Charity vs. Justice and what Erica really does

Yesterday was a beautiful day in Fianarantsoa, Madagascar – an extremely welcome relief from the seemingly endless wintry days of the last couple of weeks. Unfortunately, that meant that after the ground warmed up and the air became balmy with springtime moisture, that Sunday morning dawned drenched in a cold fog. I slept comfortably until 6:45 am or so, and then peeked outside only to decide the best place to spend this morning celebrating a day of rest by pretending like the outside world didn’t exist.

So I got cleaned up and made myself a luxurious breakfast for bed, then returned to my cozy bedroom to channel surf on my satellite radio. After skipping through the usual selection of news that wasn’t doing much for my current restful state of mind (and deciding I needed more brainfood than music), I landed on the program “Speaking of Faith,” with the somewhat airy hostess Christa Tippet, on NPR. I tend to have a somewhat ambivalent view of this program with its sometimes ethereal selection of topics, but today her interview was with Dr. David Hilfiger on the topic of urban poverty, especially in relation to our nation’s new awareness of our own urban poor after the Hurricane Katrina debacle.

Dr. Hilfiger has spent the last quarter of a century working (and living) in homeless shelters in the Washington, D.C., area. I figured his experiences on working with the poor might mirror some of the experiences I’ve had over here – especially since moving to an urban center – so I paused to listen. As it was, his interview was very frank and easy to listen to, and I found it simultaneously a relief and discouraging that he still struggles to express many aspects of his experience. I also was taken with the similarities and differences between living with this vocation in the developed and developing world. For example, he cited that one of the difficulties he faces is the difference in his race and socio-economic status (white, blessed with opportunities, and affluent vs. black, limited, and poor), but in his experience, he stated that that difference has never been thrown back in his face. Here we struggle with that same issue, but, whether it be a carry-over from the colonial period, I very often find that very difference being a pivot on which my daily life revolves. It is often the single key factor in what opens and closes doors to me here – and that’s not an aspect of this experience that I enjoy at all.

But as the interview went on, Dr. Hilfiger put into words a distinction that I haven’t been able to explain to myself between charity and justice work. He clearly categorizes the work he’s been doing for the last 22 years as “charity” work. He then goes on to describe charity as the following (necessarily paraphrased):

Charity is mandated – charity is given to satisfy ourselves – we are in control when we give – we decide who we give to and often how what we give gets used.

He describes charity as something we use to address a need in ourselves, to make ourselves feel better about an issue. It’s an immediate response. Justice, on the other hand, is working to change the underlying system that creates the need for charity. Both of these actions are a never-ending process – we have been promised that the poor will always be with us and life isn’t fair – but the type of work is very different.

And I think this is where the fundamental difficulty in explaining to people the “what I do” over here arises from. It would be very easy for me to say that I distribute mosquito nets to protect children from mosquito bites and malaria, or ensure vaccine distribution to protect children from childhood diseases; both of these activities are necessary to saving children’s lives now. But both of those activities fall into the category of charity work. This may also be why people perk up if I mention going into relief work or responding to disaster situations. That’s charity work – and it’s easier to understand.

But I don’t do charity work here. Not that I have anything against it – it’s just not my job description. By this definition, my work here is in justice. Now, there are a lot of times that these things can overlap and I spend some time in the grey areas, but mostly my work is intended to change the way of doing things so that in the long run the system is more fair. We try to make sure that systems are established and educational resources are available and reduce the need for us to distribute mosquito nets or vaccines.

Perhaps this is a valuable definition for communicating what I do to people back home – but it’s also a very useful reflection for myself as I continue my work here in Madagascar and to search out my future path. Sometimes I forget that my work in justice is important. Sometimes it’s frustrating not to be able to say that I distributed 60 mosquito nets and to feel as if I’ve made a concrete contribution to society today. Many days I feel like working in charity would be a lot “easier.” Still, underneath it all I continue to feel called to working for justice and towards that unreachable goal that someday, we won’t have the need to give things in charity.

Finally, a return to that old, tired proverb:

Give a man a fish – that’s charity.

Teaching a man to fish and ensuring that he’s allowed to continue fishing all his days – that’s justice.

Aspirations

So this post is probably going to seem a little ironic, following immediately behind the last one about being called to work in justice, but hey, my life is ironic.

 

Many of you would think that after working for 3 years in this development that I would have developed some pretty high reaching goals for myself. That I would dream of the day I become the head of a USAID mission to a country, or chief manager of a multimillion dollar Millennium Challenge Account project. Or perhaps of moving back Stateside and putting all of my experience towards research or study to get a PhD or MD or some other impressive combination of degrees and perhaps climbing that ivory tower of thought and philosophical writings on justice and charity and the whys of why the impoverished are a constant in our lives.

 

But you’d all be wrong.

 

No, my greatest wish would be to follow in the footsteps of the heroine’s father in that old black-and-white (and more recently remade) film, Sabrina. I want to move permanently to Madagascar and be a chauffeur. Or at the very least, a compound guard.

 

So often when on mission I find myself contemplating my driver’s role with more than just a twinge of jealousy. Here’s somebody who gets paid to drive a vehicle down the road, which is markedly more exciting than being left to be a passenger in the popcorn-popper and, once you arrive at destination, do nothing other than make sure the vehicle doesn’t get too many nasty words written in the dust on its sides. So you sit. And you sit. And you might wander the village a bit. Pick up some of the local gossip. And sit some more. As a chef de mission, I sometimes find myself feeling guilty for the boredom of the driver while I sit in endless meetings with local authorities and then spend the evenings writing reports or just wanting to go to sleep as soon as dinner is done. And yet, if I were that driver, those hours of boredom would be a glorious boon – think of all the books, magazines, newspapers, journals I could read, all of the books and stories I could write! I could sit and gossip in village coffee shops, then return to the safety and comfort of the vehicle and have hours to contemplate what I heard over a sound nap. I could practice photography. I could do research – rapid rural assessment, find out what people in the towns really think. Yet, I’m the one stuck racing from official forum to official forum with only time for a dutiful nod to all those real people out in the communities. And my driver sits. Every once in a while, sleeps.

 

Then there’re the office guards and the guards at the nicer compounds in the city. They work endless shifts – true that – 6 to 6, at least 3 days a week, often more. Your job is to make sure misdirected people get to where they’re going, no cars leave the compound without appropriate authorization, and that not too many ragamuffins wander in and out of the place. Occasionally light gardening and maintenance duties are included – but those are mostly to cut down on the boredom factor – and about 90% of that time is sheer boredom. Again, hours of time available for the better pursuits. Only downside to this is, unlike a chauffeur, napping is not allowed (although it does happen). And no regular change of scenery.

 

I suppose not life is really as good as it appears to be (grass is greener, and all that), but I do find it disappointing that more of the people in these roles don’t take advantage of the opportunities available to them and instead spend their lives in a state of almost constant boredom (except for drivers who split their time between mortal fear and near death-inducing boredom). And maybe, some day, I too will get paid for reading my favorite book. Again.

 

 

Today I bougt a pot

It isn’t a special pot – it wasn’t even anything I planned on buying. It was sort of an impulse purchase. I wasn’t even supposed to be in the market today, but there was a message that had to be delivered in person to a training that was taking place near there, and our project car is in for repairs so I went by foot. That meant I had to pass through the heart of the market day throngs, including the pots.

There really wasn’t even a special reason to buy the pot other than it’s been cold here and my current biggest pot just isn’t cutting it for soup making. I keep trying to throw in too much stuff.

So I bought a pot. It wasn’t even a particularly memorable bargaining or general purchasing experience. I probably won’t even remember the faces of the guys who sold the pot to me if I go back there to buy another one (although I’m sure they’ll remember me). But that’s exactly what induced me to comment on the experience today.

I think I’ve been here long enough and I speak Malagasy well enough that I generally have a very genuine purchasing experience. There is definitely an art to buying things in an open market. It’s not all about the purchase, the sale, the final price or the person selling it to you. But it is. Yes, in general there is bargaining involved here, but it’s more of a way to prolong the encounter than it is a barrier to be overcome. The purchaser/seller relationship is generally necessarily brief, but if done right, profound. As I move through a purchase, discussion about whether the item is the right choice, of good (or at least decent) quality, whether there are better options of both product and seller, a discussion ensues. Of course for them the initial excitement is a white foreigner discussing very colloquial things in their own language, but as the conversation continues that becomes secondary as they work to convince me that their product is the best and the price is unbeatable.

I can make them laugh – and they make me laugh. I ask them what the base price for the item is, and what their profit is. I scold them if I think their profit margin is too high. They ask me why I don’t buy two. I tell them what I want it for – they try offering alternatives that they know won’t work. Or, if they truly thing something would be better, suddenly somebody will disappear and suddenly pop up again holding an item in a different size/color/shape. All the time we’re arguing over how much it will cost in the end. Then I demand that they throw in another small item (like today it was a low-quality spoon) for free.

Meanwhile we’ve usually attracted a crowd. Now this I have to admit is main due to my physical appearance, but I have seen a Malagasy bartering battle attract attention too. You have to get over the self-consciousness of using language and the vulnerability of being surrounded by onlookers and appearing to have money before this can be an enjoyable experience. It’s also best either not to be in a hurry so you’re not afraid to walk away from what you find if it’s not right or, be desperate enough that you’ll buy whatever will work and you just walk out of there. A lot of times it’s something you need to be in the mood for – or you hate every second of it.

But today I bought a pot, and the experience was normal. I’m not kidding myself into thinking that I got the best quality item or the best price, but hey, we laughed, we teased, we cajoled, and I got a “cadeau” of a spoon to take with me. They got my money and asked when I would be back. I got a pot (and spoon) and told them when I needed something else.

We parted on good terms.

And now I’m going to make some soup.