On the Road

I’m writing from São Filipe, in transit from Fogo to São Nicolau for Carnival (Mardi Gras). It’ll be interesting to see São Nic, one of two islands PC told me I’d go to, that or Santiago. Fogo? Its Carnival is the second biggest in CV, behind São Vicente’s. São Nic’s is said to be more terra terra, or uniquely Cape Verdean. I’d love to see Guinea-Bissau’s, but that’ll have to wait for another year.

It feels odd to, after basically just arriving from America, take another vacation. Us Americans aren’t used to 24 vacation days a year, at which our European friends scoff. I wonder why they have a higher quality of life? Shouldn’t all that dirty awful miserable socialism make them unhappy? Anyway, Christmas and Carnival only come once a year, however, and one of PC’s intentions is for volunteers to get to know the surrounding area.

For non-island PCVs that involves crossing borders, but for us, it’s visiting other islands. I would prefer the former, but that geography which unfortunately makes economic development very difficult, gives rise to more cultural diversity than similarly sized non-island nations. It makes CV an interesting tourist destination, but the interisland transport isn’t up to snuff.

Running tends to get ideas flowing. On a recent run I was thinking about the typically American thought that the market solves all problems. This is a big argument against raising any tax in Michigan, my state. God forbid we put a minimal tax on bottled water, which destroys our environment in several ways (plastic bottles are petroleum products, for example), is often no healthier or worse than tap water, and is certainly more expensive. We don’t need to fund firefighters, the market will provide them. “Hi, we’ve come to save your house. We’ll need an advance of $10,000 please. You don’t have it? That’s too bad. It looks like it was a nice house.”

The developing world is a good place to see the market in action, where the state is often weak and underfunded. The developing world does produce myriad innovations which come about despite, or due to, the constrained environment. That said, no one would hail as great market successes developing world education, healthcare, and transport. An economist might argue that those systems in existence in the developing world serve consumers’ needs as well as possible given the lack of money.

When I was in the hospital in Ghana, I went to the best facility in Accra, the capital. I paid about $200 for three days, a trifle for me but an impossible sum for all the people who suffered in the public clinics and hospitals for lack of money. The market solution for an American visitor is great, but for most of the 18-20 million Ghanaians, it effectively doesn’t exist.

You can compare CV which has a relatively strong state, to a plethora of W. African neighbors which don’t. Here public transport (often private cars with a license to carry passengers) is pretty well regulated. You need insurance, up-to-date maintenance, license, etc. Transport’s not great, but it’s not the race to the bottom you see in other countries, where cars are death boxes on wheels, held together with duct tape and wire, certainly have no pollution controls, and are packed even fuller with people, animals, and baggage.

On another run, I thought about international aid. Many argue there’s little to show for the money spent. Jeffrey Sachs, in The End of Poverty agrees there’s little to show, but counters it’s because the developed world has spent almost nothing. Take another look at CV. It’s one of the great African examples in governance, literacy, health, and other indicators. Then check out statistics the Economist compiled for 2009. CV is the second largest recipient, per capita, of development aid, dwarfing most countries.

Does it get that money because it’s well-run, or is it well-run because of the money? Without a doubt it’s both, but imagine what it could be like if the developed world truly tried to help those developing countries willing to make an honest effort, of which there are many. We could see a bevy of African (or Asian or Central/South American) success stories instead of a handful. As Sachs noted, we’ve promised the money, but with only a few exceptions (Sweden, Luxemburg, among others), have lied. The US promised around 0.7% of our GNP, but as of the book’s printing it stood at less than 0.2%.

On another run I approached a dog on a dirt track connecting my small village to a tiny conglomeration of houses in a lava field dotted with agricultural plots. In the US perhaps I might’ve wondered who owned the dog, thought about petting it, noted its breed, etc. Here, I thought of two things: where’s the nearest rock to throw if it tries to bite, and that I might have to kill it. Fortunately it was more scared than me, and ran.

After 18 months I’ve grown much more confident with dogs and aware of the signs they make. Another dog recently growled at me on the same road. I made a loud psst sound, pretended to throw a rock, and after jogging by unmolested, tossed one in its vicinity for good measure. Like bathing with half a gallon of water or learning to love plain rice with ketchup, dealing with strays is another skill I’ve picked up in the developing world.

As always, thanks for reading. Most of the economic arguments are half-baked. So was Econ. 102. Clearly I made no attempt at paragraph transitions. Sorry Mr. Soule. Happy Carnival!