Last week I read The Historian, by Elizabeth Kostova.
We are having an Indian Summer now in Tvarditsa, or perhaps a second spring. It was chilly for a few days, and I even got out a sweater, but now it’s sunny and warm again. The raspberry bushes bloomed a second time and we have a new batch of fresh yummy raspberries. The cat had another litter of kittens Friday night (6, although 4 have died in the first week), and the pig had another litter (or whatever you call it) of piglets Wednesday – 7 live births, 3 stillbirths.
In response to my post on poverty, my friend Jenny sent me an interesting email. As I worked on a reply to her, it occurred to me that this is an excellent follow-up post for my blog as well. I hope she doesn’t mind that I’m posting her email here, to provide more context for my response.
I thought about your post about poverty. It seems like if someone would just jumpstart their economy, that would help a lot. What if GM started a plant there, or another big company like that. Wouldn’t it draw other business, force infrastructure to be built, and create cash flow?
Also, isn’t it hard to not try to help your host family too much? You know, if you asked each of your American friends / family members for $20, we would all send you at least that. Water heaters here are only about $180. You’d have that covered easily, and still enough to furnish an internet connection at their house – never mind going to the library!
But that reminds me of the movie about the Coke bottle “The Gods Must be Crazy”. The basic story was that some careless tourist tossed a coke bottle out of the door of his helicopter in Africa somewhere. It fell on a tribesman’s head, who considered it a sign from God. The tribe decided that this tribesman had been “chosen” to lead the others. He then had power, and of course abused it. conflicts were created, battles were fought… All because of the coke bottle.
Does the Peace Corps ask you not to interfere in that way? Are you not supposed to change the fortunes of your family, only teach the people in the village to “fish” (as opposed to bringing them fish)? I suppose that would make the most sense, but it is also a hard row to hoe, since it would be immediately rewarding (in some ways) to go for the quick fix and just buy them a new water heater…
Speaking of finances, how are yours doing? How much do they pay you? Are you able to live within what they pay you (even with all this traveling) or are you slowly diminishing your savings account? Are you comfortable with that? Does your family get some sort of stipend for hosting you?
I’ll start with the easier questions… 🙂
I get a monthly living allowance paid to me in local currency, Moldovan lei. Out of this, I pay almost half to my host family for room and board. The amount for base rent is set by Peace Corps and is not negotiable. Each PCV, though, negotiates an additional amount with their host family for however many meals a day, plus an amount for general household supplies, like TP, sponges, dish soap, laundry detergent, etc.
About 16% goes for my language tutoring (about 17 hours/month).
Then I have about 13% to cover travel expenses (bus fare, hotel if I need it, food, incidentals, etc).
Utilities: I reimburse my host family for my share of water, gas and electricity: 1/4 of the gas and water (since there are 4 of us who live there) and 1/2 of the electric bill (to allow for the disproportionate electricity use of my water distiller and computer). My share of these utilities, plus my long distance phone calls, usually ranges from 8 to 10% of my stipend.
The remaining amount I use for any other miscellaneous expenses, like cell phone service, toiletries, gifts, postage, internet cafes, and materials and supplies like books, paper, etc that I need.
In general, the stipend is perfectly sufficient to meet my needs, but not enough that I could really save up any significant amount of cash over the course of 2 years. It’s actually kind of liberating that there really is no point to save it up since you could at most, if you lived super-tight, save a couple hundred bucks during your service. So you might as well spend it and enjoy yourself! I can’t help but think that just having 130 Americans living in a poor country with a reasonable amount of spending money is in and of itself one of the biggest contributions of PC to a country.
I’ve dipped into my savings for my vacation travel, which is what I had planned it for. I’ve lucked out that both trips were relatively “on the cheap” – staying with friends always makes a trip economical!
Now for the harder questions. You really hit the nail on the head in terms of one of a PCV’s personal struggles here – knowing that I could “fix” some things quickly and easily with my own money or contributions from family and friends, but knowing that in the long-term that doesn’t help at all. There have been plenty of times when I was extremely tempted to pay for something myself – like buying a new modem for the library so I could have internet again! – but they need to work that stuff out for themselves. Also, I am very self-conscious about coming across as a “rich American.” They already believe all Americans are super rich, and the things that I have and can do, although I may consider them modest, are luxuries for many people here (laptop computer, frequent travel within Moldova, international vacations, etc).
The other struggle is to make sure I am helping them do something themselves, and not working on a project by myself, or as you put it, “teaching them to fish.” It doesn’t do them any good if I do all the research about grant opportunities, talk to sponsor organizations myself, and write a grant application by myself. In the long run, that’s just a reversion to the old Soviet system, in a way, when somebody else took care of everything. They need someone to help them learn how to do those things themselves. I’ve let many a good idea die because no one wanted to work on it themselves, but instead thought I would do all the work. I know I’ve ticked some people off, too, and have left others wondering what the heck I am here for if I’m not bringing in $$ for them. I’ve gone round and round with one person in the Primaria who keeps telling me to find them a grant and then they’ll decide what to do with the money. I have tried to explain, until I’m blue in the face, that it doesn’t work that way. They have to decide first what their priorities are, which projects they want to work on, and then we can search for specific grant opportunities that address those issues. The few people who have stuck with it and worked on the grant ideas and applications with me, they are the ones I am investing my time and energy in. Hopefully others will begin to understand that the hard work really does pay off, and they too will take more initiative and responsibility for grant writing and project development. One unfortunate risk, though, is that they lose their motivation if their first attempt at a grant isn’t successful. I try to keep them encouraged, and reassure them that we can submit the same project to numerous sponsors, or resubmit during another grant cycle, but “try, try again” is not a notion with which they are particularly acquainted.
Another struggle sometimes is to keep focused on the issues that the community thinks are important, which are not necessarily the ones I think are important. PC history (and that of many other international development organizations) is rife with stories of well-meaning Volunteers who tried to “fix” a problem that really didn’t need fixing. There’s a story posted in the office now of a PCV in an African village where the women walked hours every day to and from a far-away well for water. The PCV realized how much time and energy would be saved if there was a well right there in the village, so he got funding, organized workers, and they dug a well. There was a big celebration to “christen” the well, and people used it for awhile. A few years later, the PCV returned to the village and was confused and distressed to see the women again walking miles to the far-away well. When questioned, the women said the time to and from the well was the only time they had together as women, when they could talk, gossip, and socialize. The PCV had failed to consider the cultural and social implications, and he had tried to fix a problem that the community didn’t really think needed fixing. I may find the lack of reliable transportation to and from Tvarditsa infuriating, and although I can think of plenty of ways to remedy the situation, I have to remind myself that it just doesn’t seem to bother the residents as much as it bothers me, and until they see it as a priority themselves, I need to put it on the backburner, too. Vice versa, there are problems that they want to address that don’t strike me as particularly pressing, but if it’s meaningful to them, then that’s what we ought to be working on.
Another challenge is to keep focused on the sustainability of projects. It’s sometimes faster and easier to “do it yourself”, but in the long run that won’t help the community to solve the problem next time. Thus, the best results of Peace Corps are not likely to be seen in the short 2-year span of a PCVs time here. Many PCVs get involved in short-term projects, like summer camps. These are great, and the satisfaction of seeing a project to completion cannot be discounted. The risk, though, is getting too involved in those projects, and forgetting about beneficial, but more difficult, long-term sustainable projects.
I’ll give you an example that we are struggling with right now in PC/Moldova. PCVs have been organizing and running several summer camps for many years. They require a lot of time and work to prepare and run, involve a large number of PCVs, and are becoming increasingly expensive. Although the camps all are managed with a Moldovan partner organization, the perception (and some would argue, the reality) is that the camps are primarily PCV run. There are, of course, pros and cons to the infusion of PCV time and energy.
Traditional and typical summer camps in Moldova are a place where kids go to “rest.” They may have some activities, but they are not at all like what we think of as “camp” in the U.S., where both kid and counselor come home exhausted and exhilarated from an intense and fun educational experience. Thus, PCVs are slowly but surely trying to introduce the notion of a camp with purpose. This year, over 400 kids from all over Moldova participated in the 5 national PC camps. Most participants will say they’ve never experienced anything like it before, and they are often crushed that they can’t participate in the same camp again the next year (most of the camps limit participation to one year so as to reach as many kids as possible). GLOW camp, the second-longest running PC camp in Moldova, had over 500 applications for the 120 spots this year, so you can see that there is incredible demand and interest.
All that said, the controversy over sustainability loomed large this year. PC staff repeatedly question what the Moldovan partner organizations are doing and how the PCVs are working to “hand over” camp leadership and management to their partners. Unfortunately, there is a lot of “reinventing the wheel” among PCVs, partially due to the nature of our 2-year assignments here. One group of leaders may barely have time to bring the new PCVs up to speed before their service ends, leaving the next year’s coordinators to scramble and sometimes start nearly from scratch. Many camps have had a hard time finding a committed, stable partner organization, and thus it is challenging for the PCVs to continually be teaching and mentoring the Moldovans while at the same time figuring things out themselves. The end result is more often than not the age-old dilemma – “it’s easier to do it myself than to explain it to you” – which of course doesn’t build sustainability at all. And if there are no Moldovans willing or able to take over the leadership and management of the camps, we have to ask ourselves why we are doing them, and even consider the possibility of not doing them anymore, and instead turn our energies toward more sustainable projects. It’s a tough call.
Another twist is the seemingly contradictory messages we sometimes get from Peace Corps. There are several grant opportunities available to communities via Peace Corps, yet those grants require the presence and participation of a PCV in the community and to oversee the project implementation. This, to me, is counter to the notion of sustainability, since it creates a reliance on PC and PCVs, as communities or projects not involving PCVs cannot apply for these funds. On the other hand, I recognize that “start up” money is crucial, and the availability of those grants often ensures a project is undertaken. It’s another tough call, I think. Personally, I had no intention of ever applying for one of the PC grants. However, when I realized we could quickly and relatively easily get the small amount of funding we need for the Peer Training Series the Children’s Primaria designed, I must admit I succumbed to the temptation, and about 35% of the project will be funded by the PC Small Project Assistant fund.
I think I’ve digressed quite a bit from Jenny’s original questions, so back to original focus.
An infusion of business and industry sounds like an easy “quick fix,” but there are several complications. First, the infrastructure is so underdeveloped and/or in such a state of disrepair, I don’t even now how a company would begin to set up a new factory. The roads are terrible and the train routes look like they were designed from a 2-year old’s scribbles – it literally takes 12 hours to get from Chisinau to Tvarditsa by train, as the tracks twist back and forth across the country; the bus ride is 3 1/2 hours; the actual distance is about 100 miles. Many towns and villages still do not have gas lines or running water. Electricity and telephone service is unstable.
If all that weren’t enough disincentive, the “environment” is not particularly conducive to entrepreneurs and/or investors. The law forbids foreign ownership of property in Moldova, so I imagine s0me businesses wouldn’t really want to set up a plant on land or in a building they can’t own, especially given the amount of money they’d have to invest to build and develop the site. Also, from what I’ve been told, the amount of official paperwork and unofficial bribing that must be done to get a business started is prohibitive and overwhelming.
All that said, though, there are some interesting developments and it is clear that things are sometimes, more or less, pointing in the direction of development and progress. I recently met with a new internationally-funded organization that will be focused on employment and training. With the overarching goal of combating human trafficking, what makes this organization particularly great is they are tackling the issue at the root cause – the lack of reliable, profitable job opportunities in Moldova. They have identified that there is an excellent network of vocational schools in Moldova, and that there is a reasonable (and growing) number of employers. There is, however, a vast disconnect between the skills and professions being taught in the vocational schools, and the skills needed in the existing industries. One of their first projects, they told me, will be to survey thousands of employers throughout Moldova to assess what kind of skilled labor they want and need, and then they will work with vocational schools to develop the appropriate curricula. It’s brilliant, and I really hope it works out as they foresee.
Anka in Kyiv 