Success

Winston Churchill once said, “Success is the ability to move from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.” I think given the nature of my work here, that’s as good as a measure as any. In the case of my tree nursery project, it is not only a good measure but also sage advice. I have given the presentation a few more times and I am very proud to say that I have sold a few hundred nursery bags and people have started planting trees. While I am nervous until the trees sprout (some already have) and will not be completely satisfied until I see them being sold in the market (four months from now), I consider the act of making the investment of buying the bags to be the biggest success. People here are highly risk adverse and skeptical of new ideas, so that they are willing to risk some (even very little) money is a good indication of the worth of the project and my ability to express it. It’s been said better by more knowledgeable people before, but there is value in taking risks; Americans are typically risk takers and that has been citied as a reason of our rise to prominence in the world. I strongly believe that one of the most significant blockages to development in this country is people’s willingness to take risks and initiative. It’s certainly true that when you have less in general your safety net is smaller, but that still doesn’t mean that you should require everything to be a sure deal to attempt it. It is also true that from the perspective of Mauritanians, NGOs come in with big promises that they don’t always deliver on so it is good to be skeptical, but again, that doesn’t mean that everything should be anticipated negatively.

At any rate, the values of the tree nurseries appear to be proving themselves and I retain very high hopes for the overall success of the project. Ideally I envision the cheaply available trees meeting the demand that I already believe exists resulting in hundreds of trees being planted in the village and all of this happening with not much more work than I have already put in. I have chosen to partly evaluate the success of my projects here by how little work I have to do to get them going. My idea is that if it is a good project I ought to be able to get people to pretty much do it for themselves. If they are not willing to do that from the beginning, then it has little chance of being sustainable. Tom Sawyer is my idol. I strongly believe that all development work should operate in this manner and if it doesn’t then it is just aid, which is good for starving people but can actually have negative impacts for people who don’t really need it. I see the impacts of years of aid daily when people routinely ask me to give them just about everything I own when often much of what they want is within their reach, yet I know that they will not likely take the initiative needed to realize it. I want to be clear that I am not trying to say that people are lazy, just that a culture of dependency has developed here and it is embarrassing and depressing. Although I should also add that there is a strong gift giving as well as gift asking culture here, but I feel that the level requests that I personally receive and is expected from the outside world in general is unreasonable and detrimental.

I went off on a tangent there and I want to reiterate that I am extremely pleased with how the project is going and so are the Mauritanians who are involved in it. If this project lives up to its full potential, I will be satisfied with my service here, even if I accomplish nothing else.