced starting time. We ended up arriving at the meeting a few minutes late. Francis animatedly informed us that there was a group of women already ready to receive goats. These were the teachers who are ineligible according to the loaning criteria I had announced at the first meeting. It was precisely this type of public outburst that, given the criteria, I expected Francis to steer away from. Sticking firmly to the guidelines already in place, I exasperate Francis and the ineligible group which had been angling for the first loan since we announced the project. Sam and I suggested some alternatives to a loan: talk to the Leta School and see if you can get seed goats for your own school after a few years, or get a loan from Duma after the eligible members get theirs. (Given our pending departure date, we can accept a statute of limitations on our criteria if necessary). At first we suggested teachers by goats from successful groups which would both bolster the project and give the teachers some time to raise cash. But they liked the idea so much that they decided to buy goats immediately through Farm Africa. At the same time, they are keen in maintaining ties with Duma. They also seem keen on launching a project that helps their own local community of Materuni, a village just outside Shimbwe, so working with them might help to extend our own reach. In any case, this elegant solution reaffirmed the efficacy of using criteria.

Another potential problem emerged in the course of laying out the criteria which directly affected the poor. When I announced loanees can't operate on under half an acre, women got nervous because most of them have plots of between zero and a half an acre with about a quarter acre being the norm. This could constrain their ability to build a project if they work off their own pastures only. But when it comes to pasture land in Shimbwe, there seems to be something more complex operating beneath the surface of land ownership. The women assured us not to worry about pasture area apparently they get the bulk of their fodder grass for free by cutting it from public hillsides. Unaware of exactly how this process operates and whether or not the available grass would be healthy for Toggenburg goats, we told them we would reevaluate this policy with consultation with Dr. Lockhart. It would be preposterous to loan modern dairy goats to people who can't provide them with the diet they need to provide milk in the first place, but maybe if they buy some feed, cut some, and grow the rest, they can run profitable home dairies.

During the last stage of the meeting, women physically organized themselves into their groups. We asked each group to name a leader to be responsible for attending all training seminars, training fellow group members, and to be the liaison between Duma and their group. During the course of arranging themselves, the women who had already formed groups and formulated plans to participate in the project gravitated into pairs or triplets, many of whose third or fourth members were absent. Among the women who had not yet joined groups arose a vortex of instantaneous group formation. Many of those who came to the meeting without partners thus left as members of groups which coagulated mostly according to seating proximity. Faith, a very poor woman who I interviewed last summer, was seated adjacent to a pair of women who were standing side-by-side to indicate their intention to work together. Faith hovered on an incline slightly above them. Francis asked her what group she was in, and with a two-handed parting motion, Faith attempted to displace the space between the established pair and root herself as a fellow member between therm. The original pair denied Faith's opportunistic attempt to join their group with shaking heads and firm feet. Eventually, Faith ended up joining one of the groups that formed as a consequence, rather than as a prelude to the meeting.

There is something to be said for groups forming continuously as the project proceeds but the last few groups that formed exemplify the sort of transitive, impromptu social interactions, instigated by a poverty-burning peer-pressure cooker, that would likely lead to dysfunction down the line. One good thing about our system: there is already a mechanism in place to deal with such groups. If they are indeed transient and dysfunctional they will fail to aggregate the resources necessary to proceed with the project; they just won't get a loan. If on the other hand, women inspired by the success of original groups successfully form new ones, we will have established just the type of social organization we intend to. Our financial product will be powerful enough to incentivize productive group work in a place where women tend to avoid collective business activity. We are not aiming to destroy the individual ethic that motivates women here. Instead, we are working with an intensely individualistic economic culture to develop the kind of collectivization that might allow women to get past some of the economic hardships they face alone to allow individuals to improve their livelihoods. As groups return loans, they might fracture into individually-managed projects. But at this stage of the game it is hard to think of ways for women to manage these goats alone.

Posted by Jake

Sorry!

Apologies to everyone for our massive gap in blogging.

We're in the process of filling everything that hasn't been posted through journal entries and memories. In the meantime, here's a brief summary to make sense of the following blog entries:

- We each spent some time travelling separately in August.

- We have left Moshi and are now living in Shimbwe - the beautiful, rural village where the project is located.

- The shelter is nearly complete.

- Things are going much better with Francis and the Duma Group. How and why is best left for another day's blog entry.

- We're planning to drop pictures of the shelter on Friday.

We don't have internet access in the village, but we do have a laptop. We will update at least once every weekend, sometimes with multiple entries. After having looked back at our own previous work, we've decided to try to experiment more with the kinds of things we post. Look for shorter, less narrative-oriented, and hopefully more flavorful character- and sensory-oriented posts in the future.

We hope the following two entries will hold you over until Friday.

Balancing Acts

If development work is like a roller coaster, we've been in the front row of Nitro for the past two weeks.

Although it has been a while since our last post, our project has not made any physical progress. We are still in the process of developing plans. This has been a tedious balancing act between meeting our project goals and meeting the expectations of Duma. The NGO continues to see our project as a political tool to smooth over relations with its membership. Until yesterday, we took the multiple beatings. The original intention of the project was to help a school get some milk revenue and act as a training site for the kids.

But Francis was inspired by the Farm Africa project in Babati, where a group of mostly women farmers spontaneously formed a successful goat-rearing collective. It seems that Francis wants to duplicate this collective model by establishing a group to be administered by Duma. Presumably, this would allow Duma to become the central site for Togenberg goats in the Kilimanjaro region, which would be a lucrative outcome given the high demand for the breed throughout East Africa. With this vision in mind, Francis suggested the scope of the Lata School project be restricted to a buck breeding center. This would keep bucks separate from does and help to ensure the purity of the breed, but as a result, the school wouldn't receive any milk proceeds nor would the students receive any milk.

This would have been an unacceptable outcome given the intentions of our grant proposal. Thus far, we have allowed Francis to have her way when it comes to major project decisions even when we disagreed with them, using our flexibility to garner her trust and friendship. No more. Today we wrote a MoU that we believe takes into account the interests of NGO without railroading the school.

We have always intended this project to be based in bottom-up, grassroots methodology. The idea for a livestock project at the school as conceptualized by the school last year during Jake's research. At every stage of this process, we were determined to get community and NGO input. What is becoming more clear is that the NGO values this project as a capital and status-building project as much as it sees the cash injection we offer as an investment in the community. This is not to say it would be a bad thing to help Duma build its profile, in fact, we think this would be a good thing. But that profile building is a second-tier objective at best, and furthermore, we believe the NGO could accomplish it through the framework the school has outlined.

Below is the draft MoU, feel free to contribute your thoughts:

MoU

The following document constitutes a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between Projects Managers (PM) operating within Duma, the Director, and the Lata Primary School (LAT) and outlines the framework of protocols, responsibilities, relationships, and requirements of implementing projects under Duma.

LAT agrees to allow Duma to use the school plot as a livestock farm. Duma retains the right to use this farm as an educational center and as the core capital for a micro-lending operation involving female offspring from the central farm. The specifics of the lending scheme will be determined by Duma and LAT with community input.

Giving Animals to LAT

- Duma agrees to provide funding for a secure livestock shelter to be built using local materials and local labor. Duma agrees to provide a daily meal for each laborer.

- LAT agrees to provide labor for animal shelter.

- During project implementation, Duma will provide animal feed for a pre-determined period of time, after which LAT is solely responsible for providing feed.

- Duma will loan 10 goats to the LAT, comprised of two 100 percent males, two 100 percent females, four 75 percent males and four 75 percent females.

- LAT will receive from the milk of all goats at the school.

- Duma assumes responsibility for initial veterinary fees for a period to be determined by an agricultural extension officer.

The LAT assumes responsibility for the wellbeing and value of the livestock such that:

(a) the LAT will provide all necessary water and food, including modifying the existing plot to serve as a pasture to eliminate the need to purchase feed.

(b) the LAT will oversee the daily cleaning of livestock stalls including weekends and weekdays.

(c) the LAT, in conjunction with the agricultural extension officer, will manage a buck center to control pregnancy and inbreeding.

(d) the LAT will ensure the security of the livestock at all times and will hire a nightwatchmen to ensure animals' safety and the safety of Duma's property.

(e) The LAT will closely monitor livestock health and will report any symptoms to the agricultural extension officer and the Director.

(f) The LAT wgill be responsible for milking the livestock twice daily.

Before receiving the repayment of its loan, Duma reserves the right to relocate the livestock under the following condition:

- LAT fails to meet any of the above conditions such that the value of the livestock and the sustainability of the project are at risk as determined by the Director and a representative from the government livestock extension office.

In order to ensure proper care, LAT may be responsible for hiring a full-time livestock manager funded by proceeds from the project. If the school identifies a trustworthy candidate for this full-time position prior to October, 2009, Duma agrees to provide extensive training for this person through the Livestock Training Institute. This person cannot be a teacher or an immediate family member of any teacher. This person will be responsible for training members of the community.

Teachers will use dairy products and profits derived thereof to supplement students' diets and for the care and treatment of animals. No teacher shall derive personal profit from the products of the central project site.

Teachers are responsible for teaching LAT parents and community members about proper animal husbandry techniques. All community members and Duma members will be allowed to breed their goats with the 100 percent bucks located at the school in exchange for two bushels of feed.

Loaning Animals

When the four 75 percent females give birth to four female kids, they will be divided as follows:

- Two will be loaned from the school to the community in terms determined by the community in a group meeting.

- Two will be given to Duma members in terms determined by Duma members.

They will be divided in the following order:

- The first and third female kid will go to the community.

- The second and fourth female kid will go to Duma.

- Any male kids will be returned to the school to be sold.

The offspring of 100 percent goats will be divided as follows:

- The first male and female offspring of the 100 percent goats will go to Duma to start a new project. All other 100 percent offspring belong to LAT.

After the initial four kids, LAT will be in full ownership of all bucks and does as well as any future kids. It is our recommendation that LAT continue lending a proportion of offspring to the community..

This MoU will be signed by the PM, the Director, and the LAT principal to ensure mutual agreement and understanding.

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On a lighter note, we discovered our own naivete in the process of training secondary school students to conduct a wealth assessment. We provided secondary school students with questionnaires asking about differences between the poor, middle-class, and wealthy. Jake suggested that we have the students ask us the questions as practice and a cultural exchange. Sam was initially hesitant, but it went swimmingly.

We encouraged the students to add questions of their own and to delve for specific examples. The students were surprised that the amount of land an American owns is about as important as the number of bathrooms and floors they have, and that one car counts as average. Also surprising to our students was the fact that billionaires and middle-class people tend to own roughly the same amount of animals (zero cows, one dog, and maybe a cat). The act of answering our own questions prompted us to seriously contemplate richness and poorness in the US in a way that we normally don't have to. Sam, for example, remarked that richness in the city is evaluated on different standards than it is in the suburbs (elevators and ownership rather than bathrooms and acreage). We hope that the focus groups provoked a similar experience in the parents who were present, since one of the main goals of any development intervention should be to get people to start thinking more critically about their own communities, the social problems that underlie poverty, and ways to address those problems.

The research itself got good results and offered crude categories for us to measure wealth. However, having recently decided that the community should determine how and who will receive loans, we have removed ourselves from the process of allocating loans. The data we gathered might be useful as a rough guide for who could be eligible for a loan, but we won't be taking applications.

English Goats in Africa

With Frida, our homestay mother, in tow, we woke up to complete darkness at 5:40 a.m. We wandered outside the gate and hoped the taxi driver we had contacted the night before would arrive on time.

He didn't. But we still arrived at the taxi park before six and met with Francis and Dr. Lockhart, a government agricultural officer. Francis suggested that we bring along Dr. Lockhart to "give him enough rope to hang himself to the project" -- a malapropism that reminded Sam of his ninth grade English teacher who offer students "enough rope with which to hang themselves." Unfortunately, our trip to Arusha did not began without a hitch since the representative from Sia Primary School failed to show up. Putting aside our concern that such an integral member was missing, we saw our first African sunrise en route to Arusha. The hour-long skip to Arusha was the first leg of our trip. We proceeded with a 170 km (that would be kilometers for those of you reading for the glorious motherland) jump to our eventual destination of Babati. The second leg was a turbulent ride on unpaved road spent hopping on two benches in the back of a Land Cruiser we chartered from Arusha.

Joining us for this stage was Mr. Ringo and three development professionals from his firm -- two of whom were stuck in the trunk with us and privy to our countless questions. The torturous ride served as a waterboarding of sorts. We took advantage of their confinement and expertise during the 2.5 hour ride/interrogation. The fact that Mr. Ringo slashed the typically three hour ride by half an hour is a testament to his need for speed. The way in which he pushed the agility of the car was straight out of Grand Theft Auto.

We shared our fear of helping those not in need of help with the development professionals. They offered various categories of wealth measurement we could apply to our target population to determine economic status accurately. For instance, land acreage, source of fodder, type of house, mode of transport, and level of education among other things.

Typically when NGOs go house to house surveying economic means, respondents exaggerate their poverty to dupe researchers into offering undue aid. To stifle this effect, we postponed Tuesday's meeting with Sia School parents, during which we were going to begin discussing our project. Rather, we are recruiting six high achieving secondary school students to facilitate wealth/means assessment focus group discussions with the parents. Instead of interviewing multiple households, respondents discuss what rich, middle-class, and poor means to them.

Asking people to define wealth in culturally relevant terms elicits a set of categories we can use to determine the relative affluence of any given household. We can also use these categories to set criteria for inclusion in our project, which will allow us to narrow our target population. This is critical since our funding will only allow us to offer "direct intervention" in about sixteen households. Since we don't want to direct resources to those who are relatively affluent or those unable to assimilate a capital injection efficiently (aka pay back a loan), we are going to set two benchmarks in each category the community deems important. As a quick example using arbitrary numbers, if someone has a farm of under a half acre, they are unlikely to be able to care for a goat. But if they already have three acres, it may signify that they don't need our help. So we might target those who have over half-acre but under three-acre farms.

Quite an informative backseat ride as you can seen. We arrived in Babati and met with Farm Africa, an organization similar to Heifer that works with goats and through agricultural collectives. About ten years ago, FA launched a project meant to ameliorate rampant malnutrition in Babati. Farmers there told researchers they wanted to work with cows. Citing the relative ease of raising goats, FA asked members of the target population if they would be interested in using these smaller, more durable animals instead of the traditionally better-respected cow. Babati residents agreed, and FA introduced Tanzanian farmers and English Togenberg goats to one another. Despite the risky blind date, both seemed to have thrived: Babati's goat farmers, mostly women, have organized themselves into a cartel of sorts. They use their collective to protect the breed and perhaps more importantly, to set prices. They keep 100%, 75%, and 50% Togenbergs. The remainder of the goats consist of native genes. The women take care of all the business while FA, having trained them, has relegated itself to a technical advisory role.

We met a farmer who told us the goats have helped cut poverty and improve peoples' quality of life. She, for example, has used income from the goats to rebuild her house, add chicken, pig, and rabbit projects, build new toilets, and pay school fees. Next month she is planning to sell a few Togenbergs at $400 a pop to buy a TV.

The coolest thing about the goats aside from their knack for saving the world? Their pupils: every goat has a pair of enchanting deep-brown eyes with black insets that look like miniature barbells with a horizontal strip capped by two vertical pillars on each side.

Relations are thawing between Duma and ourselves. When we told Francis our idea for the focus group discussions, we were expecting some resistance given her overeager approach to breaking ground. Struggling to explain our rationale for extending focus group talks with the community, we were overjoyed when she said, "I will give you the cat but I don't need to see the rat."

We're going to have to start writing down these catch phrases.

Glossary

For those needing a refresher:

Our home

Duma - the NGO we are working with

Francis - the head of the NGO

Uji - our daily breakfast

Our snoring roommate

Who Are We Really Helping?

"In most successful cases we know of, the efforts, resourcefulness, self-discipline, and latent management skills of have rural poor have initially been mobilized and organized by outsiders, overcoming the lack of experience and self-confidence among people who have only known deprivation, hardship, social and economic oppression, and a sense of powerlessness."
- Reasons for Success: Learning From Instructive Experiences in Rural Development

Most contemporary development literature emphasizes the the importance of grassroots over top-down decion-making. The idea is to implement a project that simultaneously pursues "development" while increasing the agency of those it seeks to "develop." Those who form projects are unlikely to succeed without including recipients in every stage of the process. International donors, looking to do good, build a safe water source for a village. But by forgoing consultation and focus group discussions with the community, the donors' project lack the support and enthusiasm of the village to maintain the project.

Here's an apt example: we discussed our project with teachers at a planning meeting with the Lata School staff yesterday for a lengthy exchange of ideas and expectations between Duma and the school. Toward the end of the meeting, the headmaster submitted that although we, the project managers, are ultimately responsible for purchasing animals and building materials, he wanted a representative from the school on hand to vet all our decisions. If we want to purchase a cheap section of iron roofing, for example, the headmaster wants someone to approve the purchase to ensure it won't rust prematurely. There is a precedent for this type of concern. On her own prerogative, one Duma volunteer recently purchased pens and paper to fill what she saw as a need among schoolchildren. She did not ask the teachers whether they felt similarly nor did she ask what kinds of products she ought to supply. The headmaster took issue with her assessment as well as her shopping skills.

The community goodwill we must generate as a precondition for the success of our project is contingent on satisfying a slew of stakeholders with specific expectations. We cannot afford to make these kinds of mistakes.

As such, we met with the Lata School staff to discuss the basic premise of the project and solicit opinions. Francis joined us along with a government agricultural extension worker who conducted an ad hoc feasibility test on the school grounds. According to his analysis, the school has enough room and fodder for two cows or eight goats. Since their meeting with Jake last year, the school had been expecting to receive cows, but budgetary constraints have made goats more appealing lately. Regardless, we intended the decision to be made as a group. Discussing the pros and cons of both animals (e.g. more/less milk, more/fewer animals), some staff preferred goats, others cows, and one triangulated these two positions to suggest one cow and a few goats.

The process of choosing animals required us to collectively reconcile abutting economic and cultural realities. The arguments in favor of goats are the relative ease of care, the value of goat's milk, and goats' ability to reproduce four times as fast as cows (they gestate for half the time and usually produce twins). But as one teacher argued, most people in Shimbwe keep cows and goats are less common. Thus, if the school houses cows, people will be able to genetically improve the local caste and learn advanced animal husbandry.

The school teachers calmed our concerns with specific plans for who would care for the livestock and watch over the shelters at night. While we have yet to draw up a contract (or memorandum of understanding as they say here), we were all able to agree on the basic parameters. Duma would provide funding for the shelter and lease the animals to the Lata School for a determined period of time. The school is responsible for feeding, milking, and otherwise caring for the animals.

The school teachers understood and agreed with our plan to loan livestock to community members. However, Francis, the Duma chairperson, offered to give a group of five teachers the first loan. They enthusiastically agreed. Without much consultation with us, Francis has been determined to offer teachers the first loan as an incentive to take on the project, even though they suggested the project sans loan in the first place. Here, we were unable to avoid what we see as undue favoritism. Perhaps Francis knows this population better than we do and this could grease the social machinery of success despite our reservations.

We left the discussion satisfied and optimistic that the school was ready for the program. All that was left was to determine what materials to use for building the shelter. The school teachers agreed to provide the labor for free (though we debated over what type of lunch we would provide: they wanted fois gras, we offered rice and beans. They assented). Walking towards the main road to catch a dala dala back to Moshi, we were happy that Francis saw so much prospect in the project.

We ended up back in Duma's office and discussed loans in more detail. Choosing a candidate for a loan is a politically-charged procedure. Duma members pay entrance fees and annual dues. The organization is therefore obliged to provide returns on what members see as investments. But our intention is to help the poorest of the poor and to use the school as a local educational center for those in line to receive animals. Alas, the poorest of the poor usually can't afford to pay membership fees. And to make matters even more complicated, potential loanees have to have sufficient land and resources to provide feed and build a shelter.

As outsiders seeking to assist the poor, we are not entirely sensitive to the needs of an NGO to placate its members. On the other hand, we are relying on the NGO to sustain the project after we leave. We are generally committed to common ground and compromise. Still, we feel a moral aversion to using grant money to improve the lives of those who aren't destitute. We don't want to use our resources to reinforce or stratify preexisting inequality. But if we cater too much to the institutional concerns of the NGO, we may end up with just that.

We acknowledge that the poorest of the poor might lack the resources to care for an animal and we do not want to make loans in vain. However, we would rather develop a plan that enables the poor to obtain inaccessible resources than ignore them entirely. Thus, we will suggest using three pilot loan groups: one with Lata teachers, one with Duma members, and one with poor non-member residents of the Sia district.

We will still require arable land and proper shelter but hope the poor will use their well-developed coping skills to meet the these criteria.

Next Tuesday, we are going back up to Sia to meet with parents and teachers to explain the project and our long-term goal of loaning livestock. We are bringing six Swahili speakers along to break up the parents into focus groups with the aim of having parents brainstorm ways for peasants with land but not capital to meet our loaning conditions.

Tuesday is also our target date for ground-breaking on the project site.