boxing begins

1.27.2008 9:08

photo graph. this was new years the 14th of January a couple of weeks ago. In the picture...Host parents, thier daughter and her husband and thier son. to my right is my site mate andrea who is also stationed in my town.

I love being sick. Not. I had a long day Tuesday and it totally ripped up my immune system. I am probably retelling that day but I woke up early, worked 4 hours at the office then made my way to the gym where the guys didn’t show because of a school project they have to work on. So I had the whole gym to myself and I over did it. After that I went to basketball and played close to full out for 3 hours off and on. So by the time my day was over my immune system was shot. Thus since Wednesday I have gotten steadily worse waiting for it to get better. Bummer.

So, not too much has really gone on since then. I couldn’t go to boxing that I was excited to start up on Wednesday, and I really didn’t do anything but go to work and come home and lay in bed. And the only reason I went to work was to get out of the house and not feel completely worthless. Now that I am being completely depressing ill stop :). Thursday was an alright day I guess. After work I came home and had something to eat and tried to calm down the crazy little boy who has been staying with us for the past month or so (my host sister’s son). I decided I would take him on a walk before his nap. So we walked hand and hand as he jumped from one thing to the next as little 3 year olds do.

I decided to try to make the walk productive so we walked to the mayor’s office so I could ask for a map. On the way we were stopped by like 3 older ladies who would yell phillip then come over for high fives. I felt neglected given I had never seen any of them but I felt like a little bit of a celebrity having my moms friends come up to see the little boy I was walking with. Same kinda thing happened in the mayor’s office but it helped my case. Because I was able to use his star power to get in to an office I had never been in and ask for a map of the city. This became more complicated then It needed to be given the complexity of the copying operation that should not have been all the complicated. I resorted to asking if I could just borrow the map for an hour and come back with a copy from a Xerox store nearby. It was agreed and off went the celebrity and his bodyguard.

I walked Phillip home then proceeded into the center for the Xerox. On the way I ran into the guy who had given me the map who explained to me that I had the wrong map. I guess I had the plans for the expansion of the fiberoptic cables in the town so my map contained information I was not to have apparently. Any way, the guy gave me another map he had found so there was no need to make a copy anymore! Success!

Friday was much the same minus the map excursion and the fact that I went to hang out at the orphanage and play some games. So at the oprhange there is this mentally handicap boy who comes that I have grown fond of. I help him play cards with the other kids by limiting his playing to just counting to three and laying down a card, I do the thinking and the slapping the middle. He loves it and had a blast because otherwise he couldn’t play. Anyway were not very good and lose pretty quickly to the other kids and have to wait till they finish their game. So to kill time and keep his spirits up we sing. Its mainly a weird impersonation of this techno song I have heard before. We start off my making sounds with our throat.. you know like a throaty quick sound followed by some finger drumming on the table and then the melody carried out with hums. It is really halrious when we get going and most of the kids look at us like we are insane… ( I think im close to going insane ;-). Anyway that’s my normal day there.

Also Friday we did some puzzles. Me and my bud dominated the first puzzle with ease and to be completely honest I was feeling a little over confident in my puzzle building skills. I was thinking to myself wow.. I am really good at this, maybe it’s a hidden talent I never knew I possessed. WRONG! The next puzzle which my heart wasn’t really into was a sheep in some grass. We probably spent a good 30 minutes on this 75 piece puzzle and weren’t able to finish it. I was frustrated and tired of it so I asked some little girl to come show us how its done. She agreed came over and totally dominated the puzzle like only a 6 year old professional could.

Saturday I had nothing planned and still feeling crummy decided I would clean my room and go for a walk. Mission accomplished. I did a good job on my room, beginning with getting all the carpets on the clothesline then beating them then I got to sweeping my room finishing it off by getting the shirt on a stick mop contraption and mopping the wood floor. I did dust the whole place as well. I rule!

I also had the opportunity to go to boxing practice just to observe because of my health condition can’t really fight yet. Its great! To warm up they played soccer outside. I ran into my mentally handicapped friend from the center who ran up to me singing the techno song and jumping around as soon as he saw me. That was the first impression I made on group of guys I had just barely met. Classic confused looks from all! After about 30 minutes we all went to get to work.

These kids are tough as nails. The practice was brutal but they were in high spirits during the rest periods. Only few things im concerned about. I have only a brief introduction into armature boxing but my past coach seemed to know his stuff and protecting your hands and your body was a big part of his training style because recovering from injury’s is not something that is productive. Nobody properly wrapped their hands to protect the joints and ligaments in their hands and when they were hitting the heavy bag they were going full out on it. Maybe that’s just their way but when out of the 7 boys that were there and 4 of them have wrist problems and one has a shoulder problem id say something is wrong. All I can say is that I am going to get my exercise in while im here and I am thinking about dropping my weight lifting program completely because id rather be quick then slow and big with these guys. Bigger you are the slower and more abused you get in my experience. As long as my lower back and withstand this I should be in great shape. POSTIVITY!

Alright… well the 1980s music videos are on the television now and im watching this bizarre song showing the statue of liberty singing and burning with a red background switching to shots of St. Petersburg in Russia and the soviet star and other soviet symbols. It might be about brining the two superpowers together but its hard to tell whats really going on in this video. I have a lazy day today. HARAAA!!!!!!

Updated.

holidays are over!

1.23.2008 13:04

I am feeling a change in the way I am going to present information. This whole write a day by day recap becomes tedious and cumbersome for me. I almost dread it more then I enjoy it and that is when we get problems like nearly 2 weeks before I update my blog. If I can I will recall what I want when I want but more or less this might turn into what I am thinking about at the time and might get more intimate then it has previously been. Or I could possibly revert back to my previous way of writing.

These last 2 weeks have been a good time. I have officially survived holiday season here in Moldova. It was not easy or productive but it is over now. Never have I witnessed a holiday season like it anywhere before nor do I think I will ever again in a country outside of eastern Europe. I am so holidayed out I just want to work every day for 15 hours to catch up. I spent some down time reading a little, forming plans and strategizing what I will be doing here for the next 2 years and how I can most effectively spend my time here. I have yet to come to any real conclusions though I have given it much thought.

Going along my former train of thought I am going to my best to be a learner here. An observer and student of my city and culture of Moldova. I realize I want to travel around Moldova to different sites seeing the entire country as much as I can. I also want to feel some sort of accomplishment when I finish my time here. To do that I have to plan accordingly. I am doing a lot of reading on foreign aid and opinions how to correctly go about doing it and how to not go about doing it. The consensus is sustainability. “gift giving” is not helping. Everything I do here, I have sustainability in the back of my mind… how can I contribute to this community that will make a difference in the future down the road.

So… anyway. I am meeting with this group of volunteers Friday who have written a plan to beautify our city park. Problem is they have a half written plan that some of them .. 1 of them wrote this past summer. They had it hijacked by the equivalent of the “german peace corps” and now have their idea put into a plan that they don’t understand and are not really behind. The plan asks for around $4k Euro to make some changes to their park. My german counterpart is getting pressure to finish this plan and get the money. She is not thrilled because this is a hand me down project where only one volunteer was there for the idea brainstorming part and nobody else knows whats going on or why it is necessary to have the money.

I told them that I think your initial idea to help clean up the park sounds like a great idea but lets start at the beginning. But to go even farther I am proposing tomorrow (the meeting) that we organize this group better. We get leaders to step up, we get communication down and a regular meeting schedule. From there I will briefly touch on some strategies on how to go about creating a project to raising the funds if needed so they are in power and not some outside foreign aid director. In pre service training we did some worthwhile exercises on how to go about mapping your community and accessing the resources that the community already has and how to utilize them to solve identified problems.

I am going to try to get them behind learning a little about the steps in going about creating a project by identifying a need to making sure it is a community felt need by asking people in the community their opinion then combining resources with places like the mayor’s office and the local high school where there is free labor in the volunteers wanting to do some good in their community. After we have established stuff like that I will go in the basics of grant writing if it is necessary and the message of sustainability. For example if we write a project that puts trash cans in the park and we put them up and people don’t use them or they get spray painted by the local kids, or knocked over by the dogs who run wild who is going to go about correcting these problems.

I am also thinking a lot about what I want to do while I am here. I have been reading this book called Two Ears of Corn a book written to aid in agriculture extension offices. How to go about setting them up and how to make them sustainable. I am basically now planting the seeds in places I will want to work at while I am here. I have introduced myself to 2 high schools, a local center for previously trafficked people, my organization, the orphanage, the mayor’s office, and most recently a boxing club where I plan to begin training in the next week. I have also inquired into a peace corps program that holds business seminars for interested people. They give us the information they want us to talk about and we go in and do it. I just got the information and I need to study it because it is all in Romanian. It is the bare basics on many business subjects, such as the 4 P’s in marketing on to how to obtain credit.

I want to push myself in learning one of the subjects fully in Romanian so that I can travel with a group of other volunteers around the country getting my travel in and fluency with the language. It is a big commitment but I think it will most effectively reach some objectives that I want to meet in my time here.

A quick wrap up of the last two weeks is that, I went back to my old host family for my host mom’s birthday. It was a riot. There was so much food I was in awe. There were about 35 of us in all, family and friends, but mostly family. We ate and talked over a big table and then had a dance party around the table with the music. Bizarre but oddly fun.

After getting back from that, back in my village was our town party and new years the 14th of January known as the old new years. Our town had fireworks and food everywhere. I ate with some friends at my site mates house and toasted the new year before heading out to see the fire works and walk around the town. It was a good time, but I spoke way to much English.

I just got back from Chisinau (pronounced Kish e now) for our in-service language training as a group. It was a great time seeing everyone and sharing stories again. The language is coming along but I didn’t find the session all that productive. I was just happy to see everyone.

Today I am feeling kinda sick, so im taking some free time to write in my blog before heading off to the orphanage if I go.. then off to the boxing gym which I still need to find for practice from 5-7 tonight. I met the coach today because he is a friend of my partners and took time out of our busy work day ( I am being sarcastic here) to drive me to this guys house and meet him. This guy is a super nice guy, and apparently was on the major boxing sports team in the U.S.S.R. back when that was around so I am guessing he knows his stuff. The rarest thing about him is that he claims to have never smoked a cigarette or drank alcohol even once in his whole life! As a man who lives in Moldova and Lived in Russian this seems like the oddest most outrageous claim I have ever heard, but it made me respect him even more because of his commitment to his sports and health. I can relate to that determination as I basically followed along that same path as I grew up even throughout college because of my commitment to fitness.

There is the quick and dirty update. If anybody reading this has questions about anything send me an email or call my parents in Kansas and have them relay the message to me. I’d love to answer or find out any questions anybody has. I am tired, probably go to sleep now. I will try to update more frequently on a day to day thought basis from now on, sorry if this entry is lacking, its all I have the effort for now.

Little ranting, and then about me.

1.10.08 17:45

I am sorry one more thought derived from an article by Thomas Friedman. This is exactly what has been on my mind and follows the same theme of what is America to the rest of the world. I will not post articles unless I think they are thought provoking, idea shaping things.

Ask not what…
- December 9, 2001

“…I have nothing but respect for the way President Bush has conducted this war. But this moment cannot just be about moving troops and tacking terrorists. There is a deep hunger in the Post-September 11 America in many people who feel this is their war in their backyard and they would be summoned by the President to do something more than go shopping. If you just look at the amount of money spontaneously donated to victims’ families, it’s clear that there is a deep reservoir of energy out there that could be channeled to become a real force for American renewal and transformation— and it’s not being done. One senses that President Bush is intent on stapling his narrow, hard-right September 10 agenda onto the September 12 world and that is his and our loss.

Imagine if tomorrow President Bush asked all Americans to turn down their home thermostats to 65 degrees so America would not be so much of a hostage to the Middle East oil? Trust me, every American would turn down the thermostat to 65 degrees. Liberating us from the grip of OPEC would be our Victory Garden.
Imagine if the President announced a Manhattan Project to make us energy independent in a decade, on the basis of domestic oil, improved mileage standards, and renewable resources, so we Americans, who are 5 percent of the world’s population, don’t continue hogging 25 percent of the world’s energy?

Imagine if the President called on every young person to consider enlisting in some form of service— Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, Coast Guard, Peace Corps, Teach for American, AmeriCorps, the FBI, the CIA? People would enlist in droves. Imagine if the President called on every corporate chieftain to take a 10 percent pay cut, starting with himself, so fewer employees would have to be laid off? Plenty would do it.
I don’t toss this ideas out for some patriotic high. There is a critical strategic point here: If we are going to be stomping around the world wiping out terrorist cells from Kubul to Manila, we’d better make sure that we are the best country, and the best global citizens, we can be. Otherwise, we are going to lose the rest fo the world.
That Means not just putting a fist in the face of the world’s bad guys, but also offering a hand up for the good guys. That means doubling our foreign aid, intensifying our democracy promoting programs, increasing our contributions to world development banks ( which do micro lending to poor women), and lowering our trade barriers for textile and farm imports from the poorest countries. Imagine if the President called don every U.S. school to raise money to buy solar powered light bulbs for every village in Africa that didn’t have electricity so African kids could read at night? And let every one of those light bulbs carry an American flag decal on it, so when those kids grew up they would remember who lit up their nights?

The world’s perception of us and our values matters even more now, and its not going to be changed by an ad campaign, or just by winning in Afghanistan, as important as that is. It will be changed only by what we do— at home and abroad. This war can’t end with only downtown Kabul on the mend, and not downtown Washington, Chicago, and Los Angeles. Remember: the victims on September 11 were a cross section of America— black, white, Hispanic, rich, poor, and middle-class— and that same cross section has to share in the healing. If we’ve learned anything from September 11, it is that if you don’t visit a bad neighborhood, it will visit you.

The first Greatest Generation won its stripes by defending America and its allies. This Greatest Generation has to win its stripes by making sure that America that was passed on to us, and that now claims for itself the leadership of a global war against all evil terrorist, is worthy of that task.
Mr. President, where do we enlist?“

Read all that? It was short I hope so. My dad has been pressing these ideas on me constantly every time I talk to him. He likes to tell me it will be my generation that will be the change from the self absorbed glutton that America is into the eco friendly, more worldly America it needs to become. I just nod at them agree with him when he says this but I never really thought about it all that much. I mean I see the problems we are causing around the world, I see the problems with being so oil dependent, I just don’t know when the majority of people will decide to give up their perks and open their eyes. Ok so I am done with that little thought for now.

Lets talk about me! Let me remember… I had a rocky 4 moment on Sunday. I was stir crazy from being in the house because it was so cold out and nothing was going on. I finally after writing my blog decided to venture outside to see how the track looked to see if I could get a little workout in. I put on 3 pairs or pants, and about 5 shirts then my jacked and proceeded outside to face the elements. This time though I brought my heavy duty winter gloves and not the fingerless ones I had previously used. There was about 5 inches of snow on the ground around the track but the pull up bars were not covered in ice anymore. I trudged through the snow one foot at a time around the track completing two laps before deciding that this was nuts and made my way over the to pull up bars. With my gloves I was able to get a good workout in. I even improvised using old soccer goals that were only about 3 feet high to do some lightly weight squats and bent over rows. That was really my Rocky moment when he is in Siberia training for this fight running in the snow.. lifting random objects while the Russian is in his nice gym working out all nice and warm. I always wanted my own Rocky experience like that so here I have it…

So after that I had Christmas eve dinner at our house. It had some good stuff. We had our neighbors over and we put three tables together and had a masa in the living room. I of course had a really hard time following any conversation given it was in Russian but there was a lot of laughing going on.

Christmas came and went without too much of a fuss. We had roast chicken (the same thing as having a turkey but it’s a chicken because turkeys are expensive as all heck). It was a great meal. Also included in the meal was this kind of patato cake thing though the texture was like a jelly and in it contained chicken organs. All different types. You know what? I liked it.

Tuesday.. still no work I waited around until 2 so I could go to the gym and workout inside. It had been over a week since I had been able to go and I was really anxious to get over there and go. I killed a lot of time playing with my … host nephew… who is 3. I have been downloading these games for little kids off this web site Big Fish Games. It lets you try games for an hour before you have to buy them so I just find games that a 3 year old can play and download them and we play them then change games. That combined with this cup stacking game my parents sent me entertains the heck out of that kid who would be otherwise running around the house terrorizing everyone... so 2 rolls around I get all ready to go trek over to the gym to find out its closed. One of the guys I coach is over there waiting outside. He says its closed because is the day after Christmas… ok.. bummer. He asks me if I want to go play chess at this place nearby with some people. I say your darn right I do! ( I have become semi obsessed with playing people in chess whenever I have the chance… it was just freak luck this kid wanted to play) So I follow him to this abonded looking building where this chess club or whatever is meeting.

We go inside and low and behold there are like 10 old men playing chess and really getting into it. Then there is another boy from the gym there playing speed chess with this really old man. I sit down and for the next 2 hours proceeded to get humbled in every game I played. I said I liked chess… never said I was any good at it :-).

Wednesday was a good. I was able to go to work. After my vacation from it I was happy to be able to sit back in my office and translate some more. It was good to see my partners again. I did a bad thing though. I introduced one of my partners who already has a hard time staying on task to the wonderful world of YouTube. He went right for videos of Putin and didn’t accomplish anything else for the rest of the day. Also that day I planned on going out to the children’s house to hang out and play games but sadly it does not open until Tuesday of next week. Having too much free time I decided I would do something I told myself I would do for sometime now. Visit the mayors office.

My host mom gave me the phone ahead to one of her friends to work there and so I showed up there. What I didn’t realize was how huge the mayors building actually is. I walked in there and it took me 10 minutes before I could even find the Mayor’s office. I could also not find my host moms friend who works there. But I stumbled into the office, asked someone inside this random room I walked into if she knew a women I only knew by first name ( she is the host mother of another volunteer in a nearby town) and as luck would have it she was right in the next room. I opened the door to find out she was sitting down with other gentlemen looking as if they were having a meeting. I said I was sorry and closed the door. The receptionist insisted I just go back in… so I did. I stood there looking stupid for a little while before I stumbled out that who I was and what I was doing here. Then the women brightened up and said welcome in how as I doing that kind of thing. I met the other two gentlemen whose title’s I forgot in the frenzy. I came because I had free time but also because I wanted to find out how many NGO’s are in my “city” and meet the mayor if I could.

Well as I sat and talked a while one of the gentlemen left to go find out my question while I chatted for a bit. Then I was escorted to the mayor’s office and met the mayor who was a school teacher or still is I dunno. He was a really friendly guy and also young. I had a good discussion with the Mayor.. this was one of those freakish times when I could understand everything that was being said and was able to respond to a fair degree as well. I love those days. I found out he is a democrat and in a country full of communists it was tough to get anything done. ( I am in the north, and the north is known as a communist part of Moldova.. not only that but so is the president of Moldova). I asked him if he liked being mayor. He said he likes it alright but he loved being a teacher and wishes he could go back to just doing that. He gave me his phone number and told me to give him a call if I needed anything and asked me when I could come back and get started on projects.

I told him I wanted to read up on some of the NGO’s in the city before I go about starting any projects. I am here more of a learner and facilitator more then an organizer of projects that I think the city needs. He said good plan. I am going there Friday... so tomorrow to go back and visit. He also was helpful in trying to help me find me a tutor for my language which I expressed I needed. He said he would do it himself but he just doesn’t have the time. He was a Romanian teacher.

So that was a positive experience. Today I went to work again. Installed some printer drivers on some computers so their printer works with all of the computers now and printed out some workout plans I had made for the kids at the gym. I went to the gym and had a really great workout and handed out our new workout plan that leaves space to put their weight they lifted each day so they can track their progress. They seemed pretty happy about it.

Then I trekked off to basketball but after sitting outside in the cold for 30 minutes alone I realized that nobody was coming. I later got a call from a kid saying probably nobody will come because it is the first day back from vacation…. I don’t understand that reasoning but whatever. No basketball.

There’s my update. Boom.

not really about me but here

1.8.08 19:08

As I hear more and more about what former volunteers have done in the past here in Moldova I realize a majority of it is not sustainable. We have been given this speech by Peace Corps themselves and they urge us to seek ways of making projects sustainable. I have also listened to some backlash against foreign aid by volunteers who just flat out refuse to write grants for their partners. Doing a little reading into the subject I was able to read their argument more or less and have been given it a lot of thought. At the same time I am reading “Longitudes and Attitudes” by Thomas Friedman in which it discusses the view of America from a middle east view point, why things are the way they are over there and what in Friedman’s eyes is the solution. I am looking inside myself to try to figure out what is my purpose of being here in Moldova and what I should be thinking about as I think about projects to start here.

Any who here is a little snip of the book I typed out… though I do not know if it is illegal to post this material, im not making money on it and I have the book here it is.

Now this is taken directly out of Banker to the Poor by Muhammad Yunus. Now this book was a little hard to get into given how it mainly is just a promotional piece about him self that he wrote explaining how great of a person he is. I have struggled through most of it taken vary little from it until I came across these few pages that were so enlightening that I wrote the page numbers down so that I would later write type them on word then possibly post them to my blog for others to see if they have the patience to read into it.
Taken directly from his books as stated above.

"
Why give credit first?

I firmly believe that all human beings have an innate skill. I call it the survival skill. The fact that the poor are alive is clear proof of their ability. They do not need us to teach them how to survive; they already know how to do this. So rather than waste our time teaching them new skills, we try to make maximum use of their existing skills. Giving the poor access to credit allows them to immediately put into practice the skills they already know- to weave, husk rice paddy, raise cows, and peddle a rickshaw. And the cash they earn is then a tool, a key that unlocks a host of other abilities and allows them to explore their own potential. Often borrowers teach each other new techniques that allow them to better use their survival skills. They teach far better than we ever could.

Government decision-makers, many NGOs, and international consultants usually start the work of poverty alleviation by launching very elaborate training programs. They do this because they begin with the assumption that people are poor because they lack the skills. Training also perpetuates their own interests- by creating more jobs for themselves without the responsibility of having to produce concrete results. Thanks to the flow of aid and welfare budgets, a huge industry has evolved worldwide for the sole purpose of providing such training. Experts on poverty alleviation insist that training is absolutely vital for the poor to move up in the economic ladder. But if you go out into the real world, you cannot miss seeing that the poor are poor not because they are untrained or illiterate but because they cannot retain the returns of their labor. They have no control over capital, and it is the ability to control capital that gives people the power to rise out of poverty. Profit is unashamedly biased toward capital. In their powerless state, the poor work for the benefit of someone who controls the productive assets. Why can they not control any capital? Because they do not inherit any capital or credit and nobody gives them access to it because they are not considered creditworthy.

I believe that many training programs are counterproductive. If Grameen had required borrowers to attend a training program in business management before taking out a loan to start a business, most of them would have been scared away. Formal learning is a threatening experience for our borrowers. It can even destroy their natural capacity or make them feel small, stupid, and useless. Also, poor people are often offered incentives to participate in training programs- sometimes they receive immediate finical benefits in the form of training allowance or training is made a prerequisite to obtaining other important benefits in cash or in kind. This attracts the poor, even though they may not be interested in the training itself.

This is not to say that all training is bad. Bur training should not be forced on people. It should be offered only when they actively seek it out and are willing to pay in kind or cash to obtain it. Grameen borrowers, for example, do look for training. They might want to read the numbers in their passbooks, for example, or figure out what amounts have been paid and how much remains to be paid back. Often Grameen borrowers want to be able to read the Sixteen Decisions, keep accounts, or follow business news. Or they may want to learn how poultry raising: cattle raising; or new ways of plating, sorting, and processing crops, Grameen is also bringing new technology to them: cellular telephones, solar energy, the Internet. Soon borrowers will need to calculate the cost of telephone calls or read the words on computer screen.

Even before I started the Grameen Bank, I had been a critic of international aid agencies in
Bangladesh. By far the most influential agency, and the one I have most criticized, is the World Bank. The World Bank and Grameen have been through so many fights and disagreements over the years that some commentators have labeled us “sparring partners.” There have always been a few individuals in the World Bank who understand what micro-credit is all about, but our styles are so radically different that for many years we have spent more time and energy fighting each other than helping each other.

…My less-than-pleasant experience with the World Bank spurred me to learn as much as I could about development agencies. One observation that became increasingly apparent is that multilateral aid institutions have a lot of money to disburse. Officials determine target amounts for each country. The more money officials manage to give out, the better grade they receive as lending officers. Therefore young, ambitious officers of a donor agency will choose the project with the biggest price tag. By moving a lot of money, their name moves up the promotion ladder.

In my line of work, I have often witnessed the desperation of donor agency officials to give away ever-larger sums of money to Bangladesh. They will do almost anything to achieve this, including bribing government officials and politicians either directly or indirectly. For instance, they will rent newly build, expensive houses owned by government officials or invited them on attractive foreign trips under the guise of official workshops and conferences. Consultants, suppliers, and potential contractors often facilitate this bribing mechanism. After all they are the ones who most benefit from project funded by donors.

One research institution in Bangladesh estimates that of the more then $30 Billion in foreign donor assistance received in past twenty-six years, 75% was not spent in Bangladesh. It was spent on equipment, commodities, and consultants from the donor country itself. Most rich nations use their foreign aid budget mainly to employ their own people and sell their own goods, with the poverty reduction as an afterthought. The 25 % that is spent in Bangladesh usually goes straight to a tiny elite of local suppliers, contractors, consultants, and experts. Much of this money is used by these elites to buy foreign-made consumer goods, which is of no help to our country’s economy or workforce. And there is a general belief that a good chunk of donor money ends up as kickbacks to officials and politicians who have helped make purchase decisions and sign contracts.

The situation is the same in all countries receiving aid, which amounts to $50-$55 Billion a year. Aid-funded projects create massive bureaucracies, which quickly become corrupt and inefficient, incurring huge losses. In a world that trumpets the superiority of the market economy and free enterprise, aid money still goes to expand government spending, often acting against the interests of the market economy.

Most foreign aid goes to building roads, bridges, and so forth, which are supposed to help the poor “in the long run.” The only people really benefitting from most of this aid, however, are those who are already wealthy. Foreign aid becomes a kind of charity for the powerful while the poor get poorer. If aid is to have some impact on the lives of the destitute, it must be rerouted so that it reaches poor households more directly.

I believe that a new aid methodology has to be designed with new objectives. In fact, the direct elimination of poverty should be the objective of all development aid. Development should be viewed as a human rights issue, not as a question of simply increasing the gross national product. When the national economy picks up, the situation of the poor is not necessarily improved. Therefore development should be redefined. It should refer only to a positive measurable change in per capita income of the bottom 50% of the population.

…When as I talked about micro-credit in the 1980s, whether to World Bank economists or journalists, most people assumed that I was trying to alleviate poverty by lending to small business that would then expand and hire the poor. It took people a while to see that I actually advocated lending to the poor directly. Policy makers tend to equate job creation with poverty reduction and economists tend to recognize that only one kind of employment—salaried employment. And economists tend to focus their research and theories on the origins of wealth in the former colonial powers, not on the micro level reality of poor people in Third World countries. Whatever attention is given to poverty comes under the rubric of so-called development economics, a field that emerged only after the Second World war and that has basically remained an afterthought or reinterpretation of the main body of economic theory.

Worst of all, economist have failed to understand the social power of credit. IN economic theory, credit is seen merely as a means with which to lubricate the wheels of trade, commerce, and industry. In reality, credit creates economic power, which quickly translates into social power. When credit institutions and banks make rules that favor a distinct section of the population, that secretion increases both its economic and its social status. In both rich and poor countries alike, credit institutions have favored the rich and in doing so have pounced a death sentence to the poor.

Why have economist remained silent while banks rejected the poor as unworthy of credit? Nobody can provide a convincing answer. Because of this silence and indifference, banks have imposed a finical apartheid and gotten away with it. If economists would only recognize the powerful socioeconomic implications of credit, they might recognize the need to promote credit as a human right.

The shortcomings of the core economic theories remain unchallenged. Microeconomic theory for example which plays a central role in the analytical frame work of economics, is incomplete. It views individual human beings as whether consumers or labor ores and essentially ignores their potential as self-employed individuals. This theoretical dichotomy between entrepreneurs and laborers disregards the creativity and ingenuity of each human being and considers widespread self-employment in Third World countries as a symptom of underdevelopment.

In many Third World countries, the overwhelming majority of people make a living through self-employment. Not knowing where to fit these individuals into their analytical framework, economists lump them in a catch all category called the “informal sector.” But the informal sector really represents the people’s own effort to create their own jobs. I prefer to call it the “people’s economy,” a term often used by a German friend of mine, Karl Osner, who has played a critical role in educating Europeans about micro-credit. Any economist with a real understanding of society would have come forward to increase the efficiency of this people’s economy rather then undermine it. In the absence of economists’ support, organizations like Grameen must step into the breach.
“

come on hotmail

ok, this is not really an entry. i am about to go work out and not in the mood to write out a long drawn out entry given i have just done so about 2 days ago on sunday. i write this entry to express my opinon on hotmail. i am locked into hotmail right not given you can't forward mail from it unless you pay for thier service which is just a way to lock you into staying with them which is smart but its slowly making me hate them. on top of that little detail... every time i go to log into my screen name my cookies or whatever remember that i have used thier site because hotmail is apart of microsoft and they link windows with your hotmail account... i digress you can't get rid of it even if you delete all your history and cookies and all other fun stuff. i have gotten over it.. but what i haven't got over is that it says under my screen name ever time i sign it asks me if i want it to forget me. thats right... underneath my screen name it just says "forget me". as i go to check my email to see who has not forgotten me it is there clear as day "forget me". why could not say somthing nicer like im using a public computer and i dont' want you to recall my screen name... nope it has to make you feel bad about yourself every time..im done ranting. thats all. by the way if i wanted msn to forget me i would push the link "forget me"... but i don't want it to :). until later...

its 2008

Me rockin out on new years. man i am cool.

MASA!

1.6.08 10:40

Week wrap up. Party Chisinau for New Years. Visited old host family. Went to Balţi. Went through a quick bout of depression. Finished a book, purchased Harry Potter in Romanian. Begun listening to the Economist by Podcasts. Taking time off until next week.

Aşa, Monday was a fun time. I took the 7 am bus to Chisinau. Once again I learned my lesson that I should not take the 7 am bus because in fact it just pretends to be the 7am bus and actually doesn’t begin to meander until after 8 am. The ride went by fairly quickly as any 4 hour ride could go. I had a seat the entire time and did not have to stand with my neck kinked to one side always making the hours pass by ever so more quickly. Found my way to headquarters, met up with a bunch of people I had not seen in months and caught up around pizza. After that I spent the remainder of my day walking around the city with no objective other then pass the time until the party started later that night and do my best not to spend money.

I ended up walking around with phil and Andrew who were on a mission to find Andrew a new pair of Moldovan shoes and on a whim a fake armony belt. I was content just to hang out with people and follow around not buying anything because the urge to purchase pointy black shoes has yet conquered my will to resist. But I did have to do all I could to resist the urge to buy some gigantic belt buckles I saw in the piaţa containing either huge American flags, british flags, a face of chuck Norris, 2 pac for life belts…elvis… you name some obscure belt that you never thought would be made in moldova and I would challenge you not to find it there.

From there we went to dinner after dropping our stuff off at the hotel. It was a nice dinner, though I am really cheap when it comes to spending money I spend the equivalent of $13 in a really nice resutrant but ordering the club sandwich and gorging myself on complementary bread. Many a person who went did not get out for cheaper then $30. From there we hit up the local grocery store bought some refreshments for the hotel and had a fun time. We waited until closer to twelve before heading out into the artic tundra that is moldova as of now. We went to the center where a mass of people were gathered around a chrismas tree and music stage. Any picture taken because it was dark except for the lights in the distance on the tree or the stage came out blurry. I was a good time all in all. I spent the night on the floor of the hotel because we had like 18 people for three rooms or 6 beds. And after my last experience in a hotel I refuse to lay on the beds anyway.

Tuesday I hung around a bit with my friends, went to peace corps headquarters for a while watched some football on their satellite tv and for some reason reminnesed about old shoes such as full house, saved by the bell, and how a majority of us had seen every episode of both shows… but I digress. From there I headed out to visit my old host family. I had a great time. Had most of the extended family come over for a masa where we enjoyed great food some wine and good conversation.

I purchased a frame and developed some pictures of my with my host family as a gift for new years. i showed them the pictures and the frame after my mom opened it. They all said it was really nice and enjoyed it and packed it up and gave it back to me. I asked them what they were doing and laughed, I said it was for them! They didn’t understand that I was giving it to them and we all laughed. I bought the frame and pictures to replace a small picture that was used to be used as my visa picture for moldova where they realized later they didn’t need it so I gave it to my host mom as my only picture I had of myself that she wanted. It had been sitting above the television and looked like a tiny shrine.. it was embarrassing so I was happy to replace it.

Also that night after everyone left the table I stayed to watch my mom do the dishes and keep her company. I had a great in depth conversation with my host mom there. And after reflection my first indepth conversation where I was contributing the content just as much as she that I have had for a good month or so. The wine aided my tongue of course but I was happy I was given the practice. Of course conversations with my host mom normally revolved around relationships, so once again we talked about old girlfriends I had, and her thoughts on her daughters current boyfriend and when I was getting married, what type of girl she thought I should be with… all that kind of fun stuff. That was just the starter for our conversation but I can’t for the life of me remember the other topics. Enough said it was a good time.

I lazed around the house with the family. I introduced the game risk to them. That’s right Risk. The game of world domination . The game itself as I always understood it was a difficult game to teach. Well I accomplished this task with ease in a language I am horrible at. The players in the game you are wondering? My host mom, veronica, and tudor. 20 mins into the game tudor was ready to quit as he had some horrible luck with the dice and got absolutely stomped on by his mom. The game went smoothly, and despite my advise to take it easy and build your armies veronica and tudor thought the best strategy was to attack till you could not attack any more thinning themselves out. The mom followed my example and was the second most powerful behind me until I had to drop the knife and conquer her taking her cards that eventually would seal the game for me.

The game took nearly 4 hours and after it we ate lunch and then sat around some more. From here we went to my host grandmothers house and had another masa not more then an hour and a half after I had eaten lunch. I was force fed more food and refreshments for the next 4 hours. My I guess host cousins were there as well with their little girl Mihiella who is adorable as all heck. I spent most of the time attaching my watch to her leg and watching her shake her leg laughing as she tried to get it off. Or fed her rice and tiny pieces of meat.

I made my way home, hitched a ride back part of the way on this big tourist bus where as luck had it I was able to sit the whole way. Then a quick pit stop for a bus change in Balţi where I waited an hour before finding a bus that went to my town and as able to sit the whole way home! I went home ate some great food my current host mom made and crashed. I had to wake up early and run to catch my bus that arrived early to meet up with some friends who weren’t at the new years party in chisnau. It was freezing outside. Really cold easily in the negative degrees. I shuffled around frozen to the bone most of time, ate some pizza the best I have had thus far since coming to moldova and just talking it up. Lucky for me I was able to catch a ride back with my host dad who was on his way back from Chisinau and made the pit stop for me and picked me up on his way home.

Saturday I just lazed around didn’t do much, ate well, layed around. Walked around my town, metup with some more friends for a bit then come home. About 9 o’clock I had a little bout of depression I cringe to mention because I don’t really want to get a lot of questions from my mom tonight when I talk to her on the phone about it but it hit me kinda hard. I am not sure what it was about. I never really thought about it too much but I had conversations with some friends who were going through little bouts of depression here and I looked at them like I didn’t understand what they were talking about. I have been to busy to be depressed I guess. I dunno, well it hit me last night but I survived. I did my laundry last night and hung up my clothes on the clothes line freezing them instantly out there. I plan on going out there and bringing them inside to fully dry in a couple of minutes. I really want to go running today and do some pull ups on the bar to get some energy out but its below zero out there… last time I was doing pushups my fingerless gloves were freezing to the ground when I was doing knuckle pushups. Im afraid when doing pull-ups on the bar with the sweat on my hands I could rip the skin off my fingers the same as putting my tounge on a metal pole. Well see where the day takes me though.

Work starts up again the 9th and tommorw the 7th is Christmas here though it is not that big of a deal like it is in America. New Years is the big one, but I dunno I haven’t experienced Christmas yet. Stay warm :)