From Silicon Valley to Swaziland by Rick & Wendy Walleigh (read aloud txt) 📖

Much of the drive was through lightly populated areas, especially in Mozambique. The small settlements we saw in the rural parts of Mozambique appeared cute and quaint. The grass houses looked neat and clean, almost like dioramas in a museum. The appearance and the warm emotion they generated in us were deceiving. These houses weren’t built with grass and other natural materials because they make a great house. The people living in them didn’t have anything else. These people were much poorer than those living in the awful-looking shacks in the South African townships, but who can say that one or the other is better off ? The people in rural Mozambique probably didn’t worry too much about crime, and they lived amidst pleasant scenery. On the other hand, they probably didn’t have good access to schooling and had little hope that they or their children would ever have a better existence. The daily struggle in the townships was probably much more threatening, but at least the people in the townships had some small chance that things could get better for them or ultimately their children. I was very thankful that I wasn’t in either place.

As we drove through the outskirts of Maputo, we began to see the informal settlements that surround the city, just like Johannesburg or Cape Town. Somehow they didn’t seem quite as bad or as big, but they were still upsetting. As we got into the major part of Maputo, we began to understand the mixed messages that we had gotten about the city. Leslie and Stuart had commented about the lovely beach area with its fish market and ocean views. Maputo also has movie theatres, interesting restaurants, and nightclubs, which are limited or nonexistent in Swaziland. But we had also heard lots of stories about the crime and the decay in the city. Through the weekend, these competing themes dominated our feelings.

On the way into the city, we stopped for a nice cup of Portuguese coffee. However, in choosing where to get our coffee, the primary criterion was being able to closely observe and protect our parked car. As we arrived at the home of Leslie and Stuart’s friends, where the party would be, their security guard led us through the gate in the high fence, topped with barbed wire, which surrounded their house and garden. As we went through the yard and into the house, we passed the large diesel generator that was used when the power went off. There were no overt threats or serious inconveniences, just little hints from the surroundings that we were in a very different place.

On Sunday, Wendy and I walked around the more interesting parts of the city, some of which were in the older and more run-down sections. The area right around city hall was actually quite attractive and clean, but only a few blocks away, the sidewalks deteriorated and so did the buildings. Some were just broken shells that looked like they were bombed out twenty years ago and were now just strewn with trash. We thought that these buildings might actually have been bombed out during the long civil war. However, we were told that the civil war never actually reached Maputo. These crumbling hulks were just the result of poor construction, neglect, and urban decay.

Although we were walking a recommended route from the guidebook, Wendy and I frequently felt uncomfortable. The good news and the bad news was that in almost every block, there was at least one building with a security guard standing outside. These guards provided a deterrent to petty burglars, but not to serious criminals. We heard several stories of people being robbed by thugs with guns while an unarmed security guard could only watch. In defense of the city, our feelings were probably worse because it was Sunday, and there were few people around many of the areas we traversed. And we didn’t feel hassled by aggressive panhandlers or hawkers. However, we did have a locally provided map with clearly marked “NO GO” areas on it, which we carefully avoided.

After probably a four-mile walk through the downtown area, we decided it was time to go back to our modern hotel overlooking the beach. We had already decided to go to a famous fish restaurant farther up the coast for dinner. When we emerged from the five-mile cab ride, we were underwhelmed by the décor of the famous restaurant, to say the least. The interior had concrete floors and furniture of 1940s diner style. It seemed clean but was definitely without ambiance. At first, we took a table outside on the open porch, but when a thunderstorm began, we quickly moved inside. The wonderful food made up for the lack of décor. We both had the biggest prawns we’ve ever seen in our lives. I had four with tails about ten inches long. They were simply and delightfully prepared, and it was like eating four small lobsters. On the menu, they were only quoted at “market price,” and so we panicked when the waiter told us that each plate would be a million metacais. I quickly did the math and realized that they would be expensive, but less than $40 per plate. It was a great meal, and on the cab ride back to the hotel, we got to watch a spectacular lightning show over the Indian Ocean.

The cab, like all of the ones we took in Maputo, was pretty run-down. And it seemed that all cabbies drove around on empty. I think they bought gas only when they got a fare, and once our driver actually had to stop at a gas station immediately after he picked us up. When we arrived back at the hotel, I wanted to tip the cabbie, but only had the exact change or a larger bill that was three times the fare. I asked him if he could change the larger bill. He checked his cash and all that he had was the fare that I had given him on the trip to the restaurant. I pulled out my exact fare and Wendy was able to dig through her cash and find enough for a decent tip, but it gave us an idea of how much he was earning.

On Monday morning, we visited the TechnoServe office in Maputo and met with Jake, the country director. Jake had been the country director since TechnoServe started in Mozambique nine years earlier, and he had overseen some outstanding projects. TechnoServe had played an important role in revitalizing Mozambique’s cashew industry, and they had begun to develop the domestic poultry sector. Jake was excellent in articulating the TechnoServe approach to development and of giving examples of how it had been carried out in Mozambique. It was really great to hear the success story of a mature office. In Swaziland, TechnoServe had only been operating for seven months and so couldn’t demonstrate a lot of results. I was always asking why we couldn’t focus more and get results quicker, but then I’d remind myself that development is really hard and often takes time. Sometimes it felt like pushing a rope, but the Mozambique story was reassuring. After our meeting with Jake, the driver from the Maputo office took us to the border, and Kiki, the driver from the Swaziland office picked us up and drove us back to Mbabane.

Maputo was interesting and energizing, sometimes for good reasons, sometimes because we were nervous or concerned. It definitely had features, like a social scene, that made it attractive to volunteers in their twenties and early thirties, but we were definitely more comfortable going back to our much-less-exciting life in safe and predictable Mbabane.

Only a week and a half later, I visited the TechnoServe offices in Johannesburg, South Africa, and Nairobi, Kenya. Seeing the TechnoServe Maputo office had been wonderful, and I wanted to observe more mature offices. It was a good week to go because Wendy was going to Nairobi for a Junior Achievement pan-Africa conference, and from Swaziland, you had to go through Johannesburg to fly to Nairobi. We flew together to Johannesburg and met in Nairobi to fly home to Swaziland.

Though Johannesburg was the headquarters for TechnoServe in South Africa and the regional African headquarters office as well, it was not a big office. It had four full-time employees, two part-timers, and a volunteer. Most of TechnoServe’s employees worked in the field, very remote from Johannesburg. The office was in an attractive area of the city and was surrounded by a ten-foot wall with a massive electronic gate. This type of protection was common and perceived as necessary for homes and small office buildings in Johannesburg. In fact, most walls surrounding homes and buildings were topped with either rolls of barbed wire or an electric fence. The TechnoServe office wall did not have this, and maybe that’s why it had experienced four break-ins within the last month. The office was moving to a different location in the near future.

Both Johannesburg and Nairobi were known for their crime, and it continues today. It is usually in the background as an offset to the attraction of living in a large city with all of its excitement and amenities. Only occasionally, when a friend gets robbed or carjacked, does it reach top of mind. Usually, it just stays in the subconscious as you remember to lock your car doors, hide your computer, and keep cash separate from the credit cards and passport that you really don’t want to give away if robbed. However, I thought this tension seemed to wear on people. Maybe some people got used to the fear or ignored it, but I thought for most people, it just created a higher baseline of stress as they went about their normal activities. They also seemed to frequently question whether this was really how and where they wanted to live. It was funny how fans of both Nairobi and Johannesburg thought that their city was only somewhat dangerous but were afraid to venture out in the counterpart. Fans of each side insisted that the other city was much more dangerous. In fact, one young woman told me how civilized robberies were in Nairobi. If you cooperated and handed over your money, you had nothing to fear. However, she didn’t trust that a robbery would go so smoothly in Johannesburg.

During my visit to the Johannesburg office, I got an opportunity to talk informally with Simon, TechnoServe’s vice president for Africa and his one regional director, Sandra. Among the topics I discussed with them was how difficult economic development is. I understood this from a theoretical level from all my research and reading, none of which provided a simple recipe for success. But this discussion was very practical, tangible, and real. We talked at both the macro and personal levels. At the macro level, many people are aware of the vast amounts of money and human resources that have been put into development projects. Post–World War II Germany and Japan have generated economic miracles from devastation while much of Africa is worse off than fifty years ago. Many development efforts have been successful, but many more have not. The development professionals have learned a lot of expensive lessons but were getting better at it. Even when development works, it can proceed very slowly. Simon and Sandra agreed that sometimes it felt like trying to run through deep water. This was very hard for aggressive, business-oriented people who wanted to demonstrate that they could produce results, and quickly. Specifically, I talked about my concern that I wouldn’t be able to point to any fully completed project when I left Swaziland at the end of my tenure. Simon and Sandra, who admitted to having similar feelings earlier in their careers, assured me that, at some future time,