This is Thai James signing on. Sitting here in Dar es Salaam and trying to weave a narrative through this strange course of events that brought me to a microfinance bank in Sub-Saharan Africa, preferably in such a way that I don't end up only talking to myself like a million other bloggers... Please do put my mind at ease and reply with something, anything, just so's I know you're paying attention. Oh and a note about the title - Bongoland is a self-administered nickname for Tanzania, not some derogatory epithet that I made up, in case you were wondering.
So, a week has passed in Dar; impressions have formed. Can I sketch them without recourse to a dozen stereotypes of sultry air on breezes from the Indian Ocean, palm trees, wafting smoke from a multitude of barbequed meat stands, the humidity, chaos and fumes of a large African city, the friendly people that greet you with 'Mambo' and a smile? Sadly no, but it's the best I can do. Perhaps I should stick with a list of facts: this sprawling city of more than 3 million lies on the coast by that vast bath, its yearly average high temperature is around 30 degrees, the concrete maze and dust of the extensive suburbs are bordered by white sand beaches. A five minute ferry ride from downtown reaches a languid backwater of palm forests and villages, and muzungu beach bars with Marley on the stereo and Maasai guarding the periphery, yet the centre consists of row upon row of dirty high-rises and a packed bustle extending all day and into the night. Not so much a mere city of contrasts as a vast human mish-mash, ultra-rich and horrendously poor, African, Indian, European and Oriental, no commonality or plan except that we're all thrown together at the edge of East Africa. Suffice to say, an amazing place, and I'm pretty excited that I'm calling it home for a while. Yet somehow it can't just be typecast as 'exotic' by anyone looking to tick boxes of the unfamiliar - the music is hip-hop (albeit the local Bongo Flava), the drink is Coca-Cola and beers named Safari and Kilimanjaro, the most frequent food barbequed chicken and chips. No less unique for that though, and no less enticing.
Yesterday I moved into a house with a friendly pair of Danish (by passport) girls, who speak Swahili and have both spent years in this city at various times in their lives, doing the international school to NGO circuit (familiar, anyone?). A handy bridge between expat and local, and we have the makings of a chilled household. We have a dog (in training to be a guard dog apparently, but seems a little too friendly for the role), but as yet little furniture save a deckchair and a pair of tiny stools - the rest is on its way. All importantly, fans and mosquito nets are already in place, as well as high walls and razor wire, an unfortunate necessity though Dar is one of the safer cities in the region. The friends of theirs I've met so far consist of a Tanzanian nature reserve manager and a mixed-race (and again international schooled) safari tour company owner. Not an expat bubble of culture, though necessarily a bubble of income.
Work started the day before, and here it gets interesting. My first couple of days have consisted of observing and participating in (as a trainee myself) the training of a new batch of loan officers for the credit department. These footsoldiers are to be sent out to find the microentrepreneurs in need of our financial boost, to advise them and check that our lending would be within their capacity to repay, and to monitor the repayments. They are an enthusiastic young bunch, although a bit older than their peers would be in the west; just graduated university but around 25-30 years old. The training has also allowed me to observe what the organisation presents as its ethics at ground level, uncensored for outside consumption. I'm pleased by what I see - the philosophy of the company, a private firm but with development principles (and capital) at its backbone; the stern emphasis on rejecting bribes, on giving honest assessments, on tending loans on the basis of the client's cashflow and capacity to repay rather than a lazy and destructive reliance on squaring up some juicy collateral to seize if it goes wrong. Perhaps if US mortgage lenders had been so proactive we wouldn't be wading through the murk of the worst economic crisis in eighty years. Still, this is the training; the reality will present itself next week, when I start observing the veteran officers in the field. I've been warming to my fellow trainees, the lucky few Tanzanians with decent career opportunities laid out before them. The entire class of 15 trainees combined make less than what I make, and they are solidly 'middle class'. Hearing their opinions on Tanzanian society, governance and the economy is illuminating: to sum up, a good deal of cynicism on the latter two. Everyone is well aware of the pervasiveness of corruption within government and anyone with power, public and private. An avowed part of this organisation's aims is to operate outside of that framework, and by doing so spread a different way of doing business. Good for the firm and good for society, if the principles can be put into practice. I know from others within the company that quite a few loan officers were discharged for not living up to this, so it seems to be more than empty words. I'm not here to be a cheerleader for the company though, so let's see.
That's all for now, boys and girls. I promise to try and post regular updates, and you in turn must promise to follow me and boost my ego. Deal?
So, a week has passed in Dar; impressions have formed. Can I sketch them without recourse to a dozen stereotypes of sultry air on breezes from the Indian Ocean, palm trees, wafting smoke from a multitude of barbequed meat stands, the humidity, chaos and fumes of a large African city, the friendly people that greet you with 'Mambo' and a smile? Sadly no, but it's the best I can do. Perhaps I should stick with a list of facts: this sprawling city of more than 3 million lies on the coast by that vast bath, its yearly average high temperature is around 30 degrees, the concrete maze and dust of the extensive suburbs are bordered by white sand beaches. A five minute ferry ride from downtown reaches a languid backwater of palm forests and villages, and muzungu beach bars with Marley on the stereo and Maasai guarding the periphery, yet the centre consists of row upon row of dirty high-rises and a packed bustle extending all day and into the night. Not so much a mere city of contrasts as a vast human mish-mash, ultra-rich and horrendously poor, African, Indian, European and Oriental, no commonality or plan except that we're all thrown together at the edge of East Africa. Suffice to say, an amazing place, and I'm pretty excited that I'm calling it home for a while. Yet somehow it can't just be typecast as 'exotic' by anyone looking to tick boxes of the unfamiliar - the music is hip-hop (albeit the local Bongo Flava), the drink is Coca-Cola and beers named Safari and Kilimanjaro, the most frequent food barbequed chicken and chips. No less unique for that though, and no less enticing.
Yesterday I moved into a house with a friendly pair of Danish (by passport) girls, who speak Swahili and have both spent years in this city at various times in their lives, doing the international school to NGO circuit (familiar, anyone?). A handy bridge between expat and local, and we have the makings of a chilled household. We have a dog (in training to be a guard dog apparently, but seems a little too friendly for the role), but as yet little furniture save a deckchair and a pair of tiny stools - the rest is on its way. All importantly, fans and mosquito nets are already in place, as well as high walls and razor wire, an unfortunate necessity though Dar is one of the safer cities in the region. The friends of theirs I've met so far consist of a Tanzanian nature reserve manager and a mixed-race (and again international schooled) safari tour company owner. Not an expat bubble of culture, though necessarily a bubble of income.
Work started the day before, and here it gets interesting. My first couple of days have consisted of observing and participating in (as a trainee myself) the training of a new batch of loan officers for the credit department. These footsoldiers are to be sent out to find the microentrepreneurs in need of our financial boost, to advise them and check that our lending would be within their capacity to repay, and to monitor the repayments. They are an enthusiastic young bunch, although a bit older than their peers would be in the west; just graduated university but around 25-30 years old. The training has also allowed me to observe what the organisation presents as its ethics at ground level, uncensored for outside consumption. I'm pleased by what I see - the philosophy of the company, a private firm but with development principles (and capital) at its backbone; the stern emphasis on rejecting bribes, on giving honest assessments, on tending loans on the basis of the client's cashflow and capacity to repay rather than a lazy and destructive reliance on squaring up some juicy collateral to seize if it goes wrong. Perhaps if US mortgage lenders had been so proactive we wouldn't be wading through the murk of the worst economic crisis in eighty years. Still, this is the training; the reality will present itself next week, when I start observing the veteran officers in the field. I've been warming to my fellow trainees, the lucky few Tanzanians with decent career opportunities laid out before them. The entire class of 15 trainees combined make less than what I make, and they are solidly 'middle class'. Hearing their opinions on Tanzanian society, governance and the economy is illuminating: to sum up, a good deal of cynicism on the latter two. Everyone is well aware of the pervasiveness of corruption within government and anyone with power, public and private. An avowed part of this organisation's aims is to operate outside of that framework, and by doing so spread a different way of doing business. Good for the firm and good for society, if the principles can be put into practice. I know from others within the company that quite a few loan officers were discharged for not living up to this, so it seems to be more than empty words. I'm not here to be a cheerleader for the company though, so let's see.
That's all for now, boys and girls. I promise to try and post regular updates, and you in turn must promise to follow me and boost my ego. Deal?
Rock on James! Looking forward to reading more!
ReplyDelete--Lloyd
deal!
ReplyDeleteWell written. Look forward to reading the next issue soon.
ReplyDeleteWe need another installment, james. x
ReplyDelete