Fellow Blogger

I have had quite a few requests to link more of my journalistic work off this blog. So, that shall be done. Due to the fact that I am not a full-time journalist, I am not always writing articles, and not everything comes out online. That's a partial excuse.

As it turns out, a lot of stuff I was plugging away at during the winter and spring from last year is set to roll out.

Here is an example, and an attempt to share more info: my internet TV debut, on Vice's Motherboard Project:



link:
http://www.motherboard.tv/2009/10/27/monrovian-analog-blogger

Save the Big Mac!

As the Western world frets and fawns over how to help 'the rest' (while staying rich, obvi), evidence is beginning to suggest that maybe they might have to start helping 'their own'. Shocking news out of Iceland - who, with a predicted 8.5% slump in the economy this year, will be at the bottom of the exclusive 33-country list of 'developed' nations.

This article suggests a massive consequence on this nation's Western psyche.

Icelanders like Jon Ogmundsson have endured many hardships in the last year, including soaring inflation, rising unemployment and a banking crisis so serious the country nearly declared bankruptcy.

Now Iceland's battered economy is claiming one more victim – McDonald's.

That's right: A developing nation will soon be without a Mickey-Dees. Even Dambisa Moyo might push for aid intervention to avoid such a travesty.

Regardless of the inane nature of such news, I do think that the accompanying graphic depicting countries purchasing power of Big Mac's, McChicken et al is interesting for a number of reasons.



Final questions:

How many African nations sport the golden arches?
How long until Liberia gets infiltrated?

(Props Liz for the article)

Not Gettin' By

Hopefully not a metaphor for the future of Monrovia's vendors

Gettin' by in Monrovia requires some serious hustle, long hours, and perseverance. Hawkers, vendors, sellers, loaders, movers, temporary workers and others struggle constantly to make ends meet. And, it keeps getting harder.

Though it seems to have plateaued for now, the loss in value of the Liberian dollar - the staple of the informal economy - hurts the purchasing power of the sellers. Most goods demand USD to purchase, and that price stays at a flat rate, regardless of the infamous LD.


At the street level, its been a tough go for petty traders as of late. For anyone who's been in Monrovia in the past 6 months, you well know about "General" Mary Broh, the Acting City Mayor, and presidential clean up task force designate.

To greatly summarize, Broh is a tough cookie with seeming boundless power. She rolls with a pretty intense posse that includes security guards, dump trucks, bulldozers and lots of strong hands wielding lots of destruct-or tools. On 'good' days, they know to demo full neighbourhoods, clearing out anyone and anything living in 'illegal' structures or on 'private' land.

Street vendors are routinely seen fleeing the scene of zinc and wood being ripped to the ground, and crowds raging against The General, carrying their booths and wares, half laughing, half crying.

In some ways, her quest is understandable. The city's a frickin' mess, and people use this as license to perpetuate completely unhealthy living conditions. However, breaking down homes and shops of people who make earn in the 'Gettin By' bracket - around $5 - 10/day, which often supports several people - solves nothing. What does someone who's savings means whatever they have in their back pocket at that exact moment do when all their bizness gets destroyed?

Crime comes to mind, so does starving and not being able to buy meds.

Equally ridiculous are new city ordinances meant to further regulate these vendors. Ridiculous because 'crimes' such as selling in street booths, hawking foodstuffs without providing a garbage can and littering all carry stiff fines: between $100 - 200 USD. Just to emphasize how nuts that is, government employees make $ 80 /month, and the average per person GDP is $ 400 (yes, per year.)

People sell on the streets because THERE ARE NO REAL JOBS. Mainly because people in the same economic class as Mary Broh steal money by the truckload, thus inhibiting real growth. 500 Grand goes missing for a road. 1.1 million intended for health care: what happened? And most recently, $350 000 in 'shadow salaries' with Minister of Information Bropleh's signature on it.

So why should anyone have the right to stop people trying to scrape 5 bucks together? Like so many things here, its is very frustrating to watch government focusing so much energy on making sure the sidewalks are clear of people selling goods when so many worthwhile causes literally have to beg for funding and attention.

Besides, why deny Liberian residents the truly awesome ability to walk past a line of wheelbarrows, and, in a matter of minutes and brief exchanges, end up with a coconut, some rat poison, a t-Shirt saying "I'm With Stupid" on top of a sideways arrow, bread and eggs, toothpicks, batteries, a bag of sugar, and a new lock for your door?!?

That should be encouraged. Whenever and wherever possible.

Gettin By - Hawking T-Shirts

This blog post is part of a larger series called 'Gettin' By', which profiles petty traders, street sellers, vendors and other members of the informal market who are part of the reported 85% of Liberians without jobs.

Click on the 'Gettin' By' search term to see past articles, or read on.

Profession: Selling T-Shirts

Location: Strategically placed wheelbarrows; roving wheelbarrows; roving sellers with
hangers of shirts

How it works:

There are a lot of bizarre things about the supply chains in this country. I don't know if I actually fully understand the t-shirt supply chain - mainly due to heavily conflicting reports - but this is what I do know.

T-shirts in Liberia largely come from the US. Most are donated, but it is not abundantly clear to me through what means. Certainly, a lot of the shirts that end up here en masse are manufacture rejects that either get donated by the companies, or more likely, sold on the little-known international used t-shirt market.

But, for the majority of t-shirts that read anything from "Auntie Louise's XXXLenent 50th" to "Waco Texas Swim Club" to homemade renditions of "Rock Out With Your Cock
Out" (seen yesterday on an old woman, and me... without a camera! shhheeeeet...) they are donations from individuals.

Now here is where I am most unclear. One friend told me that all T-shirts from the US route through East Africa; Dar es Salaam and Nairobi to be specific. I personally have a hard time believing this (look at a map), but their insistence on the matter was based in experience, so I'll just say that.

Another version of the story is that these are gathered through t-shirt drives and other auspices of 'giving' to people who need them, and then whoever forks out the change to fill the sea cans (about 12 G to ship from US) takes a cut at the port.

Yet another version has Lebanese and other merchants buying bulk shirts from places like Goodwill at pretty low prices, fronting the shipping cross, and making it all up on this end.

More pessimistic versions argue that co opted aid missions and misappropriations of unguarded, low-value goods while in ports become too enticing for longshoremen et al to bear (yo: watch The Wire season two if you don't think that is a possibility).

Anyways, I think its mainly the middle two options, with perhaps a touch of the first and healthy dab of the last option. If anyone wants to pay me to do a real article on this subject, I will expend much more time and effort and solve the supply riddle.

Moving on to easier empirics.

Sea cans on the back of trailers deliver the t-shirts to wholesalers in vaccuum packed bags labeled 'boys sports' or 'women t's.' They cost $ 100 US for about a 3 foot cube. Although sometimes the trucks serve as the wholesalers, just parking themselves in Waterside market, and selling to whoever crowds the truck.

These wholesalers are exclusively Lebanese who have connections in the port. They expect the payments in USD, even though their shirt sellers receive all payments in LD (note: this links back to the post on Changing Money, and how the money cutting works)

So Liberian sellers get the bundles, unpack them, and fill up wheelbarrows, either splitting the packs, or going it solo: a relatively big investment for petty traders.

The packs vary, but for adult sized t's there tends to be about 70 - 100 per 'bushel'- the shirts are also sorted by quality, and the higher quality ones have less per cube. Of course, there is no recourse if you receive less, or if quality does not match expectations, its just a typical 'hope I don't screwed on this one'.

So, shirts can be had for as low as 70 LD in the city centre ($ 1 US), but most tend to fall between $ 90 - 150 LD ($US 1.40 - $ 2.10). For selling a cube, vendors try to make $ 10 - 15. This is not usually possible in a day, but sellers willing to 'hel you wih speciah price my man!' take the route of selling more for lower price to add up the day. So, they'll roll a barrow into a crowded place and yell "no more 150, pay 90," reveling in the ensuing buying frenzy.

Most shirt vendors say they are happy to clear $ 500 - 600 LD, or 7 - 8 bucks, though many make much less.

As usual, 'wafer thin margins'. (nate...)

Variables: New city laws that discourage petty trading, 'the rai-in!', getting spoiled shirts,

Price Point Comparison:

if you live in Paynesville, Bardnersville or Stephen Tolbert estates and sell in town - which many do - it costs $ 40 LD for transport each way, 80 LD per day; more than 1/8 of your wages.

"Vanity: Its my favourite sin"

In lieu of a facebook account, today I have opted to use my blog to project 'my own self.'

Despite taking pictures myself, and having surfed for 5 years now, I think I have only ever seen 1 - 2 self-snaps. So, I was pretty stoked when professional surf photographer Sean Brody, here to support the filming of a segment of "On Surfari", which features Shayne McIntyre surfing in places where people surf alongside of humanitarian work they are doing, left me with about a dozen shots. (Shayne is also featured in two of the photos in my recent Global Post surf article)

Anyways, back to me. Me me me!

The only sad things about these pictures is that this session - after three days of hard surfing that beat me to a pulp - marked the resurgence of a long term back injury, and I am out of the water for a few weeks.


shralp-shralp


surf uh-huh

Media Debates

Deep in the annals of my unfinished drafts, jotted notes and grand future plans to write, are many pieces that touch on the state of international media, the dangers of losing high quality journalists around the world and the editorial desks that fact check and otherwise edit their work. The more society loses the ability to have in depth analysis on important issues and people willing (and financially able) to take the time needed to investigate injustices around the world, the more we lose valuable perspective on the world around us.

So, it was with a bit of jealousy that I read Steve Bloofield's - Africa correspondent for the magazine Monocle, and author of the blog Things Seen and Heard - eloquent piece on the subject in a guest appearance at the only place I know of where the use of the word 'genocide' often makes me laugh, Wronging Rights.

Says Bloomfield:

As foreign correspondents travel less they are inevitably asked to do more stories remotely. As Shashank Bengali points out, “it is Journalism 101 to get all sides of a story, so reporters try when they can to get local voices - "man on the street" opinions - into pieces they must write from these distant capitals.”

These have to come from somewhere. As someone who has spent many a fruitless afternoon trying to get hold of one, just one Darfuri rebel or civil society rep or camp elder on his satellite phone I can tell you it’s not always straightforward. Finding a decent quote as the deadline fast approaches is seen as more important than whether the words actually add anything to the story. You’ve got a government spokesman, an international aid worker and a Darfuri IDP. Great. Done. Send. Now, who can you speak to about Guinea?

before posing the question:

Should newspapers employ one or two full-time correspondents for a continent the size of Africa, or would it make more sense to have a dozen stringers spread from east to west? Should correspondents ever write about one country when they’re sat in another? Should newspapers move away from breaking news – where most of the mistakes occur – and instead focus on proper analysis and features?

Also worth reading are the extensive comments that follow. Most valuable, I think, comes from a detailed response on the dangers of buying into full objectivity in journalism, by Jina Moore, who runs the blog "To Africa From New York," and who is currently in Liberia working with Glenna Gordon on an awesome project (more on that later):

The idea is that there's no bias in journalism, but even in the most textbook example of non-controversial journalism, there absolutely is: "Three prisoners were killed last night in an attempted escape from the county jail, law enforcement officials said." Right off the bat, the words of the people with authority carry more weight in our stories than those without titles. That's why we like directors of advocacy groups so much more than people who suffer from what advocates fight; there's that notion of representation built in to authority, and a bias in American journalism (at least) that representation is democratic.

Personally, I realize I am bias to the importance of journalism because, well, that's where I'm at. However, as objective as I can be, I strongly believe that in-depth, fact-based journalism that takes the time to truly investigate and evaluate issues, people, ideas and movements is an essential component of modern day society that should not be left to 'die out' simply because society at large no longer feels it should pay even a modest amount for the vast amounts of information we all depend on consuming.

Some Numbers That Have Been Floating Around

Harper's Index is the modicum for great statistical potpourri, but that doesn't mean that I can't share some of the interesting numerical quandaries that cross my path.

(don't know why the formatting is so wonky - sorry)

A few that got me interested:

20 000 -
Bags of Chinese rice consumed by Monrovia every day (source: UNDP speaking
to a small gathering of local press)

50 -
Estimated average official monthly salary of journalists attending that conference (source: my one year of working as media trainer here

362 -
Per capita GDP of Liberians (source: recently released 2009 Human Development
Report that contains the 2009 HDI)
(Note: granted this stat comes from info gathered in 2007, but from my own
investigations of petty traders, this seems pretty low. Also granted, my findings
are not necessarily scientific)

10 000 -
Refugees from Guinea's current strife that NGO's in Ganta were asked if they
could prepare to host (source: numerous NGO workers)

2004 -
Year that Liberia ratified both the UN Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
and the Convention on Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment
or Punishment, established in 1964 and 1984, respectively (source: 2009 HDR)

89 000 000 -
Estimated dollar worth of running the Charles Taylor Trial (source:
www.charlestaylortrial.org, more specifically, from this page)

25 000 -
Dollars allotted to the mental health division of the Ministry of Health in
2008 (source: interview with Dr. Benjamin Harris, the country's sole psychiatrist)

43 -
Percentage of population a survey conducted by Dr. Harris found to be suffering
from PTSD (source: ibid)

Gettin' By - Moto Taxi Driving

This is part of a bigger series called "Gettin' By" about the informal job sector in Liberia, a country with a rerported 85 % unemployment rate. Read more about this series here, or enjoy this installment...

Location: Pretty much everywhere, but most markets or intersections that reach back into the communities deep off the main road have informal staging areas where drivers wait and jostle for customers

How it works: Motorbikes are a critical wedge in the horrific state of public transport in Monrovia, and the general lack of transport elsewhere. They are quick, maneuverable, able to take beat up roads that the beat-up taxis can’t navigate, and most importantly, they are cheap: new Chinese bikes start at around $ 850, and have relatively cheap parts (which is a good thing, as they break down a LOT).

Moto – or ‘pen-pen’ - drivers are exclusively young men, often written off as ex-combatants and criminals by society at large. In reality, most of them are super nice, and are driving bikes so that they do not HAVE to be criminals.

Pen-pen drivers spend pretty severe amounts of time on the road. Twelve hours is about average for most riders, but a lot come out and drive before or after a class, teaching, or working another odd job.

Rides start at $ 10 LD (15 cents) for quick jaunts, to $ 25 - $ 35 US for full day out of town charters.

An average ride is about $ 25 – 30 LD, and drivers piece these together throughout the day to gross about $ 1200 - 1400 LD, or $ 17 - 20 US.

This amount of sporadic riding requires about a gallon and half of gas, which knocks the gross down to about $ 12 – 14. For drivers who own the bikes, this is cream that should be saved for the constant repairs needed. However, most rent the bikes off people with the capital to buy them in the first place. This costs $ 500 LD, and thus takes another $ 7 off the gross.

Basically, any driver you ask will tell you they earn $ 500 LD after everything, though in reality this can fluctuate. That is just over $ 7 US, for a grueling job that comes with a lot of unfavourable challenges (see below).

Dangers and variables: Of any job on the informal sector, this one rules the danger factor. Traffic is nuts, and taxi drivers are not afraid to show open aggression to the motorbikes. Most of their bikes are in deplorable condition, which comes with its own risks, made worse still by the horrific state of the roads, which can include open sewers and potholes.

No street lights at night means that obstacles such as dogs, giant sticks, chunks of concrete men pushing massive carts full of anything you can imagine into traffic, pedestrians, and the endless other motos and cars that don’t bother to replace their burnt out or broken headlights sneak up quickly.

However, nothing is as nuts-o as the cops-o! Any bike you hop on and strike up a conversation about the police will undoubtedly yield the phrase ‘the police give me hard time-oh!!’, and an impassioned decree against the corrupt cops.

Police exploit the bikers, often stealing their keys, creating fictitious fines and physically assaulting the drivers – often while they drive at full speed. Its literally insane, and causes unknown amount of drivers to take a trip to the crowded (and slightly fictious) ‘pen-pen’ ward: a particularly bad part of the hospital where moto-drivers are said to receive sub-par treatment for their injuries.

Point of Reference: Oil change on a bike costs about $ 5. A new battery, $ 25, new set of signal light bulbs, about $ 3 (all prices US).

Surf's Up, Posts Up

At this precise moment, a story I wrote on my favourite pastime is on the front page of Global Post's website.

The link can be found here.