Dr. Yunus describes this method of lending in his book Banker to the Poor: Micro-lending and the battle against world poverty:

Group membership not only creates support and protection but also smoothes out the erratic behavior patterns of individual members, making each borrower more reliable in the process. Subtle and at times not-so-subtle peer pressure keeps each group member in line with the broader objectives of the credit program…Because the group approves the loan request of each member, the group assumes moral responsibility for the loan. If any member of the group gets into trouble, the group usually comes forward to help.

The CNN interview points out that the Bangladeshi model has not been very successfully applied to other countries. I believe the reason why it is so successful in Asia is due to the cultural inter-connectedness that exists between family, tribal, and village groups (which also trickles up to the national level in many cases). It’s this cultural distinction, one which is very visible here in Bangladesh, that allows the leveraging of peer pressure, et al. to work. In Western cultures, the individualization of society and the “mind your own business” attitude prevalent in the culture makes the idea of joint liability untenable.

Take the photo below, for example. Can you imagine Westerners at any level of society sitting down calmly as a group and hearing criticism and advice from people in their community about their personal spending/budgeting choices? I can’t, because that’s exactly how Westerners see those choices, as personal.

Economically, individualist societies have been successful in many ways, and failed miserably in others. Individuals have built massive fortunes, and Western nations have grown rich because those fortunes have had an impact on the economy as a whole, creating jobs and industries as those individuals sought to increase their wealth even more. But can you imagine the power of a society who pulls itself up by the bootstraps and where wealth is a social, rather than an individual, responsibility? Where people care about the wisdom of each other’s financial decisions because they know that those decisions affect the entire group? If efforts like this one are successful, countries like Bangladesh will be well on the road to establishing solid social wealth, rather than the ephemeral fortunes of the individualist societies, which can collapse at the mere sneeze of a stock exchange.

The example of social responsibility for each other’s wealth was set by the early Church in Acts 4 (which might additionally explain why it works so well):

“(32) All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had. (33) With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and much grace was upon them all. (34) There were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned lands or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales (35) and put it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to anyone as he had need. (36) Joseph, a Levite from Cyprus, whom the apostles called Barnabas (which means Son of Encouragement), (37) sold a field he owned and brought the money and put it at the apostles’ feet.”

While the early Church took this idea of social wealth seriously (to the extreme), it’s easy to see how the preoccupation with one’s society and with their needs directly affects the success of an economic endeavor such as microcredit and solidarity groups. If you care about your society and realize the impact that your pooled wealth and resources can have, you go out of your way to help meet the needs of those around you to help them make wise financial decisions.

In this same spirit, Yunus’ next book, Creating a World Without Poverty: How Social Business Can Transform Our Lives, is coming out on December 31, 2007. It outlines his vision for social business, which he briefly refers to in his CNN interview:

Today, the concept of business is to make money. Making money is the name of the business. And profit maximization is the mission of business. And I’m saying this is very narrow interpretation of human being. Human beings are much bigger than just making money. So I said, to be true to the human nature, we should include at least one more type of business, business to do good to people, without an expectation of making any personal gain out of it.

A business to do good to people. Coming from a Western background, those words sound oddly (and yet wonderfully) put together. And the reason is, this is what companies’ marketing departments want you to believe is going on today. “We’re providing a wonderful service to humanity and feeding the hungry children of the world…with our new low-fat-low-carb-zero-calorie-nutrient-free McBamboozle!” Advertising agencies responsible for companies in every industry sell the lie that the company is looking out for the best interests of mankind. And in our societies, most of us know they are lying, but we still drink the advertising up and end up using it to make excuses for our own irresponsible extravagance. “Yes, I really should buy that 80-inch plasma because the manufacturer will donate .005% of the profits to charity! I’m doing a good thing!” Imagine how much more you could do if you spent that $10,000 in positively affecting people’s lives in your own community or even in a community across the world (like Bangladesh)!

In our short time here Taara and I have already been exposed to so many ways in which even small amounts of money can make a huge difference in Bangladeshi society. It is time for the followers of Christ to draw themselves nearer to the example of the early Church and to really start caring about the society they live in, about the needs of the people who surround them, and about their own financial responsibilities to those needs. And as the world gets smaller and economies become interconnected, we must open our eyes to the fact that our “society”, in an ever-increasing multiplicity of ways, is now the entire world, not just our village or tribe. Our action (or inaction) can, and does, affect people all the way around the world. Knowing that, what will you do?

Lest we forget, the Bangladeshi “interim” government is not entirely innocent of similar measures. Since the state of emergency was declared, there was a ban on indoor politics which was only lifted in September, albeit leaving some limits in place that make it clear who’s in control. And while we have General Moeen’s assurances to the contrary, the press itself has also not been “free”[more] during this time, especially during the recent curfew imposed to deal with Dhaka University riots (even though the government claimed the press was exempt from the curfew). The same curfew saw intentional mobile disruptions and supposedly unintentional Internet service outages for hours at a time, which were very disconcerting to all expatriates living in the country.

The two situations are not the same, however, no matter how many characteristics they share. Musharraf has been in power since the bloodless 1999 coup, and over the past few months the world has been able to witness his attempts to continue in charge. In March, he sacked Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, the main opposer of Musharraf’s bid to extend his rule beyond the five years allowed in the 2002 referendum. It didn’t do him much good, as the Supreme Court reinstated Iftikhar in July. Musharraf swept the recent October 6 presidential elections, though these were controversial since nearly 30% of the opposition MPs had resigned in protest. Other MPs, notably those from Benazir Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party, abstained from voting altogether. This move was similar in many ways to the boycott of the referendum in April 2002, and history has shown just how (in)effective that was. The Supreme Court in Pakistan was considering the appeals to the election and had still not confirmed the results by the end of October. These appeals dealt with whether it was lawful or not for General Musharraf to stand for election while still heading the country’s army.

It’s unclear what effects the current state of emergency will have on the appeals being heard by the Supreme Court, but it’s obvious that removing the Chief Justice and replacing him with another is an attempt to tamper with this decision. Pakistan is also set to hold general elections (not presidential elections) in January, and the fears are that the current move by Musharraf will derail the timeline for those elections. (Update: Pakistan declared today that the schedule might be “adjusted”).

How does this affect us? Immediately the effects are mostly unseen, but I believe the rest of the world (and specifically, the economic world) will see this as further indication of instability in Pakistan and in the larger region, which will affect investment into both. Bangladesh, as the poorest nation in the region, will undoubtedly suffer some of the initial brunt in this economic slump over the next few months, adding a further burden to the country’s difficult economic situation.

Bangladesh and Pakistan both need to make serious, concerted efforts in moving towards a democratic government, elected under incontrovertibly corruption-free circumstances, or the social and economic effects of the current crises will hobble their development for years to come. We continue to pray for both countries and their leaders, that they might seek God’s guidance in their decisions, and cast off any self-serving aspirations to power.

The best thing about doing this was meeting a whole bunch of wonderful people that I would have never run into otherwise. Getting to know these folks was worth all the hours of rehearsal!

Here are a couple videos from the Dhaka Stage musical we put on last week: Working. Many hours of rehearsal and preparation went into the production, and we were quite pleased with the results. The clips below are of the two songs I sang in. It was a lot of fun!

The sound on these videos isn’t great, the source DVD is a bit hard to hear and the compression for the Web doesn’t help, so crank those speakers up and try to catch the words if you can. They are from our debut performance on May 30 (the final one on June 1 was even better!). Click the images to open the videos in a new window.

The Stone Mason

Un Mejor Día Vendrá

More pictures to come in the near future, I’m still waiting for the picture CD to arrive but I wanted to get these up before packing the DVDs for our trip (Brazil in 8 days! w00t!).

In the past few years I’ve learned to say “no” sometimes, but in many cases I have learned to just be mysterious about what it is I do, so that I can reduce the number of support requests right off the bat (I call this my very own personal social firewall–if you’re a geek, you’ll understand, if not, read about firewalls).

I have also learned to see my technical skills as a gift and as part of my ministry to others. I still get impatient sometimes when coaxing others through a process I’ve already explained before, but I now see that as a great opportunity to learn more patience. And it’s still a challenge to be interrupted at any time with a new crisis (not just at work, but from family members and friends) and have to drop whatever it is you’re doing and fix that first, and then remember exactly where you were in the complicated procedure you were performing before.

And then there’s instant messaging. Because my partner, clients and I communicate over IM, I’m usually on all the time. The thing most IT professionals don’t realize is that for other people, IM is fun, it’s something they do to relax while they read their e-mail and check the latest news about Britney’s shaved head, the current status of Angelina’s next adoption, or the next country on the US’s “to be invaded” list. And as long as they’re having fun, they don’t see any distinction between chatting about the weather and asking you to walk them through editing files in Excel. The lack of compunctions about using you as a computer resource that happens in person-to-person conversations is incredibly magnified over IM, because “Hey, you’re at the computer, I’m at the computer, I have a computer question, what a coincidence!”

I really do enjoy having conversations with friends and family over IM as well (and even helping them with their computer problems!), but not when I’m in the midst of fixing a server problem that’s affecting 250 clients all around the world. Setting my IM to “Away” allows me to ignore any and all messages that come in, guilt-free, because I’m away! That way I can choose what conversations I’d like to participate in and which ones can be left for a later time.

I doubt I’ll ever leave the IT industry entirely (like the author of the post did), there’s just too much of a geek in me for that to happen. And I do see helping others with technical issues as part of my ministry, so I’ve learned not to get bitter about it. However, I do find it fascinating that most other people’s jobs aren’t treated in the same way.

• “Oh, you’re an electrician…could you rewire my house on Friday? I’ll make you milk and cookies.”
• “Hey taxi! You look like you’re bored, how about taking me downtown for free?”
• “You work at the Gap? Wonderful! Could you sneak me a discount on some of those wicked jeans I saw the other day?”
• And so on…

There are other jobs that receive the same kind of treatment as computer guys, I suppose. I can think of two, right off the bat: ministers and stock brokers are always being asked for advice on their areas of expertise, no matter where they may be.

And then there’s me, the computer guy who will also be Assistant Minister as of July. *sigh*

That expression holds true for me, at least. Being in front of the computer all day, answering people’s support questions, building websites and answering clients’ e-mails, by the end of the day the last thing I want to do is sit in front of the computer even more and answer personal e-mails, update our blog, and so on.

Having said that, I have been making an effort to get back around here. I’ll be upgrading the WordPress install shortly to close some security holes, and plan to be posting some thoughts after that. Speaking of security, I’ve also (due to recent events in Bangladesh) grown a bit more conscious of other people’s privacy. Many of our friends work in NGOs or other endeavours and might not appreciate having their mugs plastered all over the Interscape. To that effect, I’ve disabled the link to our old photo gallery. New photos will be posted either in posts themselves or on other galleries where people who know us can see them while we still retain some measure of access control (e.g. Facebook.com).

One of the things I plan to be posting about is the current political and social climate in this country, another reason for being a bit more conscious of just how much info about us (and others) is available for all to see.

On January 3rd, while Aaron went off to work, David and I went back to Vide Lu to stock up on some good Chinese souvenirs. A couple of hours later, we made our way to Aaron’s school, laden with candles, a couple of Chinese jackets, and various other knick-knacks. We met up with a bunch of Aaron’s friends for dinner at an Irish-style Pub. David and Aaron enjoyed real steak, and we had a great time hanging out with Aaron’s friends. We took a squishy cab ride back home, and that was about all we did that day! (or we did more but I can’t remember it! I suppose this is what I get for not blogging for three weeks!)

January 4th had us all up bright and early (11:00 hee hee) to go to the Zoo before Aaron had to go to work at 5:00. You wouldn’t believe the zoo there, it was incredible. Having seen Zoos in India, this one looked like a safari. There was so much space and it was beautifully landscaped. We enjoyed a “safari” ride on a little bus/train through the open area where the animals are relatively free to roam (except for the lions, tigers and such). Here are a couple of great shots we took on our 45 minute ride.

This camel was clearly enjoying the attention of the twenty or so travelers on our little train/bus ride, smiling oh-so-nicely for our cameras.

You can just see the end of our train at the left of the photo.

We’re not exactly sure what kind of animal the Chinese think this is…. maybe they put it there to complete the “safari” feel, or it was what they used to transport the black bear we saw just on the other side of the pond? Either way, it looks like it made for some good stress relief for the bears!

Although we took about 100 photos during our safari, for times sake, let’s move on to the next part of our Zoo Adventure….the white tiger show! Seated in a huge outdoor theatre with a circular cage in the middle, up to twenty white tigers performed a magnificent show. Most of our photos didn’t turn out too well, but there are some images which will be burned in our minds for a loooong time. Let’s just say it didn’t turn out so well for the people who chose to sit in the first few rows when the tigers were backed up against the cage, back paws about 5 feet or so up the cage, and obviously feeling some pressure on their bladders! Here’s one shot of a tiger jumping through a hoop of fire.

After the tiger show, we shelled out about $4 to be able to hold and take pictures of a baby white tiger. How could I resist? The little one I got to hold was a tad wriggly, but so cute. Did you know that white tigers have blue eyes?

We then headed to the “Animal Kindergarten” to see more cute little animals. There were lots of tigers and a baby cheetah, but the ones who stole our hearts were two little chimpanzees who were dressed up and clearly enjoying all the attention!

We finished our time at the Zoo with another animal show, this time it was the elephants turn to show off! The first act with a baby elephant involved a clown and was really funny. Then they went on to do the usual balancing and playing football. Here is the final pose of the elephants.

After being in China for over a week, we finally did what all tourists do in China… go see the temples. With a map, a metro guide and a good sense of adventure we set off. The first one we found was a huge complex with at least 8 different buildings connected with a courtyard. There were lots of people there, burning incense to many different idols. With David’s freshly shaved head, and his newly acquired Chinese shirt, some of the monks mistook him for a new convert! All he needed was a set of beads! With one temple sighting under our belt, we headed out to find another one which was supposedly in the same area. As we meandered through the small streets trying to head in the general direction, we experienced a part of China we hadn’t seen yet. It seemed to feel more like real China than the malls and fancy housing developments we’d seen. Winding through alleyways, finding our way I thought of something my Dad would say when out exploring a new place, “Why take the same road twice?” We did find our next spot, paid our entrance and walked around the courtyard. Here are some photos…

Aaron is standing by a wall that has engraved blue-prints and plans for the Pagoda on the left. At this temple, while David and Aaron were off taking photos I went into the large “sanctuary” and witnessed a monk praying for someone, chanting and playing a type of percussion instrument. It was really interesting.

We rode back into downtown on the metro and ate lunch at the Brazilian Restaurant that David liked so much. Aaron went back to work, and David and I spent some time wandering around the mall. When we found a Canadian candy store I stocked up! I only bought about 3 pounds worth! (I am addicted to candy.) Here is a photo of David and I at the restaurant, followed by our daily digest of “Mock the Bad Use of English”.

Unfortunately, we had some sad business to conduct in the last couple of days in China. One night after gallivanting around Guangzhou, we returned home to find that David’s hard drive on his MacBook had died. Just up and died. So we had to buy another hard drive, and get someone to try and recover some of his files. Considering that all of David’s work is stored on his MacBook, this was pretty devastating. The silver lining in this situation is that it was easier and cheaper to buy a new hard drive in China than it would have been in Dhaka. So while some of our time and money was unexpectedly spent, we managed to get things sorted before coming back to Dhaka.

On January 6th, I woke up early to say good bye to Aaron, since he had to be off to work at 7:00. David and I packed up and left around 10:00 to catch a taxi to the airport. The only problem we encountered was being slightly overweight at check-in. Fortunately, they didn’t charge us too much for the excess baggage and we made it safely to Kunming. We had read (in the Lonely Planet Guide) that the hotel we were going to stay at had a complimentary shuttle between the airport and hotel. Wandering around trying to find it was tiring, and utterly useless, so we settled for a taxi….well, what we thought was a taxi. As we waited for the taxi to pull up, I was reminded of a sign I’d seen as we exited the airport, “For your safety, do not use illegal taxi”. As a grungy van pulled up in front of us, we realised we’d been had. Nevertheless, we got in the van, and as our driver took us farther and farther away from the airport, it was clear she (or the man beside her) didn’t have any clue how to get to the hotel. Eventually we made it and were whisked away to a wonderful room with its own thermostat (Kunming was FREEZING). We enjoyed a buffet dinner in the hotel’s revolving restaurant before retiring.

In the morning we again had breakfast at the restaurant before heading back to the airport. (This time we took a real taxi) Afraid we were going to have to pay more overweight we had kept quite a lot of Yuan. The lady who checked us in had pity on us and didn’t charge us anything! We made it through immigration with no problem and spent all the rest of our Yuan in the duty free! I got a great purse and a place-mat/chopstick/napkin set. Finally settled in the plane, we were dismayed to hear that our plane was going to be delayed….for nine passengers who were late. We couldn’t believe it! Since we were flying a low cost airline, our plane was parked way out away from the terminal, and so we waited, and read our books; and they served lunch on the ground, and FINALLY the nine other passengers showed up over an hour later! At least we didn’t have a connection to make, but one of the school bus drivers was waiting to pick us up! The flight itself was fine, and it was great to land in Dhaka to hear that the temperature was 25 degrees! The customs officials gave us a hard time because our re-entry visa expired on the very day we landed, but we assured them we would go that evening to extend our visa. (It’s a long story!)

Well, this didn’t really turn out to be the shortest re-cap, but I hope you enjoyed reading about our trip. It was great to see Aaron, spend time with him and experience a new country. I got four more signatures in my flight log book, and now we are planning a trip to India in April! Stay tuned for more adventures!

We were able to observe a very interesting phenomenon at Pizza Hut. While Pizza Hut has a salad bar, you are only allowed to fill up your plate once. For people wanting to get the most out of their money, there is an elaborate salad-creation technique which yields incredible results. We thought we had a good system back at Trinity piling up our salad plates, but nothing compares to this! This is not an unusual thing either, almost every other table in the restaurant had a huge plate of salad! One person will get the salad and then everyone will share it. In this picture you can’t even see the bowl, it is completely obscured by a wall of watermelon slices. Aaron went to another table to get this picture, hence the cute Chinese baby in the background. We enjoyed a great meal together, pigging out on the pizza!

For the last part of the evening, we ventured out to a Spa, yes, the boys included! Aaron’s friend had told him about a “cheap” nice place to get massages. What a place; it looked like a hotel. Men and women were separated at the entrance and while the boys went to have a traditional Chinese massage, I went into the Ladies’ Spa. First of all the varied spa “menu” made it hard for me to decide, (although I stayed away from the scary ones like “cervix treatment”!). I knew the boys’ massage would be about 90 minutes, so I picked a “milk-honey firming bath” and an aromatic body massage. Since no one there spoke English, and I still hadn’t picked up any Mandarin, I just followed people around! I had a cute Chinese girl who was looking after me. The bath and massage were just great. Once I was done I ventured upstairs to the “lobby” clad in the “pajamas” they had dressed me in. The Lobby is a place where both men and women can relax together; there were hundreds of lazy-boy recliners with TV’s attached, computers, games, a buffet, karaoke rooms…..it was incredible! I couldn’t find the boys when I got there, so I settled into a recliner, ordered a pineapple juice and sought after any English speaking channel! After a while, I saw the boys, (oh so handsome in their pajamas) and we got ready to leave. It wasn’t quite as cheap as we thought, but it was a great experience. Our shoulders were a little sore from the intense massages, but that wore off in a day or two! We made our way home on the new metro line which ended up taking forever, but we had books to read and games to play! All in all, a very relaxing and enjoyable day.