Where to Start?

 

The above is a picture taken in part of Ciudad Bolivar, the ramshackle southern portion of the City of Bogota where many of the inhabitants live without electricty or running water. They come in large part from the countryside, farmers forced off their land by one armed group or another in the country’s long civil war. The Self-Defense Forces bare much of the blame for this, and have a history of using violence to expel poor Colombians from their land. They are now said to control the finest farm and cattle territory in the country. As I considered the possiblities of what my relaitively meagre finances would allow in regards to setting up a community bank I orginally thought of Ciudad Bolivar as the logical starting point. It would be difficult to find a more downtrodden people more deserving of help, the money I have would go further among people that have so little, and though I haven’t been to the area the city itself is well known to me. Also, if my little project succeded, by virtue of being in the capital it would be far more visible then if I set it up elsewhere. Flights fly direct from New York and I have a ready group of people that I can call upon in Bogota if I need any help. All that aside, if I am to set up a micro finance program in Ciudad Bolivar there are serious hurdles which I have to overcome. Much of the success that micro finance groups have seems to come from those who are involved having a sense of community. The displaced are newcomers from varying regions. The bonds that tie them to Ciudad Bolivar are far less strong then they would be in the countryside. Who truly represents the various communities that make up Ciudad Bolivar will also be more difficult to desern. There is also a safety issue. Ciudad Bolivar is said be controled by the paramilitaries. Handling money and and checking up on progress then becomes that much more difficult. These aren’t the people to whom you want to be appearing on the radar and if the loans I make are extorted out of the hands of these displaced poeple then it would be worse then scattering my money to the wind. I then considered an area of the city that was slighltly less impoverisheed but far more familar. Egipto, a large slum that is above that is only a few blocks above the Presidental palace and all the principle ministries of government. I used to go there almost daily for one thing or another and have a reasonable feel for the place. Still, the people there seem well on their way compared to Ciudad Bolivar, and it was just beginning to show the hint of gentrification when I was last there over the summer. Now I wonder if I shouldn’t be considering the countryside.

A Statement of Purpose

“Entre Dicho y Hecho hay un gran trecho” – Between said and done there is a great distance. There is many a slip between cup and lip. Or in the more sepulcher – like tones of Mr. T.S. Elliot, Between the Idea and the Reality…Falls the Shadow. These little phrases seem to me a decent summation of the history of human endeavor. This is true, as it is in many other things, in the West’s dealings in the the developing world. We benevolently toss out aid to governments that deserve trial. We create diffuse and perverse international bureaucracies that instead of growing prosperity seek reasons to grow themselves. We spend and spend, thinking that merely by the girth of our distributions we show our virtue, when the virtue and the duty is in giving correctly, true aid for the impoverished.

I have always believed in the power of allowing individuals to make choices to better there own lives. Far too frequently we see that putting one’s decisions in the hands of “those that know better” is a fool’s errand, the wise leaders of today and their enlightened policies are tomorrow’s disgraced charlatans, their perfect works exposed as blights. What we in the West must do is give the poor of the world the opportunity to advance in the way that we advanced, through work and opportunity. Knowing all this, as the quotes above suggest, and acting it, are two very different things. But if I believe that one person can change things then I must put my idea to the test. My intention is to set up a micro-loan program in the beautiful but troubled country of Colombia . Un Gran Trecho – The Great Distance, also describes what it will take to get from my intention to that situation. The devil is always in the details and few ideas survive their first contact with reality, as you will come to see in this blog.