Africa Vision 38

Africa Vision 38

January 22, 2008

Abundance of water

My next-door neighbor forgot to close his tap. As a result his apartment flooded as did his down stair neighbor’s. Two carpets and two couches are waterlogged. Waiting for the dry cleaner. Also for 24 hours the water overflow ran down a hose creating a waterfall for the courtyard kids to play in. The kids had a ball, but the owners of the shop downstairs must be fuming. To show his power the son in law of the owner of the building came to tell me that from now on the gate would be closed at 21.00 and that any later arrival would be unacceptable. As we say in the Netherlands: ‘The soup is never eaten as hot as it is served’ I just called in my magic genie Faizal to sort out my small issue.

Mr. Tree, Mr. Forest and Mr. Brahma rooster had the good fortune to bump into one another again. Their fixer left them in a fix. Paper work to travel delayed, plane tickets to Abeche not arranged. Somehow Mr. Mubarak (the fixer) must have thought that in my spare time I double as a fixer. Well eventually we did trace down Mr. Mubarak mid air to find out he did not arrange anything. So some phone calls left and right and around 16.30 we stumbled into the right place to make plane reservations to Abeche. Just two days extra in N’Djamena for them. Well I mentioned before that the Arc de Zoe has had its impact on the travel, permits of all foreigners working or traveling in Chad. Thanks again bunch of bungling bums from France.

So I had the ultimate chance to be immersed in the business model for the future. The community based value added model. Instead of adding money the model is based on adding value to a service or an article. An example of that would be a company selling water and the entire profit going to clean water projects around the world. A consumer can decide to buy corporate Coca Cola water or water with an ideal. Pricing would be the same but no hoarding of money by fat cats but direct return to where the needs are.

It is great to jam about building model houses for refugees in such a way that skills are transferred, that the houses will be sustainable, have solar energy, water filtration and rain water catchment systems, a green house, solar powered heating/cooking and potentially even a lap top. It may seem far-fetched but the vision of visionary may be the dream of many or the impossibility of some or the reality of now. What may be considered fancy or high-end technology is not always so high tech.

While we were at UNHCR Ann took the time to have a discussion with us. She is responsible for all external contacts and has seen hundreds of groups and individuals pass bye. She made several great observations. If the mission’s goal was to look at education it should be secondary education or vocational education (masonry, carpentry etcetera). There should be a component for the host population as well, because often they are not much better off than the refugees and in fact they may be worst of in certain ways. The local community and the refugees should collaborate and it should be researched if this business model can be applied in different countries around the world.
Today I will take them to the hospital. I still have some classes to plan and some people to meet there of which news will come later.

Namaskar

Ashis