The Bahamas: coming home for the first time

I arrived at the Bahamas at noon last Tuesday afternoon and by the time I left the airport 15 minutes later, the country had already lived up to its reputation of an easy-going, fun place -- there was live-music in the security line and no unsolicited offers for taxis or bag carriers or the other barrage of people that can sometimes greet you when you land in a tropical place.

Bahamas with its GDP per capita of $32,000 isn’t a poor place (compare to Madagascar’s GDP per capita of $1,000) but neither is it a rich place (compared to Norway’s GDP per capita of $55,400). Especially when you consider that folks often buy food at NYC prices. One example today was my terrible lemonade (really it was sugar water) for $3. In contrast, Wilson and I shared a huge plate of food (spicy grilled grouper, macaroni, plantains, beans and rice) with an order of conch fritters for $18 last night. Thus, you can get good food – it is just important not to rely on the vegetables or real lemonade.

I think the food situation is analogous to what our life will be like with Wilson in the diplomatic corps – it isn’t always going to be perfect but it is going to be good and remarkable. I noticed that with our housing. For the next two years, we live in a 3 bedroom, 2.5 bathroom townhouse. This is remarkable for me because it is probably triple the size of our former San Francisco apartment. This week, I sometimes took the wrong turn going to our bedroom – that has never happened to me before.

But the bigness of our house doesn’t mean it is perfect, the housing doesn’t have the same high end finishes that a house in the US might have and the furniture is not as chic as that found in our loved ones homes. But it has plenty of room to host our loved ones, and in addition to that, Wilson has done a fantastic job moving us in. It was so comforting to enter the house on Tuesday and see pictures and kitchen items that I hadn’t seen since we moved out of our San Francisco apartment in August 2012.

The noteworthy part of life in the diplomatic corps showcased itself last night when we ate the overflowing amounts of food and ran into a practice for "Junkanoo". Junkanoo is the Bahamian holiday that occurs on Boxing Day and New Years Eve/Day and practice for it was loud, exciting, and impressive. It was loud because they have about 100 drum players – some played percussion on standard drums while the majority used (and carried) huge barrels made into drums. The barrels are 50 gallon oil drums and they look very heavy and pack a powerful beat. It was exciting when we saw it begin with just one guy and his drum and his whistle then all the other drums and whistles built, then these metal triangle rattle instruments kicked in, then the horns. Now it was a party!

And it was impressive because the music sounded so good and the 50 or so dancers in front of the 100 musicians were talented energetic dancers whose body weight differences of 90-300 lbs didn’t affect the athletic choreography. We’ve heard that the actual Junkanoo is even cooler with the costumes, adrenaline, etc. Much to look forward to.

Food, housing, Junkanoo....I was only able to be "home" with Wilson for 3 nights and 4 days but it made me look forward ever more to the day when I will move home with him for good.

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Being Helpful From Afar

During our travels, Mu and I often talked and thought about contributing to the places that we were experiencing.  That proved harder than we anticipated for a bunch of reasons as Mu wrote about here, here and here. Broadly, we moved pretty fast so there was just not the kind of deep engagement in a specific place that would have allowed us to volunteer or help out. Secondly, we did not want to partake in the volunteer tourism market place because the impact did not always appear to match with the price tag.

What we have done recently in the last couple of days is micro-lending via Kiva and some micro-giving through GiveDirectly. We did donations or active loans of fifty bucks per country that we visited during our 20 months on the road. It is a small gesture to the many countries we came to love and the wonderful people we met along the way.  In this small way, we gave and we wondered if people might think about the stories from the blog that struck you and consider matching our contribution for your favorite place.  Doesn't have to be on Kiva or GiveDirectly, those are just the platforms that resonate with us. 

Did you like reading about being in awe while on safari and Tanzania? That would be a great place and there are tons of projects on Kiva for that country. Perhaps you enjoyed reading about our harrowing night bus ride in Colombia or getting turned around at the Bolivia border? There are lots of projects in both those countries too. Or maybe you liked my posts from Indo? Lots of projects available there too.   

The countries we donated to today

GiveDirectly (http://www.givedirectly.org): Kenya

Kiva (http://www.kiva.org/about/where): US, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Chile, Bolivia, Paraguay, Indo, Turkey, Jordan, Tanzania, Zambia, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Israel

What kind of people did we select for micro lending?

The range is pretty big – there are a lot of choices. Some are education loans to attend school or get the necessary supplies. Others are in the retail sector to buy stock for small, informal businesses. Still others were for farmers or others in the agriculture sector, getting new equipment such as water pump to get better returns from the field. Some were for individuals while others were to woman collectives. As I wrote, there are a lot of choices.

A bit of background on Kiva

Making a loan on Kiva is so simple that you may not realize how much work goes on behind the scenes.Kiva works with microfinance institutions on five continents to provide loans to people without access to traditional banking systems. One hundred percent of your loan is sent to these microfinance institutions, which we call Field Partners, who administer the loans in the field.
Kiva relies on a world wide network of over 450 volunteers who work with our Field Partners, edit and translate borrower stories, and ensure the smooth operation of countless other Kiva programs. 
Stats$1,931,600 lent this week.4,352 borrowers funded this week.98.77% repayment rate to date.

Give Directly – how does it work?

Step 1: identify poor households in Kenya and UgandaWe do this using modern technologies including electronic data capture, digital mapping, and remote sensing. To date this process has located exceptionally poor households: our average recipient lives on $0.65 per day and only 15% of households report having enough food in the house for tomorrow.
Step 2: We transfer your donation directly and electronically to recipientsWe move money from our US bank to our account with an electronic payments provider via a foreign exchange broker. We then transfer money directly to the recipient's account.
Step 3: Recipients use the transfer to pursue their own goalsRecipients use transfers for whatever is most important to them; we never tell them what to do. An independent evaluation of our work in Kenya by Innovations for Poverty Action found that recipients use transfers for a wide variety of purposes that on average generate large income gains. Common uses range from buying food to investing in tangible assets such as housing and livestock to investing in children's education.

It is weird that we ultimately felt better about being helpful upon our return and through orgs like Kiva and GiveDirectly. There are some of the same opportunities for nefarious actions in their ecosystem, but both orgs have great reputations and have been doing good work in the places they operate. I trust the platforms. That comfort was not obvious while we were on the road but we hope that our donations (and hopefully some of yours) will have the sort of positive impact that we all seek.

Landing in Nassau

It has been quite some time since our last post, but that is going change because I am back on the road. Well sort of. I have arrived at my first post here in Nassau and will live in this delightful city for the next two years. It is nice, to say the least.

Since the previous blog post, the last two+ months have passed quickly -- time escaped us with training/work while enjoying DC and the surrounding area as much as possible.  I think we did a pretty good job of that between exploring the District with friends, getting out to the VA mountains and trips to Annapolis/Balto, NYC, Maine, Minneapolis, and CA.  So busy times indeed, and I imagine most anyone reading this has had a pretty busy summer as well.
Then about a week ago it was time to head out, which was made exponentially harder because I left DC on my own. Mu stayed in the District for the next several months with her job so we said goodbye at the Reagan Airport departure curbside. Wow that was hard. Stepping back this time will be much easier than if I had been posted basically anywhere else that is farther from DC. We will get to see each other every three or so weeks, but future logistics did not make it any easier to say goodbye.
From DCA, I flew on to Miami for an overnight of work.  This made leaving DC so much easier because I got to see some good friends who live in South Beach. We hit up a rooftop bar and watched a squall come through from the tenth floor overlooking the city. Then a yummy Haitian dinner further confirmed how much I enjoy South Beach.
The next day I arrived in Nassau, the culmination of the last 4 or so months. I was greeted by a colleague and started a whirlwind tour and intro into the city (Nassau) and island (New Providence). I had a couple of days until I could move into my place so stayed in a hotel right in downtown a hop, skip and jump from work.
My time out of work through the weekend has been split between checking out the city and the larger island.
- First, I want to talk about this city with its lengthy colonial history going back over two centuries. Amazingly, the water is clear as can be even along a really busy stretch of water where multiple cruise ships have docked daily thus far. That blew my mind. I got a good feeling about the city watching a grandiose sunset from an open air bar on my first evening, with clear skies from an afternoon rain and big clouds making for a memorable sunset.
Also everyone I have met in and out of the embassy community has been very welcoming. There have been numerous meals and happy hours, not unsurprising in a place famous as a vacation destination. All much appreciated for a guy living apart from his wife.

- Second, it has been the pleasure of exploring the island. It is roughly 7x21 miles, so 3x the size of San Francisco proper. Prior to arrival,  I perceived the island as small, but it feels much larger. Some of that comes from the slower speeds you use when driving around the island, so the effective distance is larger. Also the density of the island is concentrated, which means that there are still large swaths of land that are undeveloped and remote.

The nature highlights thus far have been concentrated on the western tip of the island, with stunning beaches and cliffs dropping into crystal clear water of a hue that I don't think have yet seen in my travels on this great earth. The water kind of surprises you while driving around, peaking out of some pine barrens, popping out of the forest or around a bend in the road. It will be fun to spend more time in the water moving forward. I got to snorkel on Saturday which was enjoyable and have been swimming most everyday thus far on-island.

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