Elephants Are Feminists

I have moved

2010-07-20T20:12:00.002Z

I changed the url and title for my blog. Don't get excited, though: I still don't plan on posting much, if at all. I mostly just wanted to grab the url for the future. I don't plan to do any fancy imigration of RSS feeds, either. I think there are only like two of you reading this through RSS, so it ain't worth it.

New blog:

http://ryanknightsblog.blogspot.com/

On Public Urination

2010-05-23T17:51:00.004Z

A few months ago, I was monitoring one of my projects in Accra, walking from shop to shop to sit in on interviews. The sun was hot, so I drank lots of water, then had to urinate. It's totally cool in Accra to pee facing a busy street out the leg of your shorts (don't know why, but that's the preferred technique, rather than dropping drawers). So rather than seek a latrine/toilet, I paused next to a wall, thinking, "Well, I'm only exposed from one direction..."

So, of course, a gaggle of schoolchildren emerged from that one direction, led by their dotting grandmothers. One of the grandmothers shook her head at me and clucked, "You come here to learn, but what you learn is to pee in the street".

One year on, I'm learning to note which way the wind blows before lifting my shorts.

Walmart Gives $2 Billion in Food Aid... to America

2010-05-13T09:19:00.003Z

From the Christian Science Monitor, Wal-Mart has pledged two billion dollars in food aid to help feed hungry Americans. I told this one my Ghanaian coworkers:

Me: Wow! Wal-Mart just pledged $2 billion in food aid!
Jonathan: To Haiti?
Me: No, to America!
Jonathan: $2 million?
Me: No, $2 billion!
Jonathan: Wow... that's the last thing one would ever think of.

JPAL's new website

2010-05-12T22:20:00.001Z

JPAL finally put up their new website! It's worth checking out.

Esther's TED Talk

2010-05-04T21:17:00.001Z

Esther Dulfo's TED talk is up.

Barbers Without Borders Not Fulfilling Mission

2010-05-02T10:11:00.002Z

Accra, Ghana

SPECIAL REPORT
Numerous reports from “the Field” indicate that Barbers Without Borders is not fulfilling their mission to provide affordable yet fashionable hair-styling services for Africa. Ethnic minorities and migrant laborers throughout Africa are living with unkempt hair because the local economy does not support barbers who use scissors. These ethnic minorities – who are often young, often skinny, and often sick – live in constant fear of ridicule by their local partners, who scoff at their unruly hair, dirty clothes and smelly feet. Anyone who visits a government ministry in Africa will quickly note the difference in personal hygiene between the local managers and the minority “technical consultants”.

“We believe that the lack of barbers is the root cause of poor hygiene among migrant laborers in Africa,” said a spokeswomen for Barbers Without Borders who refused to be named because I made her up. “What incentive do they have to shave or wash their feet if their hair is messy anyway? If we can just provide a few more stylists in key areas – Accra, Abijan and Lagos come to mind – we believe that we can unlock the key to growth in hygiene among expatriates in Africa,”.

But if this is the mission of Barbers Without Borders, where are the barbers? Many ethnic minorities and migrant laborers report going months without haircuts, often waiting for “home leave” to get their hair cut. Others take the drastic step of flying to London for the weekend to get haircuts, buy electronics, and go clubbing. But, as if often the case, the hardest hit are those without jobs, working as volunteers or low-wage labor at not-for-profits.

“It can be tragic if you choose the wrong barber,” said one such migrant laborer. “The last haircut I had, I walked out 3/4 of the way through out of sheer frustration; he seemed to be trying to shear me. I tried to clean it up myself when I got home. I did what I could, but, well, you can see the result,” the laborer said sheepishly. He refused to give his name for fear of public shaming, but referred to his latest haircut as “the Skunk” because of the trough the barber carved down the back of his head. “Barbers Without Borders has some questions to answer,” he concluded.

Surveying Christopher Walken

2010-04-03T12:13:00.002Z

Thanks to my new-found Youtube-downloading capabilities, check out this SNL clip where Christopher Walken fills out the census. Administering questionnaires really feels that hard sometimes.

Watching Youtube on a Slow Connection

2010-03-20T18:06:00.007Z

WARNING: It's about to get nerdy up in here.

At best, the internet at my house is like a fast 56k connection, and at worst (when it's working at all) I could probably get faster download speeds from my cell phone. I have been using the wget utility to download important files, which works, but wget uses the command line prompt and could never be called user-friendly.

But wget does not work on youtube videos, so I've been totally lost on pop culture. I didn't discover The Rock Obama* until a month ago, and spent probably 45 minutes watching the status bar load (even less fun than watching water boil). You can often view youtube videos by pausing it and waiting for the whole video to load before watching it, but if internet connection drops out while it's loading, you can't resume loading it without completely restarting. This happened probably 5 times while I was trying to watch the This Too Shall Pass* video -- incredibly frustrating!

I think I have found a solution using Firefox plug ins. I had, like Owen Barder, recently switched to Chrome, but might have to switch back now -- these pluggins are great!

The first thing to do is to add the Firefox Downloadhelper plug-in. This lets you download flash videos from Youtube at the click of a button, and is a good solution in and of itself.

Unfortunately, Firefox's download utility isn't made for African connectivity. When the download fails, you can manually restart it and it will actually resume where it left off, but if your internet is bouncing up and down, this is a real pain.

What we need to do is use wget to download the downloadhelper files. If you right click the file in Firefox's download manager, you can select "Copy Link Location" and then paste that into the command line to use with wget... but it's the year 2010, we must be able to do better than that!

Enter VisualWget, a user interface that lets you use wget in a much more friendly environment. And, VisualWget can work with a Firefox pluggin called FlashGot to let you download files from Firefox using wget at the click of a button. This works great for downloading .pdf articles and other links, but I still need to copy and paste the downloadhelper url in to download youtube videos. Also, it can take FOREVER to download, but at least it works!

Steps to Watching Youtube in Sub-Sarahan Africa, Northern New Hampshire, Or Anywhere Else with Bad Connectivity

Add the Downloadhelper Firefox plug in
Download and install VisualWget
Add the Flashgot Firefox plug in
Follow the instructions on the VisualWget website (near the bottom) to add VisualWget as the default FlashGot download utility.
Click the annoying spinning Downloadhelper thinger to start downloading a youtube video
Right click on the file in the downloads box to copy the link location, then cancel the download
Go to Tools > FlashGot > FlashGot All to launch VisualWget
Press control + v in the url box to paste in the link and press OK to start downloading the file
Get back to work. It will download, don't worry!
Once the file downloaded, you may have to edit the file name and delete anything after .flv. You can view it in VLC media player, or use something like Youtube Downloader to convert the file so you can watch it on an ipod.

Now it's time to watch some South Park!

* You can't actually watch either of these from Ghana anymore... Anyone know how to mask your IP address?

"The majority of our students graduate"

2010-03-14T10:56:00.003Z

The majority of our students graduate. Most see an increase in wages.

That's the ringing endorsement of for-profit schools by a spokeswomen for Corinthian Colleges, Inc, a publicly traded company with $1.4 billion in revenues. An outstanding NYT article calls into question what return on investment students are really getting at these schools, which derive 70-90% of their revenue from federal student aid, could collect $10 billion in federal Pell grants in 2011-2012 under Obama's "college and career" readiness initiatives, yet have 3-year student loan default rates of ~12% and questionable placement success.

Industry advocates argue that they shouldn't be held responsible for the defaults because their recruiters are barred from making promises about future income. To me, that's exactly why they should be held responsible. If taxpayers are going to finance 80% of their revenue, we deserve to know what's going on through readily available data on actual placement rates and future earnings. Right now, I'm making my own decision on whether to seek more schooling. This type of information is essential to informing my decision, and I couldn't imagine choosing a graduate program without it.

The Phantom Clarinetist

2010-03-13T12:29:00.002Z

Went out to Duncan's for the ole 1 yr anniversary the other night. The Lonely Planet guidebook describes Duncan's as "Nothing more than a few plastic tables out on the street, Duncan's is nevertheless a popular drinking spot with locals."

Wow, to me, it is so much more than a few plastic tables... it's the home of the best banku and tilapia around, for one, and is also (supposedly) the home of the best (and only) cat kebabs around. I suppose I should be thanking LP for keeping all the 2-week tourists out with such an underwhelming description.

Anyway, Duncan's attracts a pretty mixed and middle class expat-local crowd. It is right on the sidewalk, so sometimes different people will wander up and try to sell you random trinkets or Chinese dvds. And if you're lucky a pair of Rastas with a guitar and a djembe will come by to serenade you with torturous 10-minute renditions of "Three Little Birds".

No hawkers this time, but the Rastas were much better musicians than usual. The djembe player was tight, the guitar player knew more than two chords, and they actually harmonized! After a couple of rounds through "Three Little Birds" they started in on Lucky Dube's "Nobody Can Stop Reggae"... and a random obruni popped up from the table next to us with clarinet-in-mouth, busted out a baddass 15 minute clarinet solo and sat back down to his banku and tilapia.

Most unexpected yet awesome musical performance ever.

Did I Give Bad Advice?

2010-03-13T12:26:00.003Z

Perhaps #10 should be amended to include: and use a mosquito net. New research shows that mosquitoes are more attracted to bear drinkers.

10 Tips for New Expats

2010-03-10T22:43:00.004Z

Tomorrow marks the end of my first year in Ghana, and I have now spent 2 out of the last 4 years abroad. My brother recently moved to Chile, and just celebrated the end of his first month abroad. I decided to whip up some advice for him and all those other wethorn, green-behind-the-ears expats out there.

Buy a phone with a flashlight

Learn to sleep in the heat

Lie on your back. Don't bother trying to sleep yet; it's too hot. The goal of this stage is to build of a rich lather of sweat.
Roll on your right side and fall asleep immediately. The sweat evaporating off your back should cool you down just enough to be able to fall asleep. If you don't fall asleep right away... good luck
When you wake up because it's too hot again, switch sides to let the right side's sweaty lather evaporate as you fall back asleep (and let the right half of the sheets dry).
Repeat Steps 2 and 3 as needed.

Treat napkins as precious resources

Trust your gut

Be Responsible

Take the bus

Find your happy place

Cut Your Coat to Your Size

Dance like a fool

When in doubt, drink

And We're Back!

2010-03-08T21:36:00.002Z

Dear Adoring Fans, [Dear Mom and Dad,]

I would like to offer my sincere condolences for the dearth of new material of late. [Sorry I haven't written you.] I was called upon to attend various exigent circumstances that required my diligent attention, leaving nary a moment to spare for my usual pellucid pondering or droll anecdotes. [I was busy have fun with the visiting Girlfriend and -- surprise, surprise -- studying for the GRE]. I will endeavor ameliorate any inimical or disconsolate sentiments arising from my anomalous abeyance through a series of particularly erudite observations and acerbic tales, although my peremptory adherence to an austere regime of vocabulary-augmenting activities may preclude the deluge in postings some my more devoted fans may dream for with cupidity. [I'll try to write some good stories soon to make up for the absence, but I'm also going to keep studying for the GRE, so they may not be as frequent as Mom hopes].

Yours Truly,
Ryan

[PS I realize how lame and nonsensical this post is... please forgive me... it actually was a great way to study]

Accra Road Language Part 1: The Art of Honking

2010-02-11T16:52:00.006Z

Marginal Revolution linked to a Slate piece on the non-verbal signals that drivers give each other in the US. You know, like flashing your lights if there's a speed trap or flashing the bird if you get caught off. These things happen sometimes in the US, but Ghana takes it to a totally different level. You could literally devote an entire blog to this subject, but I'll start with the Art of Honking.

Living in Accra, you quickly learn to distinguish between the three major species of Honk. First, and most critically, there's the "LEAP OUT OF THE WAY RIGHT NOW OR I WILL HIT YOU" Honk, which must be heeded, and sounds like: MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEET.

Then there's the Taxi Honk. Taxi drivers are truly prolific honkers. It would be impossible to overemphasize how often taxis honk. They literally wear out their horn buttons and have to install a new horn trigger on their blinker paddle. Some even install a new steering wheel paddle dedicated solely to honking, to make incessant honking more convenient. Think Formula 1 race car shifting paddles, but dedicated solely to the Art of Honk.

There are two subspecies of Taxi Honk. There's the "WHERE ARE YOU GOING?" honk and the virtually indistinguishable, but less common, "I HAVE PASSENGERS!" honk, which makes hailing a taxi lots of fun. "Where are you going?!" sounds like: MEEET MEEET; and "I have passengers!" sounds like: MEEET MEET. Drivers look befuddled when I can't distinguish between them.

Finally, we have the "I'M DRIVING!" Honk. There is little order to this honk. You can be pull this honk out at any time for any reason, but common uses include approaching a blind corner or an intersection with people, or because it had been more than 3.2 seconds since your last Honk, and you have a compulsion about not going more than 3.2 seconds between Honks. It sounds like: MEET-MEET, MEET-MEET. Some, but not all, taxi drivers also utilize the "I"M DRIVING!" honk, which makes hailing a taxi even more fun.

A quick way to tell who's new to Accra is to watch for people who turn their heads for each honk and people just instinctively leap for the Leap-Out-Of-Harms'-Way honks. The old hands also know to watch out for the old hand signals that tro-tros use to advertise their routes, which will be the subject of Part 2.

Linky

2010-02-04T18:46:00.002Z

* Is Microsoft the next GM?

* What to read on Foreign Aid Via Owen Barder

* What can't all Republicans be as rational as Paul Ryan?

* Best Job for the Coming Decade: Program Evaluator HT Chris Blattman

Elephants Are Feminists is Currently Plus One

2010-02-03T21:30:00.002Z

My girlfriend (yes, I can call her that now. After two years, we are now FBO -- that's Facebook Official, if you're as out of touch with the youth as I am) is visiting from the US, which among many other things, has made me realize what a solitary activity blogging is. So I'll be taking off my nerd-glasses and pretending to be hip for the next couple of weeks (shhh, don't tell her! Somehow, she's still convinced I'm interesting). which will mean less time spent blogging. But don't worry, she's nerdy enough herself to let me still post occasionally, and I like to pretend I'm an arteest when she's around, so there may be some pictures of our travels to look forward to. If you ask nicely, she may even grace Ye Loyal Readership (Mom & Dad) with a guest post?

The Ethics of Randomization

2010-01-28T15:41:00.002Z

I took my surveyors out to dinner last night and asked what we should do differently if we repeated our study. Their responses were all along the lines of: this was good, but next time, you should let us pick who gets the capital grant instead of letting the computer decide. Or, this was good, but next time you should give everyone GHC 200 instead of only half the people. So I had the ethics on randomization on the brain when I listened to a podcast by David Rodin from the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs.

Rodin brought up an interesting hypothetical: Say you’re stuck at the bottom of a well, and an innocent fat man gets pushed down the well. The fat man will surely crush you. But you have a ray gun! You can choose to either vaporize the fat man with the ray gun, thereby saving yourself from certain death, or let the fat man fall, thereby ending your own life. What do you do?

David Rodin says that the only ethical choice is to let the fat man fall. The fat man has no agency: he doesn’t want to kill you. He therefore did not forfeit his own right to not be killed. By killing him, you would be taking an innocent life. I’m not convinced.

There are two rights violations in this scenario. The first is the choice by whoever pushed the fat man to kill one of the two of you. The second is that the pusher is forcing you to choose which of two innocent people die, which surely violates your right not to be harassed.

In my mind, the two choices are equally bad. You either end the life of the fat man and live with the fact that you chose to take an innocent life, or let your own life end and make the fat man live with the fact that he squished a saint– someone so altruistic that he took his own like rather than kill one innocent falling fat man.

But what if there’s a third way? What if, as the fat man came careening down on you, you reached in your pocket, took out a coin, and flipped it? Heads, the fat man’s vapor. Tails, you’re jelly.

In my mind, this is the only ethical thing to do because it results in a net decrease in rights violations. The guy who pushed the fat man is still committing one violation of rights by forcing one of you to die, but you rob the pusher-man of the second rights violation of forcing you to choose between lives. Now, the fat man can’t squish a saint and you can’t take an innocent life: whoever lives just got lucky.

So when it comes to questionable acts of self defense involving falling fat men and ray guns, randomization is the only ethical choice. Do you think my surveyors would buy that explanation when it comes to randomizing capital grants?

Critically Important Update!

2010-01-26T16:54:00.002Z

I know ya'all are just reading this to stay current on my viciously hip hairstyles. Well, I finally went under the knife again today (literally... he took out a razor blade to make some unwelcome finishing touches). I call this one the "So That's What I'll Look Like When I'm 55!" I went back to the creator of the "Egghead". Why? I don't know. I tried to explain how I wanted it to be like last time, only less round... which translated to: "Please shave off the lowest quarter inch of my hairline. I'd really like to know what I'll look like when I start going bald."

I think it's really great that elders are respected in Ghanaian culture. I do. But I'd be OK with just stopping to say hi when I walk by and not emulating their receding hairlines on my 25-year-old forehead.

Haitian Solidarity Concert

2010-01-24T14:54:00.002Z

Last night the Alliance Frances hosted a Haitian Solidarity concert to raise money for the Red Cross. All the Ghanaian highlife/pop stars performed a song or two gratis. It was great: The soundtrack of my Ghanaian experience, performed live, which let me put a face to the songs I've heard 10 million times. (A Ghanaian friend almost died laughing when, after the song Angelina by Praye I remarked, 'So that's where that song comes from'. Their response: 'Don't you watch TV?' Well... no, apparently not...)

It was also fun to see the Ghanaian community reaching out of Haiti (although much of the audience was foreigners). Haiti's ambassador to Ghana was there, who is apparently Haiti's only ambassador in all of Africa. It was a great reminder that, no matter how much you have, you can always afford to give.

It also led me to discover a Universal Truth: Everyone in the world knows the first 4 words to the first verse of every Bob Marley song. Only true rastafarians and trustafarians know the next four. (There were quite a few touching but sometimes mangled versions of a 'No Women No Cry'/'3 Little Birds' mashup, with the Haiti as the subject).

Nerds Hack Online Dating

2010-01-22T22:47:00.002Z

Well, it happened. Nerds finally started using internet dating sites. But first, of course, they had to whip out the old statistical analysis software and develop model to maximize their chances of dating a model. The results are here.

Via Marginal Revolution.

What I've Been Reading on Haiti

2010-01-20T17:25:00.002Z

I'm no expert in disaster relief, but it seems like a lot of the bloggers I follow are -- or at least, have a brother-in-law whose coworker's very good friend is -- so I've been reading a lot about the relief effort. Some of the better posts/articles:

* Nobody wants your old shoes
* What is Haiti poor? Chris Blattman responds to David Brooks
* Tyler Cowen's excellent but unlikely ways to help Haiti
* "Texas in Africa" has a number of excellent posts and links, including the UN picture in this post
* Why is distributing aid in Haiti so difficult?
* A letter to the editor from Satan, re: Pat Robertson

Earthquakes Go Viral

2010-01-19T20:57:00.004Z

Yesterday was the quietest day we've ever had in our office, for an unexpected reason: most of our staff woke up in the middle of the night and ran outside. A viral message had spread through text messages and cell phone calls that a major earthquake was imminent and everyone needed to get outside, like, immediately. Our staff is a pretty worldly bunch, so after a bit most of them returned to bed... but, with all the coverage of Haiti, how well would you sleep if your father had just called you up, insisting that the roof was about to fall down?

Everyone was very relieved when a former-geologist-now-survey-printer stopped by (I had recently successfully printed something!) for a very nerdy conversation about fault lines near Ghana and the fact that earthquakes can't be predicted... by scientists:

Me: Nerd nerd fault lines nerdy offshore nerd-nerd.
Geologist-Turned-Printer: Nerdy nerd rock fractures under Accra; nerdy seismic nerd.
Me: Nerd! It's strange that the radio and TV didn't squelch this rumor earlier.
Geologist-Turned-Printer: Haha, yes. There's really no way to predict earthquakes. [Smile drops from face] Unless someone Prophesied it. [Introspective look up and to the left] But there's no way for scientists to predict earthquakes.

My Blog in 2010

2010-01-10T21:13:00.002Z

I've given some serious thought to rolling up Ye Olde Blog with the end of 2009. I haven't had much success attracting readers: pageviews peaked (at ~10 per day) around August-September and have steadily declined ever since (to ~2-3 per day). My more popular posts have been stories/observations made in the course of my work, but I've started sending those stories to the IPA blog where I think they will get more exposure. The average quality of my posts has probably declined as a result, so I don't blame anyone who stopped following me.

Basically, I'm weighing the chance that I'll say something stupid and it will come back to bite me against the chance that I'll say something intelligent that will come back to benefit me.

If my goal is to keep family/friends in the loop, I could avoid public exposure by sending group Facebook messages (as now even my grandfather is on Facebook) or something like that. On the other hand, if I ever do stumble upon an idea worth sharing, would I know how to express it if I don't practice?

A dilemma. I think I will keep the blog because I like it, but post irregularly because I know that Mom, Dad and Girlfriend will read it anyway. I might also try out a few different titles and layouts or possibly change the address. And if a goal of the blog is to practice writing, more criticism from my intrepid readers would be helpful.

Any thoughts from Ye Loyal Readership?

The Curse of the Free Upgrade

2010-01-09T20:06:00.004Z

I finally arrived in Ghana at about 2 am this morning, 3 days after I was originally scheduled to arrive. I was supposed to leave on Tuesday, but with the heightened security measures, the weather in England, and some confusion about the departure time, I missed the flight and was put on standby for the next day.

The next day's flight was delayed, but when we eventually left and I was surprised to discover that I my seat was in first class. I should have known something was up: on the way to Boston from Heathrow I had a free upgrade it to "World Traveler Elite", where I got to sit for an extra 4 hours waiting for de-icing. This time the upgrade was to true, seats-lie-flat-champagne-served-from-a-glass-bottle-dinner-options-include-pan-seared-mahi-mahi first class. Very comfy... only this time, we never even made it to our destination.

We were diverted to Glasgow in Scotland, a charming city with an overnight low of -21.5 Celsius, just short of the overnight low in Antarctica of -22 Celsius. Dressed for the tropics, I didn't do much exploring... We spent the night at a Ramada Inn and tried to leave for Heathrow again on Friday morning. I was supposed to be in Ghana on Wednesday, so by now I was understandably cold and tired, and didn't think that I should decline the empty "World Traveler Elite" seat I was offered. Mistake! We were delayed waiting for de-icing again, and by the time I arrived in London and collected my bags, I only had 20 minutes before the flight to Accra was scheduled to leave.

I talked to 3 different agents before I finally found someone willing to print me a boarding pass with so little time. (The others tried to convince me that another night in a frigid hotel would fun, or that Abidjan is close enough to Accra). This agent gave me a 2% chance of making the flight, and I had to beg her to please, please just let me try to make it before she finally printed a boarding pass.

Boarding pass in hand, I was off, elbowing my way through the frequent flier express line security line (I thought I might have to pause to make fisticuffs with an 80 year old who elbowed back), throwing coats, belts and shoes at the X-ray machine, then sprinting through Heathrow terminal 5 with pants drooping and all 3 bags flailing (no time to check luggage, just carried it all right through).

I slid to a stop (no time to put shoes back on) in front of the board to check the gate and..... my flight was delayed. The delay ended up being about 5 hours. (I had a sweet exit row-like seat with no seat in front of it, which explains the delay). If I hadn't begged the women to let me on the flight I never would have known about the delay and would right now be sitting... who knows where, still trying to get back to Ghana.

I don't know how I managed to get so many good seats, but next time I will stick to coach and an on-time arrival. And after seeing this photo, I don't blame the airline company for anything (except perhaps making me miss the flight on Tuesday, but it never arrived at Heathrow, either).

Y2K and Global Warming

2010-01-01T18:53:00.002Z

The New York Times has a great op-ed today about the great apocalypse of the previous decade, the dreaded Y2K. While the article doesn't make the comparison to our current favorite apocalyptic scenario, global warming, it is hard not to ignore the similarities.

What if global warming turns out to be just as disastrous as Y2K (which is to say, not at all disastrous)? In my view, it's still 100% worth investing as heavily as possible in zero-carbon/low-carbon technologies. Why? Well, if we invest in keeping carbon levels down and global warming is another false alarm, we will have spent millions upon millions modernizing our energy delivery infrastructure and giving a whole host of clean technologies a jump-start in cost effectiveness. The Y2K modernizations similarly "wasted" millions upgrading computer systems, but we were able to put these new systems to use. The return on the money invested might not be positive, but it certainly won't be zero.

Year-End Donation Time?

2009-12-28T23:07:00.002Z

While I don't particularly suspect my readership to be well-healed enough to be throwing around mountains of cash, it is possible that some of you (three) may be considering making year-end donations. If so, Givewell is an absolutely indispensable resource. Seriously. Check it out. They do very serious, very rigorous reviews of charities and present their findings in accessible language, all with the goal of helping you get the most out of your donations.

Their recent blog on microfinance is also worth checking out, whether or not you plan on giving this year. I've never been a big believer in microfinance as charity and feel somewhat vindicated that the pendulum is swinging back on it (although I would have rather been wrong). Unfortunately, I wasn't blogging early enough to be able to claim any credit for seeing around the corner on this one.

Holiday Traditions

2009-12-16T11:55:00.003Z

We had a small holiday celebration in the IPA-Ghana office on Monday where we decorated cookies and shared our family traditions. The ex-patriots got caught up in debate on what the best Christmas cookie is and whose family has the bigger Christmas tree before suddenly we realizing that we had no idea what our teammates' traditions are.

My enigmatic coworker Jonathan enlightened us: "Christmas in Ghana is a time when the chickens will suffer. Many fowls will be laid to rest on Christmas."

Apparently, we have Christmas Ham in the US, while our friends have Christmas Chicken in Ghana.

Missing from the Afghan Surge Debate

2009-12-13T15:13:00.002Z

I'm no military expert, and I certainly don't have any informed opinions on how the surge will play out, but one thing I do think it's important that the Afghan point of view was missing from the otherwise extensive debate on the new surge.

No 'Net

2009-12-11T14:48:00.002Z

The internet has been down at my house lately, and power has been off frequently at our new office, so there hasn't been much opportunity for blogging recently -- sorry.

I did get to read a great New Yorker article this morning (Via marginal revolution). It's rewarding to see the rise in public policy experimentation, and left me feeling a lot better about the Senate health care bill.

But if the premise of the article is correct, why haven't extension farmers succeeded in Africa? IPA has done a few studies aimed at these types of questions (e.g., how do farmers share knowledge in Kenya?), and I believe there are a few evaluations of extension workers in the works. It will be interesting to see how the knowledge shakes out on these issues in the coming years, but I certainly hope the New Yorker guy is on to something.

Excellent Graphic on Climate Change

2009-12-08T18:02:00.002Z

There's a pretty cool interactive graphic in the NYT today.

On the IPA blog (again)

2009-12-08T15:10:00.001Z

Wrote another post for IPA, which you can find here

A Coherent Kristof?

2009-11-25T20:19:00.002Z

Kristof actually presents a pretty coherent summary of the positions of the major players in the economics of international development.

Please, No Rubber

2009-11-22T18:35:00.003Z

Quite unexpectedly, "Please, no rubber" is a major part of my vocabulary here. No no, it doesn't mean that. A "rubber" in Ghanaian english is a plastic bag in American english (I still feel awkward saying it, though). And are rubbers everywhere in Ghana. Any street food comes packed in two, or even three, small black "rubbers." At the provisions store near my house they pack every can/bottle individually in its own rubber. I always feel a twinge of guilt throwing away the seven rubbers I got from buying three items, but it's often easier to just take them than it is to explain that I can carry a pineapple without it being double-bagged.

It's obvious where the rubbers end up: streets, gutters, vacant lots, and trash heaps are filled with them. But until the other day, I had no idea where they come from. What does it take to make a plastic bag? Are there giant cargo ships full of plastic bags arriving daily from China? Who profits off a rubber?

And then I discovered the Ghanaian rubber-making industry.

Meet Thomas, the rubber-maker. Using his feet, he can lower an arm that has a hot wire and a blade running across it. He stretches the tubular plastic roll out to proper rubber-size and lowers the arm down to seal the bottom of one bag with the wire and cut open the top of the next with the blade. Stretch, lower, stretch, lower, Thomas is a one man rubber-making factory.

"Please, no rubber" will be a little harder to say now that I know about Thomas and domestic rubber-making industry.

Some Congratulations Are Due...

2009-11-21T15:17:00.002Z

Four out of the five people who read this blog had major accomplishments this week, so I thought I'd highlight them here:

First, congratulations to Dad, who completed his 50th year yesterday.

Next, congratulations to Mom for her successful rotator cuff surgery on Thursday.

Congratulations are also due to Girlfriend, for giving notice at her job, and deciding to move to Ghana. (OK, I'm still working on the second part, but it will come...)

Finally, congratulations to Brother, for purchasing a one way ticket to Chile on Wednesday.

Belichick Update

2009-11-17T21:21:00.000Z

Greg Mankiw is also on Belichick's side, and links to an interesting story on Belichick's reliance on data.

I read a little bit more of the paper but am still not convinced that Romer's analysis translates to the Pats situation. Using data from 3rd downs and the 1st quarter just doesn't translate to 4th and 2 with 2 minutes to go. I don't think I can write anymore about it without getting some thicker nerd-glasses, but two quick points: At the end of a tight game like that, the returns to getting exactly two yards are exactly equal to the returns to getting 20 yards -- you win the game in either case -- so the defense is going to sit right on the first down line and not let you past. If it's the first quarter and a third down, the returns to 20 yards are much greater than the returns to 2, so the defense has to respect the deep ball and play off the line, increasing your chance to make a 2 yard gain.

The second point is that points come in important, discrete bunches (3 points for a field goal and 7 for a TD). This may have been addressed in the paper and I just didn't read it closely, but you would have to do the analysis looking only at the probability of the opposing team scoring a touchdown to replicate the Pats situation. If you are just averaging the opposing points scored the field goals would raise the average but with a 6 point lead the Pats could care less if the Colts kicked a field goal at the end of their drive.

Is Bill Belichick Great?

2009-11-16T22:57:00.000Z

Unfortunately, I missed the latest Pats game. Well, to be honest, I've missed every Pats game... but that's neither here nor there (if we're being specific, it's there and not here...) However I do hear that Bill Belichick made a questionable call on 4th and 2 in his own territory. Pop economist Steven Levitt loved the call, saying that it was statistically the correct thing to do.

But was it? The claim is based on a paper by respected economist David Romer, which I haven't read, but assume deals with correlations between punting versus going for it and points scored. That is, non-experimental data: I don't think that anyone is actually randomly assigning 4th downs to punt on and 4th downs to go for it (following Romer's rules for what yardages are appropriate). This means there's no accounting for a coaches intuition, his observations about the relative levels of fatigue or any other hunch that can't be captured by statistics.

Glancing at the paper, Romer also used data only from the 1st quarter and used the expected yardage gain from 3rd downs as the expected gain from 4th downs (because there are too few actual 'go for it' 4th downs for analysis). So even if the paper was correct about punting to be a bad option, punting might only be a bad option in the 1st quarter and if the opposing defense plays the same way it would as if it were 3rd down (unlikely).

The data, then, might not be so clearly on Belichick's side after all. I wouldn't be surprised at all if the Pats had a resident statistician who extended Romer's analysis to 4th quarters and 4th downs, but there is still no getting around the fact that coaches' unobservable impressions can't be accounted for in the data but could still be important.

So what were your impressions? Did the Pats look like they were going to succeed or did it look like a bad idea from the minute they walked on the field?

An Online Ghanaian Yellow Pages?

2009-11-11T08:07:00.000Z

One thing that we have been entirely unsuccessful at in our office is finding a place that will deliver lunch. The kitchen/wait staff at the restaurants around are never in any particular hurry and lunch can actually be a substantial time drain. Yesterday was a fairly busy day, so when a colleague suggested that we try to find the number for our favorite Lebanese restaurant online, I was down but very skeptical that we would find anything.

I was amazed when she sent me this link and asked if I could call. What could this link be? An online Ghanaian yellow pages? No, it looks like it has reviews and contact information! Amazing! But wait! Where is the contact information?!

I read it over three or four times without seeing a phone number before finally asking the colleague how she expected me to be able to call... Her response was brilliant: It's on the sign board in the picture!

Ah-ha!

(Unfortunately, they didn't answer and we had to go and wait anyway...)

On the IPA Blog

2009-11-09T19:49:00.000Z

I wrote another post for the IPA blog, which you can read here. It may not show up on the home page unless you hit refresh, for some reason.

It also occurs to me that I may not have linked to my previous post on the IPA blog back in September. It is here.

The Consequences of Sprawl

2009-11-06T09:28:00.000Z

Via Greg Mankiw's blog, Ed Glaeser has an op-ed in the Boston Globe arguing against the home buyer's tax credit on the grounds that it encourages suburban sprawl and therefore all of the negative environmental consequences of sprawl. I've been in-tune with the green urbanism thinking for a while now, but drifted away recently because it doesn't seem to be going anywhere and if people prefer living in the suburbs, who am I to say they should move back to the cities?

It's great to see such a well-respected economist getting behind the idea that we should limit suburbanization subsidies. My declining interest in urban planning was accompanied by an ascendant interest in economics; Glaeser's article is a nice reminder that the two are not so separate after all.

MIA

2009-11-05T13:07:00.000Z

Sorry for being MIA on the blog recently. I have a few new posts in the works, but in the meantime, here's another amazing graph:
ht marginal revolution.

In the Field, Again

2009-10-26T22:56:00.000Z

After about a month of data work, I'm back "in the field." Being in the field is a pain. It's hot and dirty, and your office work doesn't go away -- it just gets done in the second eight hours you work. But I'm glad to be working outside again. I have an assumption shattered, or learn something that I really should have known every time.

This time, we were delivering envelopes to our respondents, with a paper inside that they had to remove. I stapled the envelope -- and therefore the paper inside the envelope -- to a page that described how to locate the respondent. I was obsessed with the idea that it would be impossibly difficult to remove the staple, everyone would get pissed, and the paper would be torn and ruined when they gave up and tore it out. Or, at least, that it would be a hassle.

I forgot that I was working with tailors -- they had the staple out and envelope open in no time flat.

An Interesting Ride to the Beach

2009-10-24T20:33:00.000Z

I took a short trip to be beach today, but with Accra's traffic, I ended up spending more time traveling there/back than relaxing. On the ride there, the second tro-tro (minibus) I picked was blaring music out of a tape deck, and there were cassettes strewn across the front seat. "Only in Africa is there still I thriving cassette market," I thought.

I was quickly put straight when I hopped out and picked a shared taxi, who was blaring music off a USB memory stick plugged straight into his CD player. When he stopped at a junction, he yanked it out to swap with his buddy, and I saw that there is a USB port right on the face of the CD player (when did they start making such things!?). We cruised on to the beach listening to Burning Spear.

Juxtapositions like this are all over the place in Accra. If I had to describe Ghana to someone who doesn't know Africa (something I was totally unprepared for on my recent trip home), I would use stories like this.

I Finally Did It...

2009-10-23T21:40:00.001Z

I finally posted some pictures of Ghana on facebook. They are here.

The most traumatic thing about being an ex-pat in Ghana…

2009-10-21T22:50:00.000Z

… is getting your hair cut! I’ve had 3.5 haircuts here, the latest yesterday, and each one was equally damaging. There is supposedly a barber somewhere in Accra experienced in cutting Obruni hair, but he disappeared around the time I arrived and I haven’t yet met anyone who can handle my golden locks. Nothing is more traumatizing than removing your glasses and blindly surrendering all control over the top of your head to a man with scissors (if you’re lucky – most only have clippers) who just finished petting your hair and saying, “it’s so smooth!”

Here is a synopsis of my haircuts to date, in chronological order. No pictures, sorry – this is one of the moments better left uncaptured (and off the internet).

#1: ‘The Is this 1990 and am I Vanilla Ice?’. For my first hair cut, I decided to try out the barber closest to my house. Mistake! I told him: “Longer on the top and shorter on the sides” and received what would have been a flat top, if my hair were capable of such a thing. Instead, I was left with a Vanilla Ice Flat Top. Oops!

#2: ‘The Wet Ret’. Thoroughly traumatized, I decided to take on my next hair cut myself (while wearing glasses). Mistake! On the plus side, the process of cutting it was probably the most fun I’ve ever had alone, and my interior monologue was priceless. Some of the things that crossed my mind while cutting my own hair: “Wow! I don’t even need a mirror for the back!”; “I wish my scissors weren’t so dull…”; “Wow! I don’t even need my glasses!”; “Next time, I will use a comb”. On the minus side, when I put my glasses back on and found a mirror for the back, the first thought I had was that it looked familiar, but I couldn’t place why… Oh, that’s right, it looked like the hair on the wet rat I’d seen crawling out of the sewer the week before. Oops!

#2.5: ‘The Fade’. After two weeks of walking around with the ‘Wet Rat’, I realized that no one was going to take me seriously until I got it cleaned up. Back to the closest barber it was. This time, I told him, don’t cut the top, just clean the bottom and make a smooth transition to the top. Mistake! He cropped it right up to the skin until about halfway up my head, when it faded aggressively into the 3+ inches of ‘Wet Rat’ left on top. Oops!

#3: ‘The Egghead’. Tried a new barber this time, one who actually owned scissors. He had a picture of someone with `The Fade’ on the wall, and I carefully explained that I wanted exactly that, only all the same length in the back, and using scissors on top. Somehow that translated to: “Please make my head as ovular as possible. I really like looking like an egg.” Mistake! I got what would be a tight, hip afro, if my hair were capable, but instead just makes my head look bizarrely round, almost fascinatingly so. It could be worse, I suppose… but not much worse. The nerdy irony that my head is literally shaped like an egg does stir my pocket-protected soul. Oops!

Ghana Wins!

2009-10-18T22:53:00.000Z

Ghana won the FIFA Under-20 World Cup on Friday night. Wow! It was CRAZY! Everyone was far, far more excited than I expected, about on par with Argentina during the 2006 World Cup. And they were only cheering for teenagers! The World Cup is going to be quite something indeed.

I watched the game on a 40' by 30' projector set up right smack in the middle of one of the most popular streets. The game itself was a slog. Ghana was playing a man down for most of the game, but managed to keep Brazil scoreless through the entire game and extra time as well, so it went to penalty kicks (about the only situation you ever want to see PKs). When Brazil missed their final kick to give Ghana a chance at winning... wow... I really wish I had a camera...

As Ghana set up to take their final kick for the game, I wondered aloud to my friend, "What percentage of Ghana do you think is praying right now?" The prayers were answered; it was a perfect kick. It was enough for Ghana's vice-president to decide that "God is a Ghanaian".

I originally thought I wanted to go to South Africa for the World Cup, but Ghana is looking like a pretty amazing place to be.

Back Home, in the Tropics

2009-10-13T20:26:00.000Z

I returned to Ghana this morning, ready to (try to) get back to work. One of the things that I was fascinated by on my visit was the smells. Fall in New England has such distinctive smells. The crisp bitterness along the Charles. The damp pine forest behind my mother's house. The rotting leaves at the base of Mt Lafayette. The cold, slick smells above treeline. Etc.

Getting off the plane in Ghana, I had forgotten that the tropics have their own distinct smell. Maybe it's the heat, maybe it's the humidity, but it's there. I was surprised how familiar it smelled -- it smelled like home.

The romance faded when I walked to work, and got a good whiff of open sewer. Ah, the smells of Accra!

Back in Beantown

2009-10-07T12:42:00.000Z

I'm back in Boston for a surprise visit, so there will be less posting for a bit. In the meantime, check out David Brooks's thought-provoking piece from yesterday.

Come to think of it, Brooks has been on a roll recently. His Friday article was brilliant. The conservative critics would have a lot less power if there were an election right now, but since there isn't the attention is going to those who shout the loudest, not those with the most public support.

And Brooks is at his most formidable when addressing trends in American culture. His latest insightis somewhat terrifying.

More on Climate Change

2009-09-30T14:01:00.000Z

One of the other things that gets me about the debate on the costs of climate change legislation is that it usually doesn't include the potential costs of inaction. Modeling the costs of inaction is even more difficult, since you have to make assumptions not only about the future of the economy, but also about the future of the weather.

The World Bank just released a new study using this type of guesswork to estimate that the costs of climate change could total as much as $100 billion every year for the developing world alone.

While I put even less faith in this study than I do in most cap and trade studies, it's worth noting a couple of things. First, this is only the cost to poor countries -- the cost to rich countries could be much higher. We have more roads, bridges, houses, etc, so we will have more to rebuild after a disaster (it could also be lower if poor countries get all the bad weather).

Second, $100 billion is a lot, but it's even more when you think about it in relation to the income of developing countries. The GDP of Sub-Saharan Africa (an area larger than the US and China combined) was $1.5 trillion in 2008, so climate change could cost Africa almost 7% of its GDP every year. This can't be good for business.

Once Upon a Time...

2009-09-29T18:22:00.000Z

Long ago in a distance land, I, Ryan, was an Analyst in the energy sector. I've been busy with mundane work in my new life (you know, simple things like printing) so there hasn't been much to report recently on project "Saving the World, One Seamstress At A Time" (I wonder if IPA would let me make that the official name?). On the other hand, there's been a lot of action in the energy sector of the US, so I thought I'd reminisce.

Exelon, PNM, and PG&E all quit the US Chamber of Commerce over its "obstructionist tactics" in opposing cap and trade legislation. Both Krugman and Freedman respond.

I know nothing at all about the Chamber of Commerce, but I did sit next to people who model the costs of cap and trade legislation for 2 years (and that makes me an expert, right?). The bottom line: the entire debate over the cost of climate change legislation boils down to what "societal discount rate" and technological growth rate you use. Simple, right?

In non-economist-speak, this translates to how much you care whether the price of electricity increases in the future and whether you think new technology will be able to keep prices low. Even simpler: It's all a bunch of "best-guess" rubbish that hinges on things we really have no idea about.

So if the cap and trade models are uninformative, does the fact that major energy utilities are on board with cap and trade mean that the price of energy won't rise? Probably not. Many utilities are on board, but many utilities also stand to benefit from higher prices. Exelon has ton of clean nuclear that it will be able to sell to people in Pittsburgh relying on coal. PG&E is Californian, so they're just odd (and also big on energy efficiency and renewables). PNM I know little about, except that they were stung by the high oil/gas prices in 2007-20008. Perhaps cap and trade would help them diversify away from commodity-driven generation (or maybe they're just odd as well?).

Who's a public politician to trust if you can't rely on the models and utilities are all playing their own games? Well... that's part of why I left the industry. It can be hard to find reliable data on energy policy issues. (I was very lucky to be working with a group with a strong belief in sticking to the facts as we saw them).

The truth is often somewhere in the middle. Cap and trade (if effective) will result in people losing their jobs, and it will suck for a lot of families to pay higher electricity prices. This much is certain. But I still think higher energy prices are desperately needed; climate change could result in many people losing their lives and many others struggling through persistent drought, displacement from natural disasters, etc, and I care about that a lot more.

Are you a Kwesi or a Kofi?

2009-09-23T21:39:00.000Z

One of the many things I have shouted at me as I walk down the street here is “Kwesi!” or “Obruni Kwesi!” As with most things, I ignored it at first. At the same time, when I was meeting respondents or other random people and practicing my Twi, one of the first things that they would ask is “Are you a Kwesi?” I always respond, “No, I am a Kofi” and they crack up hysterically. I always thought they were laughing at my Twi…

A little background: A common tradition in southern Ghana is to name your children after the day of the week they were born on. As best I recall, I was born on a Friday, so my Ghanaian name is Kofi. Kwesi is the name for a male born on Sunday.

So why did they assume I was a Kwesi? Well, it turns out – and this is something I am not at all comfortable with, but was explained to me by several people independently – it turns out that a common belief in some of the communities I work in is that more white people are born on Sunday. Sunday is a day of worship. It is God’s day; Sunday is closer to God. White people are very lucky to have been born white. It is a reward from God to be born white; white people stand closer to God. White people are therefore more likely to have been born on a Sunday.

Why is it hysterical that I insisted I was not a Kwesi, but a Kofi? You get paid on Fridays. It’s the end of the week. It’s a day to kick back. Friday is a day of sin. Kofis are partiers, chronic misbehavers, naughty. By saying that I was a Kofi, I was saying that I was down for a good time, which, apparently everyone else was too.

Some Great Graphs...

2009-09-17T22:02:00.000Z

I love graphs. Can't get enough of 'em. Good ones, at least. Like these:

The transition from an agrarian economy has never been shown clearer (ht Chris Blattman)

If only economists made graphs this clear...

My favorite charter school...

2009-09-16T17:49:00.000Z

Has done it again!

Just look at the top of the English and Math lists, and see if you can guess which one I'm referring to...

How Do Economists Continue to Get it So Wrong?

2009-09-15T22:12:00.000Z

I linked to Krugman's NYT article "How Did Economists Get it So Wrong?" with the comment, "Why I don't believe in Macro." The article has of course caused quite a stir, and I thought that I would clarify my position a bit: (macro)economists have always gotten it wrong, and continue to get it wrong.

Part of the reason I don't believe in macro is the way that many essentially valid (if limited) insights are put in a blender, mashed together and poured into the leaky economics 101-level understanding of the media. Nevertheless, I will now make some of the same types of baseless generalizations and ridiculous caricatures for your enjoyment (?).

Neither Keynesians nor Free Marketers have it right.

Free markers are right to attack as patently absurd the idea that government technocrats can set this ephemeral thing called "aggregate demand" to whatever level they please using fiscal stimulus. But you don't need to believe in the fiscal multiplier -- the amount of money $1 of government spending generates -- to think that the stimulus package was necessary to restore confidence in the economy. What we needed was a sign that Democrats and Republican (or at least Democrats) would be able to get their acts together and pass some aggressive legislation if they really needed to, which they did.

Keynesians are equally right to attack as patently absurd the idea that the efficient market hypothesis -- the idea that prices are always our best guess given the available information -- makes regulation unnecessary. In Chicago economist John Cochrane's response to Krugman, he writes, "But this argument takes us away from the main point. The case for free markets never was that markets are perfect. The case for free markets is that government control of markets, especially asset markets, has always been much worse." This argument takes us away from the main point: the government has always, and will always, set the rules of the game in markets. And right now, we need some better rules.

The financial crisis happened because everyone got it wrong. Bankers, regulators, mortgage brokers, home buyers, economists -- everyone. In response, everyone needs to look at what they did wrong and how they can do better, not start flame wars in the New York Times magazine pointing fingers. Economists can help make better rules and more effective government spending by focusing on the microeconomics of the institutional, collective action, and behavioral fields. At this point, economics is such a young and naive science that "general equilibrium" -- the attempt to model everything -- is a purely academic exercise with less practical relevancy than attempts to model the movements of ants in anthills. Let's take our best shot at figuring out what's wrong the with regulations we have, and see if we can't do a little better. Of course technocrats aren't any smarter than bankers and the new regulations might make things even worse; that's why we should test our theories using experiments. If things get screwed up anyway, we can always challenge the new rules under the "just and reasonable" standard of common law.

Maybe one day I'll believe in macro, but right now I say focus on the nerdy specifics of microeconomics and leave the macroeconomy to its "animal spirits."

I Hate Paper, Part 2

2009-09-14T22:05:00.001Z

An update on the paper survey situation: We had to print a few thousand more pages over the weekend for another survey. We arranged with a new Print Company #4 in advance, and negotiated a great rate -- but when we set out to deliver the file and start printing, they informed us that we had been bumped and they wouldn't get to us until maybe Tuesday of next week. I reluctantly called up Print Company #2, who assured us that they now have paper, toner and a printer that doesn't jam and would be willing to work all night if necessary to get everything ready for Monday morning. Great! Paper, toner, a printer, and staff -- what else could I need?

Power. When we got to the office, the lights were out and the machines were off. D'oh.

Eventually power came back and they worked all day Sunday to make up for lost time. Great! There isn't anything else that could possibly go wrong, right? Right?

Wrong. When they showed up today with 9 boxes of surveys, three of the boxes had the page 6 from the survey I printed last week...

Apparently, when the power went off one time, they mixed up the papers they were photocopying, so we have 8 pages on high school enrollment questions and one page of tailor business expenses. Oops!

What I do

2009-09-09T20:49:00.001Z

I've often wondered why Michael Kremer doesn't give a TED Talk. Mankew blogged a link to a talk he gave at this summer's NBER conference that answered my question.

Kremer is one of the PIs on my education project, and in the talk he explains a little bit about why we do what we do, and how we do it. It's directed at economists, so beware the jargon and assumed knowledge.

When Will Paper Surveys Die?

2009-09-08T17:48:00.000Z

At IPA-Ghana, we almost exclusively use paper to keep track of everything, despite that fact that just about everyone who works with us carries around enough processing power in their pocket to administer a reasonably complex survey using just their cell phone. The main argument against digital data collection is usually just that the researchers are uncomfortable with the idea of not having a piece of paper to look back to, just in case it's ever necessary. In the words of a coworker, "I feel like I'm at that firm in the 80s scared of the word processor!" It does feel rather similar to the, "If I'm not using a typewriter, how will I have a carbon copy?" argument.

The mobile computing technology is absolutely there. You can administer a survey on a cell-phone like PDA (or PDA-like cell phone), send the data back to the researcher's computer, and have the researcher send back a randomized treatment (eg, gets a loan/doesn't get a loan) instantly. Or you can use a $300 netbook, plug a little 3G modem into, and do the same. Sure, dealing with all this technology would be frustrating, but it would be an exciting type of frustrating, as opposed to the hassle of paper surveys, which just make you pull your hair out -- this I know from experience, having lost a lot of hair today...

I was supposed to have all of our paper questionnaires ready to go by 9 am this morning on a new survey for the consulting project. I went to one printing company, but gave up because his machine was too slow. Back at the office, I realized that his virus-ridden computer corrupted my file and everything I printed had errors and was completely worthless. So I spent the next hour re-doing everything I had done between 12 am and 1 am this morning. After sorting this out, I set up to print with the office printer, which just returned after three months of being MIA at a repairs shop. Well, it only lasted about 20 pages before breaking again. I set off for a second printing company thinking, "Wow, I'm really having bad printer juju today" -- I didn't know the half of it. The second print company is fast, but his machine kept jamming... and jamming... and jamming... until the moment I stood up to leave and find a third printer, when it miraculously starting working again... until he ran out of paper! That's right, the professional printing company ran out of paper. They started cutting A3 paper in half to make A4 paper, but of course that made the printer start jamming... and jamming... and jamming... until I stood up to go again, when it again miraculously began printing... until... they ran out of ink! The printing company. Ran out of paper. Then ink.

I found another printing company, and finally got the questionnaires to the surveyors by 2:30 pm.

When will paper surveys die? Not soon enough...

View from the Office

2009-09-06T21:53:00.000Z

I've been getting some requests for pictures (from loyal readers: Mom and Dad..), but I have to admit that I haven't been very good at taking them so far. I'm about 9 months behind in sorting out the pictures I have taken, so snapping new ones just sounds like more work...

Nonetheless, here is the view from my office in Accra, one of the few pictures I have taken. There's a nice little sliver of ocean in there somewhere.

Linkspam

2009-09-05T20:03:00.000Z

It's been very busy around the office lately (and will continue to be for some time). Today, I'm just forwarding all the links our Ghana office spammed each other with over the last few days.

*Why I don't believe in macroeconomics
*Good summary of the recent research on microfinance that captures why I have zero (0) interest in the field. It's a business, not a development program.(HT: Rob)
*Technology is way, way overblown in education. (HT Rob)
*All of the Ghana RAs are currently in Accra, and we've been enjoying late-night Stata sessions -- there is value to the comradeship. (HT Alex)
*Usually, we are more alone together (HT: Alex)

Economics Blog Nerdery

2009-09-01T17:22:00.000Z

The economics blogosphere (yes, there is such a thing) has been alive recently about a post by Greg Manikew (yes, I am such a nerd that I read his blog) about a graph posted on the Economix blog (hold on, this post is about to get even nerdier). Marginal Revolution weighed in with its own graph, which blew me away. I’m all about graphs, developed a recent interest in adoption, and am listening to Gillian Welch’s ‘Orphan Girl’ right now, so I can’t help but take up the topic.

The Economix graph shows SAT scores versus parent’s income. Manikew goes off about omitted variable bias and claims the relationship is because smart people make more money and pass on their smart, money-making genes.

Marginal Revolution presents evidence from a grand experiment that seems to back this up. Turns out, Holt International randomly assigned children up for adoption to parents in the 70s and 80s. This means that we wouldn’t expect any difference between the innate intelligence of children assigned to rich folks versus poor folks so any difference in outcomes between children adopted by rich families versus poor families is due purely to nurture.

Wow! This graph seems to show a huge, huge role for nature and a very limited role for nurture. This rocked my world a little bit. I’m a firm believer in the power of early childhood education, etc, but this graph seems to show that even if you do the most extreme intervention imaginable – literally scoop up infants from poor families and drop them in rich families – they wouldn’t have the genes to keep up with the rich families’ biological children.

Sounds too crazy to be true, doesn’t it? Well, don’t worry, it probably isn’t true – the graph doesn’t control for age, sex or education. The adopted children are 30% male and have a mean age of 27.8, compared to the biological children who are 61% male and have a mean age of 34. There’s that pesky omitted variable bias again. Without controlling for these things, the average difference in biological versus adopted children’s income is $19,000, but this shrinks to just $1,600 when the controls are added.

The paper the graph is lifted from is interesting raises a more interesting question: why are biological children are getting more education? (Which they do appear to be) Hard to say – nature is certainly part of the answer, as is mother’s nutrition. Family size is also much more important in predicting adopted children’s education than biological children’s, suggesting that, as much as we’d like to think otherwise, there may be some preference for biological children in adoptive families.

3 Avocados a Day Keeps the Doctor... Where?

2009-08-24T20:58:00.000Z

The rainy season is wrapping up here in Accra, and it's starting to get hot again. Another thing the dry season will bring is massive quantities of fresh vegetables with the harvest. That, I am certainly looking forward to. It's starting already: on the way back from Kumasi last week, a friend and I each bought 7 avocados and about 12,321 tomatoes (or 20, but it was still a lot!) for just $3.

Disposing of the vegetables proved somewhat more challenging than originally anticipated. For the tomatoes, I resorted to the old homage, "When life gives you tomatoes... make tomato sauce?" I now have enough frozen bolognaise sauce to feed every starving child in West Africa.

Despite eating avocado morning, noon, and night, I was left with two rapidly deteriorating specimens on Sunday. An avocado & tomato omelet for brunch was a no-brainer. Six down, one to go. For dinner, I made the mistake of going to the same friend's house where we had pizza with--you guessed it!--avocados and tomato sauce. Excellent pizza and even better company, but it used up precious avocado-eating capacity.

Returning home, a light bulb suddenly appeared above my head: Why not break out that blender gathering dust on the shelf and throw all my aging fruits and vegetables into a smoothie so I can drink, rather than eat, my last avocado? Thoroughly impressed by my own culinary brilliance, I chopped everything up, sliced open the avocado, threw it in the blender and.... nothing. Turns out, the blender doesn't work. D'oh.

(In hindsight, this was almost certainly a good thing -- an avocado-pineapple-paw paw smoothie doesn't sound very brilliant now that I’m over my fridge-full-of-over-ripe-fruit-and-vegetables delirium).

Salvaging what I could, I froze the fruit and made guacamole, bringing the total to three avocados eaten in one day. Never before has eating guacamole been such a struggle.

Tonight, I'm getting Chinese.

RFAG #5: I'm a Celebrity

2009-08-23T12:27:00.000Z

Everywhere I go, people will run after me yelling, "Obruni! Obruni!" At first, I thought it was quaint and my response was to smile and wave. Then I was a weirded out by it and my response turned into a scowl. But lately, I've started rolling with it, and respond with, "I love you too!" as if I were a celebrity and they were my adoring fans.

It does feel rather like being a celebrity to have throngs of people crowding around you, trying to touch you. I can appreciate how difficult the loss of anonymity must be -- if I go certain places, I will need to deal with my adoring fans, whether I want to or not. I feel like a one-hit wonder with a single famous catch phrase; when they shout, "Obruni! Wo ho te sen?!" I respond, "Me ho ye" and they go wild (It's not a very glamorous conversation: White man, how are you? I'm fine).

Just as there are areas in the US where enough celebrities hang out that people are too cool to be impressed by seeing a one hit wonder, there are places here with enough Obrunis that we get left alone. There is also an interesting age dynamic. Very young children act either shy or terrified, while small boys and small girls think it's the coolest thing ever when I throw out my one liner.

Adolescents, being so worldly, often act smug and indifferent, while the most confident ones will try to pound fists, call you homie, and be your friend. My other big fan base is old ladies, who are just as thrilled as the kids when I drop some Twi.

Finally, there's the random curious dude that will suddenly and completely unexpectedly start petting your hair, or touching a freckle and saying, "Look! You have small-small black man in you!"

Such is the life of a celebrity in Ghana.

Evidence of a Crusade

2009-08-20T21:11:00.000Z

I'm back from a few days without internet at an IPA retreat near Kumasi. It was a great time, and despite two full days of meetings and two full days of travel, it felt like a good break.

Catching up on the news, I was pleased to see that Kriftof and his wife took on the plight of women in a special issue of the NY Times Magazine this weekend.

I spent the first few pages of the article thinking, "Gah! Enough anecdotes, let's see some evidence!" Then pages 4-6 are filled with IPA's work. I read Kristof's op-eds regularly, and I'd never noticed any interest in evaluations before. Maybe that part was written by his wife, Sheryl? (I like the idea of an analysis-anecdote partnership).

All in all, I thought it blended the storytelling and the evidence well, but I was a little disappointed his take-away recommendations weren't more solidly grounded. I liked my coworker's description: "he spent most of the article saying, 'this is what works' then ended by saying 'here are some cool-sounding ideas'."

The problem is, all failures fueling the aid skeptics started off as cool-sounding ideas.

"In the field"

2009-08-15T16:13:00.000Z

I've been spending a lot of time "in the field" lately for the consulting project. I'm not accustomed to using this term -- I never had a "field" to be "in" before now -- and I still feel a little ridiculous saying it. But more mornings than not, I set out for my "field" -- the Greater Accra communities of Bubuashie, La Paz, Nima, Adenta, even Osu, the very same part of town where I live and work. When I randomly pass respondents in Osu on my way to lunch, I am not "in the field", but when I set out with the purpose of visiting them, Osu magically transforms into the "field". My coworkers managing agricultural projects at least have a little credibility when they use them term (they visit real farms, which presumably have fields...). I just feel silly.

Nomenclature aside, it has been an enjoyable, if tiring, experience. I enjoy spending time away from the computer, and you do learn a lot (trips to the field supply the fodder for my Random Facts About Ghana). The computer-work doesn't go away, though, so days in the field often mean nights at the desk.

Testing the Theories of Obama's Mama

2009-08-12T20:50:00.000Z

A colleague of President Obama's mother, Ann Dunham Soetoro, had an Op-Ed in the Times yesterday describing her work.

Her theories: Small business owners in the developing world are enterprising entrepreneurs whose primary constraint to growth is access to capital.

She developed her theories starting in the late '70s, and published them in a thesis in 1992. Radical at the time, they are now largely mainstream.

But how do we know that they are right? It's an appealing theory, but how do we test it?

Well, you could do something like give business training services to a random group of microenterprises, then give a capital grant to an overlapping random group of microenterprises and see whether it's only capital from preventing their growth, or also (or only) business know-how.

Guess what I'm doing in Ghana?

A far more eloquent description of Ghana...

2009-08-09T23:20:00.000Z

This person writes better than me...

I really liked Cape Coast -- it has exactly the character that Accra lacks. My gut reaction to this type of puff piece is usually very negative, but I actually think this one is pretty good. The only correction that I would make is that people don't shout, "How are you Obruni?": they shout, "OOOOObruni -- How are you?"

Thoughts on Accra

2009-08-08T17:26:00.000Z

I often try to place Accra within the context of Africa as I know it (from only a short trip to Kenya last year). I used to describe it as an African capital city, but also a coastal town. Or, "more similar to Mombasa than Nairobi". But the more time I spend here, the more I realize that it's not very similar at all to Kenya. Accra has neither the exoticism of Mombasa's mixed African and Arabic cultures nor furious extremity of Nairobi's vital urban center and equally vital shantytowns.

Accra is rather a sprawling suburb of mixed communities, each with its own micro-culture. There's no "bad part of town" and no city center. It's a place characterized most by its lack of extremes. It has never felt particularly unfamiliar or even very foreign.

I try with this blog to deliver unexpected and (I hope) intriguing nuggets of Ghana's culture as fodder for the imaginations of my readers (Hi Mom! Hi Dad!) when they picture my life here. But the very fact that I find it more interesting to seek out and identify differences over similarities betrays the fact that Accra is not that strange. As often as it's the differences that make life interesting here, it's the similarities that make life easy.

RFAG #4: Ghanaians Make Good Nicknames

2009-08-05T22:02:00.000Z

Random Fact About Ghana #4: Ghanaians are prolific nicknamers.

On ever survey we administer, one of the first questions is about their nicknames, as it's often impossible to find someone with knowing the "neighborhood name". I ran into some great ones today: "Papa Tailor" was one, and another was "Emperor" (his other name is Laud).

In addition to Obruni (which will be the subject of it's own RFAG), some of the common names I've been called are:
* Tallah (because I'm taller...)
* Long John
* Peter Crouch (Apparently I bear a resemblance)
* Obruni Coco (A favorite of the school children in La Paz, it translates to "Red White Man" - I'm not sunburned, so I don't really get it...)

I don't only read the NYT...

2009-08-04T18:48:00.001Z

If I have more than 15 minutes available, I read my igoogle headlines. Today was a great day for my google reader feeds:

First, there's completely ridiculous marketing by ethanol makers. I remember writing a paper in 2004 for my Environmental Analysis class saying that ethanol was a bunch of subsidy-dependent hype that was, if not worse, at least not better for the environment. Public opinion is starting to catch up, and ethanol lobbyist are trying to reframe the debate: the claim is now, well we may not be better than conventional oil, but we're sure better than shale oil! Give me a break.

Next came an article in the Washington Post on email signatures that is surprisingly aware of good study design:

Brownstein asked his research team, StrategyOne, to catalogue the most common e-mail closing lines with an online poll. (The sample of about a thousand Internet users came from a nonrandom pool of respondents, so these numbers are rather more food for thought than hard data.)

Major credit to the Post writers/editors on that one.

Finally, the Freakonomics blog links to a time article on the 50 worst cars of all time. And Steven Levit shares an amazing anecdote:

In talking with an auto executive a few years back, I got some insight into how disasters like this happen. I asked this auto executive how his company decided between the 10 or 15 concept cars that the design teams proposed.
His answer: The five most senior executives at the company looked over the possible vehicles and picked the ones they liked best!

If that's true, it's completely out of this world, especially compared to how Google makes decisions.

The list of cars is impressive, and includes this gem. A 1986 version of the H2, which really got me thinking about the similarities between the eighties and aughts -- high oil prices, low growth, out of control financial markets, and a financial/real estate crisis at the end of the decade. Will the teens now be another period of low oil prices and high growth?

I read the New York Times (online)

2009-08-03T20:02:00.000Z

If I only have 15 minutes to relax in a day (like today) I read the New York Times. Here are some articles I enjoyed over the past couple of days:

* It's a good time to invest in Africa (I am!)
* A rather different take on happiness
* I like M&E, and education, but also worry about tests

Not-Quite-So Goodwill?

2009-07-28T22:07:00.000Z

I've been spending a lot of time in the field lately visiting tailors for the Returns to MSE Management Consulting project. I've found the older tailors to all moan about the same thing: They just can't compete with secondhand clothes.

Secondhand clothes are sold en mass at the "Dead White Man's Market" (why else would you donate your clothes?) for almost nothing. Tailored clothes are transforming into a status symbol, as cheap "Milford High School X-Country" t-shirts take over the bottom of the pyramid market.

(As an aside, every Obruni (white person) has their own "craziest secondhand clothing I've seen" story, usually involving a guy walking a goat and a jersey from an arch rival high school. My story: a security guard near my house was rocking Solomon cross country ski boots. Little metal toe clips and all. Damn proud of 'em, too!)

It would be hard to argue that people shouldn't be allowed access to cheap secondhand shoes, shirts, and pants, but spending time with the tailors, it's easy to appreciate how protectionist sentiment develops. So before you bring that next load of goods to the Goodwill, think of the tailors!

...then bring it anyway... I'm (pretending to be) an economist, after all.

GFAG #3: People Carry Crazy Things on Their Heads

2009-07-26T22:36:00.000Z

It's true -- people carry some weird stuff on their heads. There's even a word for it in Twi: "suo", meaning to carry on one's head.

Here's a list of the craziest things I've seen carried on a head:

* A basket full of puppies
* A tree (the whole thing)
* A table. While riding a bicycle. Down a dirt path. (Full disclosure: It was my friend's table -- I only saw the picture)
* A full grown man (This was in London, actually. They were street acrobats, but African, so I think it counts.)

And by far the craziest thing I've seen carried on a head:
* A baby in a bucket

I'm on the IPA Blog

2009-07-25T08:42:00.000Z

I took another crack at posting on the IPA blog. Given the chance, I would definitely rewrite the first paragraph. Take a look and let me know what you think.

I like my length

2009-07-24T14:41:00.000Z

From whence came this happiness? My height, perhaps? The abstract to a new paper by Angus Deaton and Raksha Arora

According to the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index daily poll of the US population, taller people live better lives, at least on average. They evaluate their lives more favorably, and they are more likely to report a range of positive emotions such as enjoyment and happiness. They are also less likely to report a range of negative experiences, like sadness, and physical pain, though they are more likely to experience stress and anger, and if they are women, to worry. These findings cannot be attributed to different demographic or ethnic characteristics of taller people, but are almost entirely explained by the positive association between height and both income and education, both of which are positively linked to better lives.

Via Marginal Revolution

Practice?

2009-07-23T19:40:00.000Z

A couple of articles in the NYT recently have highlighted all the hard work and practice that goes in to being a blissfully happy monk. One of them even invokes the (totally bogus - see earlier post) 10,000 hours argument. Nonetheless, I think they are on to something.

It can sometimes be difficult living an ocean away from your family and friends, especially when there's someone you love on the other side. Despite this, I have been rather successful at remaining happy here. I often attribute my happiness to my bad memory and general ignorance, but it is something that I work at, too. If you're one of the two lucky people I stay in touch with (chances are good here -- I think you're also the only two who actually read this blog) you'll know that, when I succeed in actively deciding to be happy, it's often the first thing I want to talk about.

One of my greatest successes came a week or so before I left for Europe, when I was traveling in the Central Region visiting high schools. We were in the middle of some awesome jungle, driving along poor dirt roads, when a fairly sizable city popped up out of nowhere. At first I loved the city, and thought the hotel we stopped at was great. But it didn't have running water, so we moved on.

As we approached the city's center I started getting sketched out by the huge, huge, huge old growth trees strapped to the back of flatbeds. The trucks had three sections of the trunk each,and with only three logs, they looked completely overloaded, about to tip over onto us as we passed. My coworker claimed that they all belonged to a single massive tree.

The next hotel we pulled in to was right across the street from these tree-trucks, and my bad vibe only intensified as we entered in. I didn't even need to look at the room to know I wouldn't want to stay there. Putting my foot down, I demanded we go to the third (and final) hotel in town, but alas, it had no vacancy.

We were stuck with tree-killers' hotel, so I decided to make the best of it and do a little workout -- only to realize once I had already broken a heavy sweat that a) the fan didn't work and b) there was no running water here, either. Add to that the fact that the door showed signs of being forced open recently, and the bed showed signs of being bled on, and I had that strange combination of outrage and self satisfaction that you can only get when it turns out that your hunch was right, but it was right about something very bad.

After fuming a bit, I settled down and thought, hey, I'm in the middle of some badass jungle right now and there's nowhere else to go... do I really want to only remember the sketchy hotel room? Not really. Instead, I thunk me some happy thoughts, and went over to my coworkers' room. We started a great conversation on why Abubakar loves Allah that I will never forget. (He had two inspiring reasons "I love to pray" and "the Koran says that you should see the sun rise every morning. I love watching the sun rise" and one not so great reason "If you pray hard, Allah will grant your wishes"). You can all me the Jungle Lama.

A Wish for Ashley

2009-07-19T11:29:00.001Z

I don't know how much of a bump this will be with all of my 20 visitors, but please do try to help a friend find a friend:

A Wish For Ashley

Security and Development Wonkery

2009-07-18T15:35:00.000Z

There was a series of articles on bostonreview.net recently in response to an article by Peter Collier, the author of “The Bottom Billion.” They are by some of the biggest names in development, and are worth checking out if you’re into this sort of thing. Forgive the nerdery, but I’m going to take my own shot at a response.

I like Collier’s focus on public goods, but I disagree with almost all of his analysis and conclusions. We share the similar opinion that public goods (e.g., infrastructure, natural resources, etc) are both uniquely important to development and also uniquely difficult to provide. As the early American institutional economists knew well, public goods sit atop a complex pyramid of institutions, every one of which is wholly necessary for reliable electricity or clean running water (as an aside, I ran out of water for the first time here yesterday! Luckily it returned after a few hours).

We also agree that security is one of the most often overlooked perquisites for public good management. Emory Troxel, an economist writing in the 1930s, (I believe – Jeff Makholm may have to correct me if I’m wrong) made this amazing map of the public good pyramid that lies out the various institutional powers outlined in the US Constitution and state constitutions that are necessary for reliable utility service. They include the usual suspects of balance of power, regulatory commissions, ect., but it also includes one this that, at first, struck me as out of place: the police force.

In the US, we tend to take for granted the fact that the police will arrest you if they catch you breaking the law, but in so much of the world that is not always the case. Because it’s so second nature to us, economist-consultants often fail to realize how amazing it is that our police force works when offering their development prescriptions, and yet this was absolutely critical to our development. Good luck getting running water if someone can just make an illegal tap, pay off the police, and sell the water back to the people it was intended for at twice the price.

Of course, in Africa, the impact of bribery pales in comparison to the impact of civil war, which is still security, more broadly defined. One of the great questions of economics is: how does one generate national unity? I like Collier’s description of the problem, but I think he understates somewhat just how internally diverse the major economies were when they formed: the States who eventually became United initially thought of themselves as just as fundamentally different as Ghanaians think they are from Nigerians. He erroneously claims that China has a longstanding national identity (ask the Uighur what they think of that). India’s ethnolinguistic fragmentation is extreme. Even Belgium has at least four ethnic groups.

Collier’s prescription is an international peacekeeping force that would stage coups in any county where a leader steals an election, citing as his inspiration the combined effects of the Marshall Plan and NATO in redeveloping Europe. I find his assertion patently ridiculous. One need only look at a more recent redevelopment program, Iraq, to see why: it is just too expensive. Apart from the fact that Europe already had extremely talented people, while Africa has the lowest levels of human capital anywhere, it would just plain bankrupt the US.

My prescription is… well, I don’t have one (yet). Perhaps that we should avoid absurd prescriptions.

I’m brought back to a moment in my political economics class senior year at Pomona when a friend suggested that the US declare war on Africa. The continent. The idea would be to force Africa to think of itself as a national unit and develop the institutions necessary for defense. We could call the war before any fighting starts, so long as they get ready for a defense. Everyone thought he was joking, but there is a crazy logic to his idea. Perhaps I’m not entirely against absurd prescriptions.

Back in Ghana, with Barak

2009-07-11T13:34:00.000Z

I returned to Ghana on Tuesday from 17 intense days in Europe, just in time for Obama's arrival yesterday. I will perhaps share some stories from what was my first trip to "the continent" later, but now, having just watched Obama's speech to parliament in a dingy bar next to my office, I feel compelled to record my impressions.

If you didn't catch it, Obama divided his speech into four sections: democracy, "partnership", health care, and leadership.

My small sample of about a twenty drunk Ghanaian men were intensely interested in the first section on democracy, and they carried on heated debate throughout. On the parts about elections, their pride in Ghana's democracy was on full display. Sections on corruption also resounded, with one man (shackily) getting to his feet to shout something or other in Twi.

The partnership section was about approaching America's relationship with Africa as a partner rather than a patron. The sections on oil wealth and other Ghana-specific issues were paid close attention, but as soon as he started talking about clean energy people started zoning out, leaving and talking on cell phones. They didn't care about or understand his focus on clean energy -- to them, plain old energy is enough. The focus on something they weren't interested in, but should be, felt patronizing.

People started coming back during the health care section, but the energy that was present at the beginning of the speech was gone. They ordered more food and drinks, and spent more time checking out the Obrunis in the back than watching Obama.

The section on leadership brought everyone back, and brought me back to another "I can't believe this man is president" moments, intensified by an "I can't believe an American president is so well respected in Africa" moment. As my friend and I choked up in the back, a chorus of church-like "yes" "mm-hhmm" and "amen" rose from the Ghanaians in the front as Obama called for young Africans to stand up and take hold of their own legacy. They were exactly the young Africans he was speaking to, and it was stunning to see their iron-clad support for his words. The terrible irony was that they were also hopelessly drunk at 1 pm in the afternoon. Perhaps it was their children he was speaking to...

I left clearing my eyes and feeling so lucky to be living in this moment.

The other lasting impression that I took was just how little transnational sentiment there was. People really drifted over anything that wasn't specifically about Ghana. Even the way the women thanked him after his speech and asked him to come back to Ghana soon made it seem like they were more interested in the fact that he came to Ghana than the fact that he announced a major paradigm shift in African policy. To Obama, this was a visit to Africa. To Ghana, it was a visit to Ghana. Our friends in the north of Ghana organized a huge (misguided) campaign to try to get Obama to visit their impoverished region. To people in the north, Obama visited southern Ghana. I don't know what to take from this, apart from maybe the lesson that, when you have enough of your own problems, it's hard to pay attention to anyone else's. I can't escape the feeling that this attitude is important and unhelpful.

Random Fact about Ghana (RFAG): #2

2009-06-17T08:49:00.000Z

I'd like to introduce a new series: Random Facts about Ghana. There are things that I notice here that I find very interesting but can't be fully captured in a Tweet. I will record these observations as Random Facts about Ghana (RFAGs). I'm counting the last post as RFAG #1; this will be RFAG #2.

I tweeted about the unexpected emergence of Frog Season. Up until now, the rainy season have been a little weak. It's rained sometimes, but not too hard and not too long. I was starting to think that Ghanaians think they have a rainy season here like they think it gets cold here; you can only appreciate it relative to the norm of extreme heat and zero rain.

This week, however, it's started raining in earnest, every night. On my rainy walk to work yesterday morning, something amazing happened: Frog Season began! All of what are normally open sewers had real, running water flowing through them, and the loudest chorus of frogs that I had ever heard echoing against the concrete walls.

I often wondered why the open sewers contain no life. I guess it's just too toxic until it rains.

Back Again

2009-06-14T21:31:00.000Z

Howdy!

I've returned again after an interlude due to bad internet/power, travel, lots of work, and despair after I had to remove my only substantive blogs. I've decided to focus on shorter posts, and ones that don't necessarily keep you all up to date on what I've been up to, since that will always be a losing battle.

Ghana is famous for crazy store names. It's an extremely religious country, and most store names have to do with God, e.g., By His Grace Fashion, In Thy Name Taxi, etc. I keep a list of the craziest names I've come across so far. Here's a little sample:

My Jesus is Highly Recommended -- Sells biscuits/minerals (cookies and soda)
Pussy In Booth -- Right near my house, sells biscuits/minerals
Even Me Hotel -- Stayed there while I was in the field last week
Happy Store (Happy) -- In the middle of the jungle, sells biscuits/minerals

In the New York Times!

2009-05-10T23:26:00.000Z

The education project that I described in my previous post was featured in an op-ed by the lead researcher, Esther Duflo, in today's New York Times!

Check it out here!

FAQ

2009-05-10T23:10:00.000Z

UPDATE

Unfortunately, we aren't supposed to blog about the education project, so I had to take that part of the post down.

------------------------------

The most frequent question that I have been getting from friends/family is: what is it that you are doing? If I revealed all of what I’m doing in one post, I would have nothing to write about next week, so I will start with the basics here and expand on it later.

I am living in Accra, Ghana, and working for an organization called Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA) (www.poverty-action.org). I have been here for two months now, and am signed up for 22 more. IPA is a research organization, and I am running two “field experiments” in public policy, one about education and one in small/micro enterprise business management. The idea behind field experiments is basically that, with a rigorous methodology, you can test different policies/programs to find out if they actually work the way you think they should. They are a whole lot of work, so they are usually only done with big programs/questions.

Hello!

2009-05-01T18:40:00.000Z

After some friendly cajoling from many of you, I've decided to (re)start a blog! What finally pushed me over the edge was rereading the posts I made while I was in Kenya; I actually found them rather engaging.

I would like to write about what it is that I am actually doing, and hopefully share some interesting anecdotes. I promise that I will get to that soon. First, I can't help but comment on David Brook's new column

A good friend described David Brooks to me this way: "He has peculiar talent for introducing incredibly interesting ideas, then completely misinterpreting them. That is, until about January 2008, when I suddenly started agreeing with everything he writes."

Unfortunately, Mr. Brooks reverted back to his old ways around January 2009. The latest article basically rehashes in more florid language the 10,000 hours argument that Malcom Gladwell popularizes in Outliers. The theory is that the very top performers aren't better because they're better -- they are better because they practice more. In Outliers, Gladwell tells a story of elite violinists and says that you can predict which are the best simply by asking how much they practice.

The problem with this is that it's completely wrong. I'm not saying the best don't practice more. They do. But that's not the right question to ask. The right question is, why do they practice more? If you asked the "mediocre" (but still excellent) violinists if they had ever gone through a period in their life where they were practicing as much as the elite violinists, they would probably say yes. They didn't sustain this level of practice because they weren't getting as much out of it as the future elites. It is not simply practice that predicts success, but good practice. The best are better because they get more out of practice, which makes it worth it for them to practice more.

Genius exists, but it takes both extreme genius and extremely hard work to be elite.

Masai Land

2008-04-29T18:19:00.000Z

After returning from Nairobi two weeks ago, Lily and I spent the beginning of the week on follow-up work and preparing for our little vacation at the end of the week. From Wednesday through Saturday we visited Isaac, our Masai friend.

Isaac is the founder of the first international chapter of the Student Movement for Real Change. He came together with some fellow university students in 2006 in an attempt to address the poverty that surrounds them. The Student Movement receives many requests to open chapters in Africa and the rest of the world, but we do not yet have the institutional capacity to support international branches so most of the requests go unanswered. This did not matter to Isaac—all he needed was a name and a website to add credibility to his efforts. Together with his community, he formed a Masai dance troupe that gives performances at hotels and events for fundraising. In addition to other fundraising activities, he sends Masai beadwork to SMRC, which is then sold by our US chapters. He used the money to purchase desks and supplies for schools in rural areas, and most recently to support friends in Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps. Of all our chapters, Isaac actually raised the most money in 2006-2007!

Isaac took us to his homeland to meet his family. He attends university in Nakuru, where he is majoring in Economics and Math (we get along well...), but he spends his holidays at home with his mom, dad, 24 siblings, his dad's four other wives and countless cousins. The family welcomed us into their homes with astounding generosity, and Lily and I now have our own Masai Momas! (Wives number three and four, respectively).

The week is full of amazing memories--far too many to attempt to describe here. One of my favories was "hunting".

On Friday morning we got up early to go hunting. First, we dressed up in traditional Masai garb, which was actually pretty comfortable (for me—Lily was significantly less happy with her outfit). Hunting involved running around the bush with our cameras making fools of ourselves and laughing hysterically. They dressed us up in ceremonial outfits, not hunting clothes, but we tore through the bush nonetheless. They were about the least effective hunting clothes ever: they were as bright as possible, jingled with every step, and severely restricted Lily’s movement.

On Saturday we walked to Nairobi. Poor Isaac told us on the first day that he doesn’t like hiking, but all we did the whole time we were there was run around in the bush then walk all the way to Nairobi. It was a beautiful hike up out of the rift valley to the Central Highlands. The contrast between the ecology of valley and the highlands was stark, as was the contrast between the lives of those living in the regions.

We met Emily and Abdallah in Nairobi and came back to Mombasa via night bus.

Update

2008-04-20T16:00:00.000Z

Greetings from Kenya!

I am happy to update you all on the Student Movement for Real Change’s water and sanitation project in Kayafungo, Kenya and also on my life here in Kenya! We arrived here at the start of April, and there is much to report. For a summary of what we have been up to, read this post. If you're interested in way too many details, the other posts here are for you.

Now is a critical time for Kenya. The two major political parties recently agreed on a cabinet, a crucial step for power-sharing. People here and international observers expressed concern that the power sharing agreement would unravel if President Kibaki and Prime Minister Odinga could not agree on a cabinet. The overwhelming sentiment among our Kenyan friends is that both parties need to put this power struggle behind them and let Kenya continue on its path. The reaction to the joint cabinet is mixed: many are frustrated that it is large and without much rhyme or reason, but many are just happy that the parties agreed on something!

Despite the political uncertainty, we have had a productive start to our trip. The government is currently conducting an engineering survey for a critical pipeline that will supply water for our project. Our proposal is to build two distribution pipelines off of a large tank that will serve 43,000 people in the Kayafungo community. In order to do so, the government must ensure a reliable supply of water to the tank. It is therefore very encouraging that the government is completing this survey! We will keep you updated on its progress. We have met with all the major players involved and everyone is committed to making this project successful.

The other aspect of our project is sanitation improvement. Here, our focus is on health promotion workshops and latrine and hand-washing station construction. We visited the community las week to meet with the leaders and to begin deciding who will become the local sanitation experts through our train-the-trainer workshops. It was wonderful to see everyone and their enthusiasm to participate!

The rainy season is late in coming this year, and the Kayafungo community is suffering as a result. Water pans and dams are drying, and everywhere we went there were young girls and their mothers walking dry roads to fetch water. They are desperate for clean water, and we hope that our sanitation training and latrine construction will help ease the health burden until the government completes their critical pipeline.

Chagua amani (choose peace – a slogan of Kenya),

Ryan

Security

2008-04-20T15:51:00.000Z

Many of you have inquired as to the security in Kenya. While traveling always involves risks, I do not feel unsafe here. I face little to no threat from the post-election violence. Mombasa was actually an island (literally and figuratively) of safety during the instability. Mombasa does not have the ethnic groups that were primarily responsible for the violence, so most of the demonstrations were political and most of the violence was over-retaliation by the police. There was some looting and stone-throwing, but this occurred in a relatively predictable and focused manner; most rioting occurred when the local Members of Parliament were around and would disperse around noon when they left.

One amusing story has to do with the looting. There was some opportunistic looting following the elections and several shops were broken into. The story goes that some disgruntled shopkeepers started a rumor that a witch had cursed all of the looted goods. One looter was running away with a television on his head when the witch cursed him, and the television got stuck to his head! So you should really return any looted goods, before the witch curses you, too!
The amazing thing is that a lot of the looted goods were actually returned. There is a quote by the police chief in the paper saying, “If only it were this easy everywhere…”

(If I ever see the man with the TV stuck to his head, I promise that I will take a picture).

Unaccounted For Water

2008-04-20T15:41:00.000Z

Our Friday meeting (4/4/08) with the CWSB was informative. They broke down for us most of the major projects they are considering and went through the general layout of water supply in the Coast province.

Our proposal is to build distribution pipelines in Kayafungo, Kenya. Kayafungo is a rural location in the Kalifi district of the Coast province. The groundwater is salinated, the above-ground water-sources are seasonal and the rainfall is concentrated in two short rainy seasons. These factors make piped water the only complete solution for the Kayafungo community. The ultimate source for piped water would be Mzima Springs—a source of great pride to Coastal Kenyans. Mzima Springs is located in a national reserve that is apparently rather beautiful (we are planning a trip out there next week!).

Water from Mzima Springs travels 200 km to Mombasa on the Mzima Springs pipeline, which was built in 1953. We would take water off the Mzima Springs pipeline at Mariakani, which is about 10 km from Mombasa. There is currently a pipeline being built from Mariakani about 17 km to a hill called Mwijo, where there is a 1500 cubic meter tank being constructed. The problem is that the pipeline to Mwijo doesn’t have enough pressure to make it up a small hill a couple of kilometers after Mariakani. The government is currently engaged in building a giant, empty tank and a pipeline to nowhere.

To fill the tank, it would be necessary to entirely re-do the line they are currently building and replace it with a high-diameter pipeline pressurized by an even larger tank near Mariakani. This larger tank would fill overnight off of the Mzima Springs line so as to not deprive Mombasa of critical water. The capacity of the Mzima Springs pipeline has dropped dramatically in recent years due to “unaccounted for water” and Mombasa does not receive consistent water supply—water to the entire city of Mombasa actually cut out while we were in the meeting and was out for most of the afternoon.

Unaccounted for water is a generic name for leaky values, broken pipes, theft or any other un-paid-for water. Unaccounted for water is generally combated through effective maintenance. Maintenance requires capital, but if you are not collecting money for your water, you don’t have capital. Thus is the cycle borne: corruption, theft and poor management lead to under-collection of revenues, under-collection leads to fewer maintenance and expansion projects, without maintenance, infrastructure degrades and leaks increase, which leads to even greater under-collection…

This is illustrated by a story told to us by a Mombasan friend. In Mombasa, there are people who push huge carts full of 20 liter jerry cans around the city to sell for use in the home. People who don’t have reliable water supply from the city fill up tanks on their roofs with these jerry cans at a huge mark-up. The local water service provider could under-cut these carters and install cheaper water in the homes, but they don’t have enough capital to do so. The service provider’s revenues are based on how much water they sell, but they collect for only 50-60% of the water that passes through their pipes. The reason? The carters have poked holes in the pipeline and steal their water. I don’t know if this is true or not, but it certainly sounds plausible.
Another thing working against the CWSB is that their tariffs were set in 1999. This may not seem like very long ago in the States, but inflation in Kenya has been significant since that time—prices for certain goods have increased by as much as 100% since the elections. Thus, the revenues they do collect are too low. Raising tariffs, however, will simply encourage more people to steal.

As they told me this story, I thought of my work for NERA Economic Consulting. One of the things that I do at NERA is help to set the tariffs for electric and natural gas service providers. We deal with many of the same issues at NERA, although we are removed from the on-the-ground impact of our work: I don’t go to the service territories of the utilities we work for to see if their electricity is more reliable after one of our projects. It was a strange moment when, sitting at the table with the CWSB engineers, I realized that one of the primary reasons we are having trouble getting water to Kayafungo is poor tariff design and bad regulation in the Coast Province as a whole—which is exactly something I would work on at NERA.

Week 2: Water

2008-04-20T15:35:00.000Z

The other major accomplishment of Monday and Tuesday was finding a lid to our water tank. The overwhelming purpose for us being here is water. I therefore find our own water situation amusing. Our water comes from a borehole in the little ally behind our house (and next to a latrine). There is one large 2500 L tank on a shodily-constructed platform that is fed by the borehole. There are then several smaller 800 L tanks around the platform (and even closer to the latrine). To get water, we first connect a tube from our lower tank to the platform and climb up the platform to open the valve. We are now filling the lower tank. But, to get water to our plumbing, we have to pump it to the second tank on the roof. So, after connecting the platform to the ground level tank, we have to turn on a pump, the switch for which is in the kitchen. Now, you have to go to the roof to check to make sure that the top tank is filling properly. But don’t dally too long or the lower tank will overflow. After about an hour of running up and down four flights of stairs, checking levels, adding purifier, and turning switches on and off, both tanks are full. Huge pain.

So the point of this story is that the top tank was missing a lid, so anything and everything could fall into it. Apparently, people here aren’t too concerned about that because about half of the tanks that we can see from our roof are missing lids, and it’s next-to-impossible to find one in a store. We started off looking at PVC and piping stores. No luck. We moved on to electric stores and hardware stores. Still no luck. We got motivated and found some specialized tank stores. They don’t sell lids, but they might be able to order one for us if we can wait… Most of Monday and Tuesday was consumed by this quest. At sunset on Tuesday, I reluctantly resigned… but happened to wonder in to the last hardware store in a 5-block radius that I hadn't tried (we happen to live in the Hardware District, by the way). I halfheartedly inquired about lids to tanks—just the lid, not the tank—when before I knew what was happening the guy handed me the lid off a display tank for just 300 bob. I ran out of there before his boss could notice. As I ran off, he yelled, “Wait, wait!” so I moped back, ready to hand the lid back over. Instead, he pressed a bolt into my hand, so I could attach it properly. It was a triumphant moment when the lid fit the tank perfectly and our water supply became contained.

Week 2: Cooking

2008-04-20T15:31:00.000Z

4/6/08 to 4/9/08

The major events of Monday and Tuesday were cooking and finding a lid for our water tank. Most of Monday was dedicated to finally settling in to our apartment in a serious way. Lily, of course, produced several exacting lists for us to complete, and we checked off items with great success. There were two items that were proving impossible, however: a jiko (small stove), and a lid for the 800 L water tank on our roof that we draw our tap water from.

One of our major goals here is to not get sick. To this end, we intend to cook much of our own food. To cook, we need a stove. We went to every little stove-mart, giant mega-mart, and petro station (they sell stoves, for some reason…) in Mombasa, but none had the model that we had arbitrarily decided was the ideal.

Having made a list containing the item, “jiko,” we were so confident of our success that we invited a friend over for dinner. At mid day, we reluctantly decided that we should inform him that we may not be able to cook dinner, because we likely won’t find a stove in time. His response was perfect: Oh, I have an extra one—why don’t I meet you to help you shop for ingredients?

So, we cooked. Or more precisely, Lily and Mohammed—the friend with the jikco—cooked, and I cleaned. We had boiled potatoes with onions and a stir-fryish arrangement of vegetables (with lots of garlic, in honor of our Executive Director). Cooking is a bit more of a process here than it is in the States. To start with, it’s about a million degrees out, even after dark. Also, our kitchen is tiny. Our jiko is tiny, too, but not so much so that it can fit in the kitchen with two people and two cutting boards. So the jiko’s new home has (temporarily, I hope) become the living room.
We turned all of the fans down to let the space heater do its work while dishes and scraps began piling. This leads to the next major issue, which is ants. There are lots of them. Rather, there were lots of them. After heating the living room to over 90 degrees at ten o’clock at night we were delirious enough (both nights) to forget to turn the fans back up to eat. Eventually, we realized and we pealed ourselves off of the couches to start cleaning, which is a process. If you don’t get every scrap of food that might have ever fallen anywhere, the ants attack—this means scrubbing, wiping and mopping about 1/3 of the apartment (which is actually pretty spacious—I’ll probably write about that later).

I am proud to report that, after 1 ½ hours (each night), we defeated the ants. We got home today from a two day trip to find only two scouts in our kitchen, with not a single train anywhere in the house.

Wednesday, we ate out….

Week 1

2008-04-20T15:24:00.000Z

Week 1 – 3/29/08 to 4/5/08
One week into my journey, I am both excited an apprehensive about what will be accomplished while I am here. The first three days were spent traveling—first to NYC, where I was hosted by two wonderful friends, then on to Newark, Amsterdam and Nairobi. The travel was unspectacular. Nothing lost, nothing stolen, nothing broken: successful travel. I had never been to Europe before, but unfortunately I only had a couple of hours at the airport.

We arrived in Nairobi a little after sunset and were met by a cultural affairs officer from the US Embassy, which made things incredibly easy. We just hopped into the waiting SUV (which had a primo parking spot) and were brought to our hotels. I have never been to a country where driving is done on the wrong (left) side of the road before—slaloming through traffic in the dark was an intense introduction. It wasn’t so bad when we were driving straight, but every time we turned onto the left side of the road I wanted to shout.

Tuesday was our first full day in Kenya. I was somewhat jetlagged in the afternoon, but we had an excellent morning meeting with Emily and Abdalla. Emily is the founder of the Muthaa Community Development Foundation (“MCDF”) and Abdalla is a sanitation expert brought on for our project. More to come on them later (they are amazing!).

We spent most of Tuesday wandering around Nairobi running various errands, including trying to secure a research permit from the Ministry of Education. It took us three tries, but we finally got the permit the following day (everyone was amazed at how fast that way, but it seemed very slow to me!). After getting the permit on Wednesday, we went to the MCDF office to talk about the implementation of our sanitation grant. We worked right through lunch and didn’t even notice until the sun started setting. MCDF is going to be a pleasure to work with.

Thursday brought us to Mombasa after a security briefing at the US Embassy. After arriving, we were met by Dr. Sur, a Mombasa Rotarian. Dr. Sur wanted to discuss the possibility of introducing microfinance into our project, which was fine, except that he parenthetically mentioned that the Bahari-Mombasa Club still hasn’t submitted the forms necessary for us to receive our funds from Rotary International. We will meet with them later this week to try to speed this process up as much as possible, but it looks as though the sanitation intervention may not begin until after I depart.

The next day we met with the Coast Water Services Board, the government authority responsible for water in the Coast province. I was under the impression that we were just going to go chat with one of the engineers we work closely with, but it turns out that he is on leave as well. So instead, we met with the rest of the team we would work with. It was a bit of a difficult meeting, but by the end we were all on the same page, so it was useful.

The weekend was dedicated to cleaning and settling in to our apartment. The apartment is very comfortable and actually stays (relatively) cool. It sits between two large mosques, so at prayer hour we get to listen to the prayers broadcast for all to hear. Right now, I love having the soundtrack, but I’m thinking that it may grow old before I’m gone…

Welcome

2008-04-19T15:18:00.000Z

Jambo!

This blog is a collection of chronicals, thoughts, comments and diaries on Ryan's time in Kenya working on the Kayafungo Water Project. Some are appropriated for general consumption, some are too long for even his mother, and others may be incomplete. Good luck!