The Blue Sweater: Bridging the Gap Between Rich and Poor in an Interconnected World (24 page)

We started singing, embarrassed and tentative at first, but gaining steam with each word. Suddenly, some of the village women stood to join us in their native language, clearly knowing the words. Midway through those determined lyrics, every person standing held hands and sang as loudly as he or she could in a mix of languages, yet with a singular spirit-50 Indian women smiling, and 8 Americans in tears.

In preparing for one of the first workshops, I visited Phnom Penh, Cambodia, in 1994, 20 years after Pol Pot had ripped the society apart, to meet an elderly Buddhist monk named Maha Ghosananda. As a symbol of peace and reconciliation, he was reviving the tradition of Dhammayietra, a nationwide pilgrimage across the country, including parts that were covered in land mines. He agreed to meet me at the temple where he lived, a simple place painted white on the outside, with neat wooden floors and open windows. Young monks shooed boys playing with guns around the temple, as the boys laughed and pretended to shoot at them.

On the second floor, Maha Ghosananda waited in his saffron robes, seated on a maroon cushion laid on a rice mat in a large, airy room. In front of him was another mat for me. Bowing hello, I sat on my shins, notebook open. Although I could feel his quiet strength, nervously I rushed through an introduction to what I was doing and told him how grateful I was to see him.

I felt like a young journalist, driven but totally out of my element.

He smiled and slowly bowed his head in acknowledgment.

"Would you tell me about the peace marches, how you have the courage to lead them, whether you have lost anyone along the way?" I asked almost breathlessly.

He looked at me, in no hurry to respond. With his hands clasped together, he said, "Each step is a prayer, each step is a meditation."

"You have made such a sacrifice with your life and are such an important spiritual leader," I continued, though I wasn't sure I even fully understood his first answer. "Those walks can take 45 days. Just the logistics must be an enormous burden for someone. Who helps you, and what can others do to support what you are doing? What is the right role for philanthropy? How many people know about the peace marches? I would think they are important not only for Cambodians, but also for the entire world to understand."

"We walk with compassion for the world," he answered.

My hyperenergetic style had never been so unsuccessful at connecting with another person before. Clearly, I needed a different approach.

"Maha Ghosananda," I said, "I am here out of deep respect for you and for what you are doing and want to consider how I might be able to introduce you and your work to others who might support it. Please forgive me for not even knowing how to ask the questions."

This time, he was quiet. He looked at me and I at him. Not knowing what else to do, I looked down and wondered if he wanted me to leave.

Minutes passed. Finally, Maha Ghosananda stood up slowly. I could see his advanced age then and was even more impressed that this man had withstood the evils of the Pol Pot regime.

"If you move through the world only with your intellect," he said in a direct and clear voice, "then you walk on only one leg." With his hands held in prayer, he lifted one leg and slowly and deliberately hopped three times. With the same deliberation and pace, he restored his foot to the floor. After a long breath, he started again.

"If you move through the world only with your compassion," he said, lifting his other leg, "then you walk on only one leg." Again, he hopped three times.

"But if you move through the world with both intellect and compassion, then you have wisdom." He walked slowly and gracefully, taking three long, slow strides. At the end he bowed his head again and then resumed his seat on the cushion in front of me.

"Thank you," I said to him, bowing again.

He smiled gently. There was nothing left to say.

Slowly, with each foot feeling the ground beneath it, I walked out of the temple and into the light.

CHAPTER 9

BLUE PAINT ON THE ROAD

"There are only two mistakes one can maize along the road to truth; not going all the way, and not starting."

-BUDDHA

n 1994, along with the rest of the world, I witnessed the horror of the Rwandan genocide, as well as the brilliant inspiration of Nelson Mandela's forgiveness of his captors and historic inauguration in South Africa. Coupled with an unfortunate encounter with personal violence on the beach in Tanzania, these contradictory events solidified a worldview that was growing more complex, grounded in the recognition of the potential for both good and evil in each one of us.

On a bleak midwinter day in New York City, I received a call from Dan Toole, my old friend from Rwanda days, who was then second in command at UNICEF's Tanzania office: "I need you to come for a month and review a microfinance program we've helped the government implement across the country. It's not clear it has been successful. Can you come? And if so, sooner rather than later?"

I relished the idea of working with Dan again, contributing and learning. The chance to trade New York City gray for a patch of vibrant color closed the deal.

From the window of the small plane that took me into Tanzania's coastal capital, Dar es Salaam, I soaked in the turquoise waters and watched the palm trees, their green heads flopping, skinny trunks bending in the wind. On the ground, the air was hot and humid. The buildings reflected a history of colonialism and trading with Arab merchants who came through magical Zanzibar, just off the coast.

At the UNICEF office, Dan and I sat in the little kitchen eating mangoes and discussing my "mission." The program was a cross between the microfinance work we'd done in Rwanda and the grants to women's groups I'd studied in Kenya. Dan explained that though loans were made to members of groups to help them pursue income, it was unclear who, if anyone, was repaying on time.

Tanzania had a history of efficiently distributing grants (but not loans) to its rural villages. Tanzania's first-and revered-president, Julius Nyerere, was a socialist who created a vast "villagization" scheme that aspired to bring good health care to every village in the country. His leadership did much to instill pride in Africans and respect among world leaders in the postindependence era. I remember the drivers in Rwanda often reading his texts and discussing his philosophies with great interest.

While socialism had failed, much of the Tanzanian government infrastructure at the village level was still in place. Unfortunately, I feared that structuring the lending program only as government grants might have hampered the possibility for its long-term sustainability. Dan counted on me to bring a critical but constructive eye to bear on the program and to present UNICEF with recommendations for moving forward.

Across Tanzania, I visited little villages in the lush mountains, where I was struck by the gorgeous scenery among which some of the poorest people on earth live. Tanzania, like Kenya, is a rich and varied country with a beautiful coastline, vast savannas, mountains, lakes, and thick, far-ranging forests. After weeks of traveling through the country, talking to rural women and government workers, I found myself not only awed by the beauty of the country, but also enamored of the kindness I found in the people.

At the same time, I was wholly dismayed by the lackluster performance of the government-administered program financed by UNICEF. Hardly anyone had repaid their loans, and I saw little evidence that any of the poor farmers or tailors were succeeding. There were no incentives for good management, and I met not a single government worker with real business or finance experience. Clearly this program was not moving anyone out of poverty, especially not in the rural areas, where poor women had such limited access to markets in the first place.

Back in Dar es Salaam, I met with Dan for hours to discuss all that I'd seen, as well as my thoughts on the future. He listened carefully and without defensiveness and ultimately felt that there were no surprises in what I was saying. He agreed with my key recommendation that the program be terminated. If UNICEF wanted to focus on microfinance, I said, it should invest in a microfinance organization and not rely on a government that had no systems in place for lending to the poor. I titled my report The Cost of Good Intentions and planned to write it over the course of a week while staying at Dan's large house on the beach.

Built "Swahili style," Dan's house had stark white walls, high-beamed ceilings, and tall, heavy wooden doors separating the rooms. A long wooden walkway of a light-colored wood extended to a pristine beach at the edge of the Indian Ocean's sparkling blue water. Pink sand shimmered beneath the hot sun. Outside my window I would watch fishermen drag their boats onto the shore as wooden dhows glided gracefully along the water. It was the season of Ramadan, when Muslims fast, and I thought of the discipline needed to work in brutal heat without food or water all day.

In reflecting on what I'd seen, I realized that I was beginning to recognize a pattern in the programs aimed at women's economic empowerment. Particularly in rural areas, women needed jobs and access to better, affordable services like health care and education for their children. Tanzania therefore required more investment in companies and factories to provide jobs; and the country needed to identify better ways of bringing critical services to the poor. Finance was one such service-there was no doubt about it. But the government should not have been a primary lender, not in Tanzania or anywhere. Instead, government should have provided the right incentives and infrastructure to enable self-sustaining initiatives to take root. Private enterprises, whether for-profit or nonprofit, could then deliver the credit and other services needed. By delegating everything to government, traditional aid efforts like this one missed the mark entirely.

After writing for a few hours, I decided to go running, though I'd promised Dan-and my friends at home-that I would avoid running by myself on empty beaches. My track record of running alone in faraway places included being attacked at gunpoint in Mexico, jumped in Brazil, badly mugged in Malaysia, and assaulted in Kenya. But the beach was peppered with people, and it was nearly 3:00 p.m. by the time I decided to take a break. I planned to run for only 15 minutes each way and would never be too great a distance from Dan's house.

I walked to the edge of the wooden walkway and looked to my left and right, taking in the quiet beauty of the afternoon. As I ran, I felt almost drunk from the feeling of sun on my skin, from breathing the salty air, from watching little kids splashing with their fully dressed mothers at the water's edge, and from listening to Bob Dylan's "Mozambique" on my Walkman. Life felt perfect.

Yet, it is so often in those moments of calm when the world feels right that suddenly it isn't.

I was just about to turn back home when, out of the corner of my eye, I saw three men walking down the beach toward the water, their deliberate steps a sure sign I was being targeted. After one man in a red knit cap called, "Mama, stop!" I took off like a lightning bolt. In the next instant, I was fighting all three men like a whirling dervish and screaming like a banshee, though this didn't stop them from grabbing my New York Yankees cap and Walkman. Somehow I kept hold of my silver bracelet, pulling it back from one of the thieves.

Nearly as quickly as it started, it was over. Suddenly I was free, running as fast as my legs have ever moved.

I didn't stop running until I was on the walkway to Dan's house. There I wrung out my sweat-drenched T-shirt and pushed the perspiration off my arms and chest in what felt like sheets of water that stung the deep scratches and gashes on my body. When I went inside, I saw my bruised face and swollen eyes in the bathroom mirror. I told myself to be calm, walked into the living room, sat down to write, and finally broke down sobbing an hour later. I wanted to talk to someone but didn't even have a phone.

Dan's gardener heard me weeping and approached me bearing cotton swabs and antibiotic ointment, mothering me in a way I craved but could not ask for. His attentions made my tears fall faster. He hugged me and told me he'd heard my screams as I fled from the attackers. I had no recollection that I'd made any noise after fleeing the men. Later I learned that the best response a woman who is being attacked can make is to scream and fight back, though my responses were simply gut reactions.

In recounting my tale later to Dan and others, I pushed away my most vulnerable feelings about the incident. I found it much easier to talk about the economic conditions that would prompt young men to attack women than to imagine what might have happened to me. Dan instinctively understood this reaction; he was a risk taker, too.

Though I realized there was a fine line between taking risks and being reckless, I craved being able to live life fully. Running on a beach with people on it in the middle of the afternoon seemed like a normal thing to do, and I ultimately didn't want to admit that something so simple could be off-limits. Even today, I struggle with the rules of the game for a woman traveling alone, though now I have a team of young people with me and I'm tougher on them than I was on myself.