Seeking Out Narrators

Puneet Goenka - Ross School of Business

Imagine a world in which everything that anyone outside the U.S. knew about the U.S. came from the news.  The country would struggle to garner respect and admiration for itself.  The only thing people would hear about is the string of senseless gun shootings, racial attacks, and Donald Trump’s media escapades around his presidential campaign – making it impossible for a non-U.S. resident to form a positive opinion about the country.

But thankfully, the U.S. is able to export so much more to the world than its domestic news.  It has a brigade of artists and musicians whose songs are played on radio stations around the world.  It has a bearded man to sell greasy chunks of fried chicken in red fast-food outlets.  It has citizens working in organizations such as Peace Corps and USAID to dispel myths and misconceptions about American life and culture.  It has the imagination and skill to recreate dinosaurs on the big-screen and enthrall audiences from Adelaide to Anaheim and beyond.  The U.S. (and several other countries) through its own efforts and that of others is able to spin multiple narratives about its country, culture, and its people.

Why then are several developing countries stuck with a single, often negative, narrative – that of being undeveloped and poor.  Either they really have a single narrative to offer the world, or there is a severe lack of narrators.  In my experience working in three countries over the summer, I have found the latter to be true.

On my last weekend in Uganda, I made a quick trip to Kigali, the capital city of Rwanda.  As an undergraduate student I raised funds for an organization that provided life-saving HIV drugs to Rwandan clinics without knowing anything else about the country.  The only thing I had known about Rwanda was that its population struggled with HIV/AIDS, and that they were largely poor.  That was the narrative that stayed with me all these years in the absence of any other news or information about Rwanda from personal discussions or from the consumption of traditional and social media.

Kigali has to be one of the cleanest, and most organized cities in the developing world.  I looked hard but wasn’t able to find much garbage on the streets or other public spaces, roads and related infrastructure were top-notch, and there was a general civic sense in following traffic rules and road signs.  How does Kigali achieve this?  Partly through a Government mandated community service program that requires all citizens to partake in community building activities once a month.  On probing further as to why this program came about I learnt that it was established as a peace building endeavor after the horrific 1994 genocide that killed millions of people from a particular ethnic group in Rwanda.

In his 2009 TED talk, Shashi Tharoor, former Indian Member of Parliament and senior UN official talked about the importance and impact of countries generating soft power, a way of attracting people to a country by its culture, political beliefs, and foreign policies.  He goes on to argue that McDonalds may have done more to improve U.S. soft power than any formal policy or activity.  In recent months, India’s Prime Minister has rolled out one campaign after the other.  ‘Make in India’ brands India as a manufacturing powerhouse, ‘Swacch Bharat’ (Clean India) aims at bringing basic cleanliness and hygiene to the forefront of Indian consciousness, while the more recent ‘World Yoga Day’ was an endorsement by the United Nations of the significance of Yoga and by extension, of India, the country of its origin. 

These campaigns can, and should, be viewed with caution.  Unless backed by the right guidelines and adequate resources, they could end up being PR campaigns that benefit the Prime Minister’s next election campaign more than it benefits the country.  However, I also realize the potential upside of this if things do move in the right direction – more so after my experiences this summer.  It gives India the opportunity to develop additional narratives for itself and its people, strengthening its soft power.

Having a dominant negative narrative define a country and its people is detrimental.  It warps public perceptions, impacts business and tourism, influences policy and Government more than it should, and leaves us all with somewhat silly and misguided biases.  Johannesburg’s single dominant narrative of being crime-ridden for example warped my own thoughts and actions a few months ago.

While driving to a performing arts show with a friend, she swerved the car to avoid hitting a man who was laying on the street.  He was delirious and was asking for help.  He could also have been drunk, or putting on a show to get people to step outside of the car while giving him easy access to their valuables, or maybe have an accomplice drive away with the car.  In that split second of decision making I was shamefully unsure of how to react – stop and help someone that may have been hurt or drive away.  All the stories of crime, mugging, and theft flooded my mind and drowned out my own personal values.  Thankfully my friend who was in the driver’s seat got to make the decision, and she made the right one of stopping to help.

Developing multiple narratives in my view is a democratic undertaking that needs equal participation by Government, business, and civil society.  Governments, businesses, and citizens are however likely to be constrained by the resources available within the country.  Access and penetration of the internet/cell phones, stable Governments that support the growth of homegrown multinational corporations, or the ability to connect globally in a universal language are all factors that could inhibit a resource poor country from exporting more than stories about its poverty and challenges to the world.  Rwandan artists for example may not be able to have the global appeal that American or British artists enjoy, their food may not transcend borders the way Italian cuisine has, and its private sector may need another decade or two to build global companies.  But, maybe the story of how a country comes together once a month to better their communities can prove to be an inspiring and workable model for other countries.  And maybe this Rwandan story is worth sharing with other young undergraduates who may still be fundraising for HIV clinics in Rwanda and developing a narrow and negative narrative about the country the same way I had several years ago.

Just as the news headlines do not come close to defining or capturing what it means to be American and living in America, the same logic should be extended when thinking about developing countries.  There are monumental challenges, and I am not suggesting we pretend they don’t exist.  The media, aid organizations, and Governments are already focusing on building those narratives but why don’t you and I focus on building more interesting, nuanced, and constructive narratives? 

The Pearl

Puneet Goenka - Ross School of Business

 

(This post was written during my last week in Uganda)

As part of my English literature class in middle school, we were assigned a short novel written by American author John Steinbeck called ‘The Pearl’.  It is the story of a pearl diver who chances upon an unusually large pearl – and in an attempt to change his family fortunes he sets out to sell his new possession.  The pearl however brings with it death, misery, and misfortune.  This forces the protagonist to get rid of the pearl by throwing it back into the sea – perhaps realizing that it may be best for no one person to stake their greed and claim something so unique, so beautiful, and so valuable.

While I had done some research and Google Image searches of Johannesburg and Accra when I was in Ann Arbor, somehow I never got to researching anything about Uganda – and so my mind was blank – I had no expectations, good or bad.

Kampala is one of the greenest cities I have visited, and Uganda one of the lushest countries.  My walk to work each morning was alongside the long and windy Kampala Golf Course, and when the smell of grass and trees overpower the black smoke that is emitted from some of the matatu’s (shared vans), you can be assured that the city has something working in its favor (even if the pollution control board has much to be desired in terms or regulating emissions).

Baha'i temple complex in Kampala

Walk to work along the golf course in Kololo, Kampala

And even though Kampala is a beautiful and entertaining city in itself (tons of cafes, restaurants, and bars, beautiful sites such as the Gaddafi mosque and Baha'i temple, and the best avocados and pineapples in the world) the time I spent outside the city has been most exciting.  River rafting at Jinja - the source of the river Nile, game drives through the never ending grasslands and plains of Murchison Falls National Park, and canoeing and lazing around at Lake Bunyonyi in the South West corner of the country.  If I haven’t been explicit enough, I’ll be even clearer – plan your next vacation to Uganda!

Game drive at Murchison Falls National Park

It is now obvious to me why Uganda is known as the Pearl of Africa.  I just hope that unlike John Steinbeck’s pearl, this one isn’t exploited for personal gain but instead is respected, awed at, and enjoyed in equal measure by everyone. 

You are Welcome

By Puneet Goenka
(This post was typed up in Ghana two weeks ago but is being posted now)

It’s been the same drill every day, irrespective of whether I meet an influential Government official from the Ministry of Health or a community health worker at a tiny health center outside of Accra.  I sit down, make sure my phone is on silent, take out my notebook and pen, and hear the words “You are welcome” with a 5 second pause that follows.  If I took too long and fumbled to find a pen in my bag, I would hear it a second time, “You are welcome” – same tone, same patience, same warmth. 

Taking the term quite literally, Ghanaians I met didn't wait for you to be thankful to welcome you into their space.  And so even though I know a formal thank you isn’t expected or required, I’ll say it anyway.

Thanks for being so warm – literally and otherwise

Coming here from Johannesburg where winter was setting in it was good to feel the heat and humidity.  The cloudy, rainy, humid weather was perfect and was a good consolation for missing out on Bombay’s monsoon season back home.  And if the rainy weather is coupled with deliciously giant mangoes, how could I not be happy and content.

Peacocks hanging out outside the hotel

Roadside lunch

But beyond the weather, people I met in Ghana exuded a warmth that was genuine.  I was invited over to join a group of strangers at a restaurant when they realized I was dining alone.  A few Government officials didn’t shy away from putting their hand on my shoulder while chatting with me (this may seem as an invasion of personal space from a U.S. perspective, but from another perspective it signals affection, friendliness, and cooperation).  Colleagues made sure I knew about all the vegetarian food options around work so I don’t struggle to find lunch.  The kids and security guards around my apartment building got a cab for me, helped load my suitcases in the trunk, said their goodbyes and saw me off as though I were a close friend or family member.

Thanks for being so safe

Not that I am recommending it as common practice or even common sense, but my ground level apartment door would inadvertently stay unlocked every third night.  I’d step outside for something, come back in and forget to lock the door before going to bed.  That’s how safe I felt.  After safety and crime always being at the back of mind thanks to the endless warnings I got in Johannesburg, it was a great feeling to roam around freely again – not worrying if my wallet can be easily flicked or if my phone is too prominent in my pocket.

I felt safer in Accra than I have in some large U.S. cities.

Thanks for being so fun

It doesn’t matter whether you’re at the beach, waiting in the check-out line at the grocery store, or traveling on a bus – dancing just seems to be a way of life.  If you hear music, changes are extremely high that someone around you is being not-so-subtle about swinging their hips, moving their hands, or tapping their feet rhythmically.  Even though I didn’t partake in it myself, it was fun watching people be so carefree and comfortable with themselves. 

But I know saying thank you is not the Ghanaian way of doing things, so I’ll just end by saying, you are welcome. 

Slave prison/dungeon at Cape Coast

Learning how to cook Ghanaian food

Republic Day at Labadi Beach

 

KB

Lounging on a chair by the apartment I either meet KB while he's browsing the internet on his phone or while he's engrossed reading his French novel. A big fan of Brazilian football, Malaysia and the Netherlands feature high on his travel bucket list. Even though I don’t speak French, which is KB’s first language, it's been easy to talk to him about journalism and the differences in food, culture, and lifestyle among African countries.

KB is the live-in guard at the apartment building I am staying in.

If I met him in a different setting he could just as well be a colleague at work or a friend from school.  Originally from Guinea, a former French colony in West Africa, he gave up on a University degree to come to Accra in search of work so that he could help his family – parents and 6 siblings.  Convinced that he can do better, his next goal is to get to Europe.  Last weekend we researched ticket prices and visa requirements for various cities in Europe – he wants a cheap one-way ticket to get out of Africa and earn a higher wage in Euros or Polish Zloty.

His is not a story I haven't heard before.  Bombay would probably be the best place to find millions of similar stories of brave and bright young men and women who come finding work, better pay, and a means to help their family.  But whenever I have been surrounded by these stories in India, they have been buffered by a large gap that, as I realized last weekend, never allowed me to identify with them wholly.  They were always stories of the other.  It was the story of the pot-bellied building guard that doesn’t speak English, the 40-year-old who sweeps the floor who has trouble operating a non-smart phone, or the grocery delivery man who probably couldn’t identify 3 countries correctly on a world map.  Over time, the social buffer between us made me almost indifferent and made the stories themselves routine and uninspiring.

There is no visual or otherwise identifiable social buffer between me and KB.  His interests, music preferences, language, dressing, and goals are ones I can easily relate to as my own or that of friends.  And with the collapse of an identifiable social buffer, his story hit home unlike any other had all these years.  I felt helpless, inspired, unintelligent, and many other things – but instead of trying to identify exactly what I felt, I am happy that I still had the ability to feel at all. 

Thirty two years and several thousand deaths later

Last Friday I attended a workshop at which midwives and other maternity care providers in Ghana were being trained on how to treat post-partum hemorrhage (bleeding that occurs after the delivery of a child) using a modified version of a device that had been developed in 1983.  I wasn’t even born in 1983. 

I sat there conflicted.  On one end I was amazed at the collective ineffectiveness of everyone involved in science, engineering, healthcare, and development for taking as long as we did in implementing this solution.  On the other end I was uplifted by the perseverance of the same group of people for having the sheer courage to push through the challenges to bring the solution to where there is great need for it.

For one, the price was brought down from $300 to ~$2 (using readily available materials to form a DIY kit instead of buying an expensive device).  This made it a lot more practical for Ministries of Health to adopt and promote.  Strategies and policies were developed from scratch to make reductions in maternal health part of national policies and guidelines.  Clinical trials and studies were conducted in various geographies to make sure the DIY kit was as effective as the more expensive device.  Finances were put together to pay for the time and effort of non-profits and others who conduct these workshops.  All this and plenty more happened since 1983, but it still took 32 years.

Is this a success or a failure?

Making It Their Own

I was in Durban two weekends ago to see my colleague run his 10^th ultra-marathon – one of the largest and oldest in the world with close to 25,000 participants and 90 years of history behind it.  Apart from the race, I was most excited to be by the ocean, and eat my very first bunny chow, an India inspired, curry-based food that originated from Durban.  

Durban apparently has more Indians than any other city outside of India – I’m sure it wasn’t easy beating New Jersey, San Jose, and other U.S. metropolitan areas.  And so, while I expected several large segregated pockets of Indian-ness, what I got instead was a more complete integration.

I’m probably making it out to be more than it is, but bunny chow to me is an example of how South Africa truly embraced another culture.  Sure, the U.S. has Indian restaurants all over its towns and cities but it still remains an international dining experience – falling short of being something the average American would relate to and enjoy as their own. 

Curry, roti, biryani, and dal were not confined to Indian restaurants – I found them being served alongside other South African favorites at hotels, jazz clubs, and casinos – of course with a much welcome South African variation.  Indian spices weren’t available only at the shoddy looking Indian grocery store but were found on the same shelf as dried basil, marjoram, and braai (South African barbecue) spice.

Few people I interacted with referred to themselves or others as Indian South Africans – they were simply South African.  And while there is something nice about being Indian American or Korean American in terms of identifying with two different cultures, there was something equally, if not more, appealing about just being South African – implying that by definition, being South African means that you could all look different but still come together at the table and order a familiar and favorite local dish – the bunny chow.  

When in Rome...

Puneet Goenka

In the two weeks that I have been in South Africa, without any exaggeration, every other person is training for a long-distance endurance event.  A PATH colleague will be running his tenth 90 km/56 mi ultra-marathon next weekend, while people I met in Cape Town were participating in a several-hundred kilometer cycling event.

A friend of mine introduced me to her South African friend that lives in Johannesburg and she invited me to join in on a hike with a group of friends this past weekend.  After hearing about everyone’s active lifestyles for the past two weeks, I decided to go ahead even though I knew the distance and terrain was slightly out of my fitness league.

I was in the company of ultra-marathoners, people training for a 500 km adventure race in Swaziland, people for whom running marathons didn’t require much thought or training, and people who couldn’t fit their overdeveloped calves and quads into regular sized jeans.  What could have been a weekend surrounded by intimidating people turned out to be a really good hike, getting to know fun people over an extended post-hike braai (barbecue), some nighttime milky-way gazing, and some much needed lazing in the sun.

The fitness and outdoor culture that is so prevalent among the people I have been meeting is amazing.  I really hope the inspiration and motivation I am feeling right now stays long beyond my time in proverbial Rome.

Num-Num trail in Mpumalanga (one of SA's nine provinces)

The Last Word

Puneet Goenka

When I visited Cape Town several years ago with my family I remember thinking to myself that I would love to live in or, at the very least, revisit the city.  Who knew that I would get another opportunity to visit 13 years later.

My manager who works at Path’s Seattle headquarters flew with me to Cape Town for the first week of meetings and introductions.  Here I met Hlahla, who works at Path’s Johannesburg office and Aditya, a Public Health Masters student from Duke who is answering the policy related questions about how to influence Government and other key opinions leaders to adopt these technologies into national guidelines.

Supposedly a bed and breakfast, the hotel we stayed at in Constantia (a suburb of Cape Town) was the best I have ever stayed in with the most enormous rooms I have ever seen.  The bed (room) would have been the best part of the stay if the breakfast wasn’t as good as it was. 

Croissant French toast

Even though afternoons were filled with acronyms, the evenings were reserved for fun team outings.  Each night we ate dinner at a different place around the city and tried out different South African wines.  Dinners were sometimes preceded by walks around the waterfront, 10k team runs, or wine tasting at vineyards older than the U.S.  It was a great week and a fun way to get to know everyone.

Quick pit-stop for a team picture against the Atlantic Ocean

Over the weekend, I went shark cage diving! It was a long 12 hour day (a 2.5 hour drive each way) but extremely worth it.  Seeing 15 feet long great white sharks swim by 2-3 inches from my face was jaw dropping (pun intended).

But, my trip to the Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens the next day was equally breathtaking.  Right at the foot of Table Mountain, the garden had huge open grasslands and great hiking routes trailing the base of the mountain.  After walking around the trails without a map for a couple hours I decided to find my way back to the entrance and not miss my flight to Johannesburg.

Approaching the trails at Kirstenbosch

Cape Town’s rugged mountains, dramatic ocean-facing mountain roadways, beautiful blue skies, and rolling vineyards got the last word – they’re going to force me to go back a third time. 

Acronym-filled afternoons

Puneet Goenka

POPI, EMS, EMI, MRC, GHIA, DOH, WCBS, SANLS, M&E, SAMED, MCC and at least 15 other acronyms filled a large portion of my first week of work in Cape Town.  The project I am working on for PATH is to develop a market entry/commercialization strategy for two low-cost health technologies for public and private sector markets in South Africa, Ghana, and Uganda.  This will include things such as demand forecasting, market segmentation, pricing, distribution, and understanding the process of selling to the Government - a perfect set of topics to explore for an MBA student. 

PATH is funding local for-profit start-ups and SMEs (acronym!) for initial product development and commercialization with the hopes that after some initial hand-holding the companies could attract VC funding or become self-sustaining by the cash flows they generate. 

Most of my first week was spent interacting with the owners of the start-ups to better understand the main questions they would like me to answer, but I also got an opportunity to understand prevalent testing and treatment practices by visiting community health clinics and hospitals that are run by the Government.  It’s been a steep (but fun) learning curve trying to understand the details of the devices, learn about competing technologies and practices, and piece together the structure of the South African health system. 

Decoding acronyms at the hotel

This might be tricky

Puneet Goenka - Ross School of Business

(This post was typed-up 2 weeks ago but is being posted now)

I believe a brief intro will be in order. I am a rising second year MBA student at the Ross School of Business.  I'm three weeks into my WDI summer internship with PATH, a global health technology-based nonprofit focused on improving healthcare in emerging markets, based in Seattle.  My internship project will take me to South Africa, Ghana, and Uganda.

Having grown up and spent more than half of my life in India, I am somewhat immune to the challenges that living and working in developing countries brings with them.  I am also less excited by otherwise ‘exotic’ experiences such as open markets that sell fruits and vegetables, the occasional cow or dog roaming the street, and slums sharing walls with million dollar apartment buildings.

Even though I am from India, a country that offers developed world visitors all the ‘exotic’ experiences mentioned above, Africa still remains exotic to most Indians I know.  Perhaps we take comfort in the belief that there are dozens of countries on the African continent that are less developed, more corrupt, and equally dirty as ours.  Just a few days ago, while reading about the controversy around Ford Foundations recent funding activities in India, I scrolled to the comments section on the website of the Indian News Channel.  “Take your money and go to Africa” a particularly peeved reader commented.  Friends have half-jokingly (but also half seriously) asked me to come back alive, disease free, and without being robbed.  And while I can pretend to be better, I am not.

I am well aware that Africa is a large continent with 50+ countries but I was still surprised that a direct flight from Johannesburg to Accra was almost 7 hours long.  When reading about the recent xenophobic attacks in South Africa, I imagined Asian and Caucasian expats when the article mentioned that foreigners were forced to take shelter from the violent mobs.  Foreigners in this instance were primarily Nigerians and Zimbabweans.

And so, with greater awareness about how I partake in perpetuating the dominant image of Africa, I am afraid of being overcautious in how I digest and reflect on my upcoming experience of working in South Africa, Ghana, and Uganda for PATH.  I am afraid of being voyeuristic if I take pictures of a resource poor health clinics and out of touch with reality if I have a good time at a swanky downtown bar in Accra.  Perhaps the more I think about this, the more conscious I will make myself. 

I recently came across someone’s travel video documenting their India vacation.  For whatever reason, it stuck with me.  It had shots of slum kids, and upscale pizzerias in equal measure but it never felt voyeuristic, nor out of touch with reality.  It felt non-judgmental, and carefree – and that is probably what I should aim for.

In any case, welcome to the blog!