True giving

I have believed for a long time that true giving (or unconditional giving) is one of the most important aspects of being human. The ability to give of ourselves without any expectation of a reward is a profoundly important dimension of our evolution. I would argue that this emerging, fragile instinct, is probably the single most important dimension of human behaviour since the emergence of consciousness. And the primary reason for this is that it sets us apart from purely reptilian behaviour driven by the three forces of fear, greed and the need to reproduce at all costs. By doing this we can move away from selfish thinking to a place where we think more about collective well-being, not just for the human species but for all of life. Reptilian instincts have got us this far but they have served their purpose. Its time to think bigger.

I'd spend more time elaborating on this concept except I am writing this in Mombasa Kenya and there are unpredictable power cuts every few hours;)

Anyway, wonderful and all that unconditional giving is, its damn hard to do. A couple of days ago I was In Lamu and I met a young man calling himself Aref shortly after getting off the boat. As soon as a white person lands on Lamu they are instantly surrounded by all kinds of people offering them services from carrying luggage, to finding accomodation to helping organise boat trips etc. Most of the time I politely make my way to my hotel and then later I engage somebody to help me get sorted out during my stay...

For some reason, on this occasion I connected immediately with Aref. I was wearing an Irish tee-shirt and he began his interaction with me saying he had visited Ireland a few years ago. He then told me that he had lived in a small bedsit on Dorset Street. He pulled out an old polaroid photograph showing a younger version of himself playing in the snow on Dorset Street in the late nineties...

Even though he had a look about him that he was on something, I was hooked. I invited him to walk with me for a chat.

It was not long before he was telling me of the difficult circumstances he had found himself in. His father had died, his mother was very sick, his young daughter was out of school and it was low season and he had no job.

I had heard this kind of story before. It is just about everybodies story in Lamu. Lamu may well be a World Heritage Site but that is scant comfort to most of the locals here who live on the absolute margins of basic human existence. That said, the best way of giving people options here is through education. Its risky handing over money as there is a big drugs problem on the island. Even though it sounds harsh, handing over money to somebody to ease your conscience probably does more damage than good.

So I told Aref that I would connect with him later. I then headed over to the Lamu hub. However, Aref followed me and waited outside for me to finish.

I asked some of the local volunteers did they know Aref? They told me that he was not a 'bad' man but was likely to be 'high' on something. The volunteers were Muslim so I took this with a grain of salt. Muslims generally take a very dim view of any kind of 'high' including things like having a drink or smoking tobacco (admiteddly two addictions that can cause serious social problems but you get what I mean).

Nonetheless, I decided to go out to Aref and challenge him.

He told me that he did not take drugs. His eyes were red because he had a lot on his mind. He was not well and was struggling with an illness.

He then proceeded to show me his legs. He pulled up his dishevelled trousers to reveal huge bleeding ulcers on both his lower legs. He explained to me that he had been diagnosed with skin cancer but he could not afford the expensive treatment required.

If everything else had been a ruse to extort money out of me this was the absolute truth. The young man was extremely ill and I honestly had no idea what to do.

We agreed a few simple things. Aref would do some simple jobs (including being a guide around the island for one of my colleagues who was travelling with me) and he would be paid sufficient funds to get his mother the medication she needed and his daughter back into school. He would start some basic computer training(sponsored) in the hub and if that worked out we would see what to do next.

On a couple of occasions I gave him larges sums of money (relatively speaking) asking him to buy some things with the requirement that he come back with the change. This is a simple test one can do to check the sincerity of a persons intentions when they have money in their pockets.

He never let me down. In fact, he did a great job as a guide to the island for one of my colleagues.

I spoke to everyone about the situation and one suggestion of supporting Aref was to pay for his ticket to come to Mombasa so that his condition could be properly assessed in the Aga Khan hospital here. It seemed like an appropriate response to the situation.

Then on Saturday night, three days into the trip, myself and my friends went down to Petleys - the only bar on the island - to watch a world cup soccer game.

Aref was there but was not drinking. He was surprised to see us and invited us to sit with him. We watched the game together.

I could not get it out of my head that Aref was in Petleys on a Saturday night but decided that he was there because he wanted to watch the football.

We left after the football and Aref stayed on. The first sign that something was amiss...

The following day I spoke with the barman who I have known for years and whom I trust. Every time I am in Lamu we play a chess game together and we record who wins. Over the years the scores have always been just about even. The chess game is a great way of enabling a deep conversation with a local in Lamu.

The barman told me that Aref was not to be trusted. He had a reputation of being a 'junkie' and a thief and was generally not allowed into Petleys. They only indulged him staying because he was sitting with me...

And so I am left with a dilemma.

I have no doubt that Aref needs help especially medical help. If he is taking drugs, giving him money will do more harm than good. I have no proof that he is taking drugs but my first instinct on seeing him was that he was. Perhaps the muslim volunteers were correct.

However, at a deeper level my sense of giving has been extremely challenged. In an odd way I am looking for a return in my 'investement'. I want to see Aref become a responsible young man, trying hard to learn about computers so that he can support himself and his family, moving forward and upwards from the awful corcumstances he finds himself in. In this scenario, giving is easy.

However, there is a resistance in me to helping Aref because he is on a path of self destruction. Giving here really is unconditional. There is going to be no return. It is more than likely to end in disaster. I may even cause more damage than good.

Fr. Peter Mc Verry SJ deals with young men like Aref all the time in his hostels for the homeless. He once said to me that you only give to people in real need when you have come to terms with your own needs.

Now I ashamedly admit that I have not come to terms with those needs. I realise now just how hard unconditional giving is....

Back in Lamu: Regional Hubs again...

I am back up in Lamu. A couple of colleagues are visiting Kenya to see Camara in action on the ground out here and I thought it a good idea to visit the regional hub here in Lamu. At the moment they have taken a Dhow (the local sailing boats here) out to the Mangrove forests to look at some old mysterious ruins on one of the surrounding islands and to enjoy freshly caught fish barbecued on the beach with coconut rich and chapati bread. Its a trip you must do if you are here in Lamu.

In the meantime, Farid(Camara technical director for Africa) and I have been working! We have just had lunch with the Lamu team. In one of my earlier notes I talked up the potential of these regional hubs as a model for getting technology to the very rural areas. They are certainly the way to go but I am now much more aware of some of the challenging issues required to make them work longterm.

Two exceptionally talented volunteers run the Lamu hub along with a local volunteer who has a background in accountancy (and who is also a black belt in Karate of all things - not a bad combination here:-)).They generate revenue by selling computers (at an affordable price to the schools - about €50 a machine), offering affordable training courses (€10 for a basic month long course), and by running the fastest cybercafe on the island charging 50 schillings (50 cent) an hour.

Their outgoings include their rent, their food, Internet charges and power. At the moment they are just about making ends meet and are looking at creative ways to bringing in more revenue (without compromising the core mission of Camara which is essentially to improve education in Africa using Technology). Some of the ideas include:

(a) Offering an outreach service using laptops to introduce people to technology and open source applications
(b) Offering premium services on the internet (like high speed downloads etc)
(c) Setting up a Voice Over IP service allowing tourists make international calls.
(d) Setting up an Open Source IT services organisation that helps small enterprises use technology

With the exception of the first idea, most of these ideas push the hub away from the core mission of Camara. But necessity is the mother of invention so the young volunteers are doing their absolute best to make sure the hub can sustain itself.

I have no doubt that if we can identify talented dedicated volunteers like this to run the regional hubs they can be successful but my sense now is that they probably need some capital to get them going properly and some subsidisation till they become sustainable.

Getting a balance between subsidy and sustainability is always a challenge. Subsidy can easily turn into dependency but at the end of the day we need regional hubs to support rural areas.

Perhaps one way forward is to capitalise the hubs (so they can invest in tools, training resources, more laptops etc) so that they can extend their services to bring in more revenue.

We also need to get the cluster of schools they are supporting on centralised maintenance contracts to support the regional hub. This is quite challenging as many of the schools here think that Camara provides maintenance for free!

This is a perception that comes from the volunteer program we run each year. For the first couple of years the Irish Camara volunteers trained people for free in Kenya. This has been a mistake.

I know it might sound harsh but in actual fact it is always better to charge people for training (even if its a small charge). This serves a couple of purposes. It makes the trainees committed to the training. It also minimises the dependency issue where people might not go for training unless its free and given by white people! We had incredible examples of this in Lamu where computers would remain broken and unused till the Irish volunteers arrived each summer...

It was stories like this that convinced us of the need for regional hubs run by local people.

We just have to find a way of making them sustainable....