Probability Practise, helping the Poor

Can we help the poor simply by increasing the probability that a skillful independent helper or her organisation finds them?

William Easterly, the development economist and author of "The White Man's Burden" makes a famous distinction between "Planners" and "Searchers". The Planners have led most of the development efforts over the past 40 years - and failed on many occasions. We are going to make a similar distinction here in an attempt to explain how we think social media should work to support grass roots initiatives.

July 1. Still in Malaysia.

Summer is well underway and we crash into a Malaysian July, about to leave the northern hemisphere and turn things around. My memory of this day is faded, but I think we have visited an huge cave complex, photographed the golden statue with restless pigeons swarming around it. And the stray monkeys clambering on the stairs and swinging their way between the lenses that try to capture them, especially the ones that carry a baby. Inside the cave it is dripping and humid. Yes, that must have been it: a visit to the Batu caves just outside Kuala Lumpur. Or did we visit the informal school for Myanmar refugees. That is an interesting story as well. The Malaysian government is not doing enough to support them, and even with UN refugee status, their lives are far from easy. We support a privite initiative by an amazing young woman with bright sapphire eyes. It's either of these two things, or both, that I have done on august first.

November 28. Reaching anybody?

After some five weeks, I become more and more convinced that the idea of Charity Travel works. Many travelers I meet on my way are enthousiastic about it, which shows me it has potential. What we have to do is

a) Reach a larger audience. I am trying everything within legal boundaries to do so. If I fail at that, I will resort to illegal things to get Charity Travel in the news and into the minds of young rich kids who could do the world and themselves such a favour by charity traveling. I could, for example, pretend to rob a bank or steal a police car, dressed in my project t-shirt; I could pretend to threaten to jump off a building; I could run around naked in New York city. We all know that our society is so rotten that this would excite more people than the most loveable story about charity

b) Make sure this audience tries charity traveling, or getting involved in charity in their own community. Any suggestions?

November 6. A memorable day.

This is a memorable day. I wake up on the couch of Mona's apartment, and we have a short breakfast together. She explains me how to get to the Al-Manar television - the Hezbollah news station. I walk out that sunny morning and ask for the way a couple of times. A billboard is promoting a movie. It says "Is knowing the truth worth living a lie?" like it has always said and will always say. But I read it differantly. I read "Is knowing the truth worth living, [is that knowledge] a lie?" The truth worth living, that is a very serious truth, it's a truth for the very few. And that very exclusive truth, that makes life worth living, might itself be a lie. That would be a scandal! My scrutiny in reading is not echoed in my sense for directions and I have to ask where I am.

They are working on the roads and the air is thick and dusty. I repeat the name a few times and they guide me to a building behind a highway bridge. They welcome me and x-ray my bag, then let me explain in simplified English what I am doing here. They seems to understand me at Al-Manar television because they pen down an addresse in Arabic and tell me to take a taxi, they'll know. I ask "really? Don't you call them in advance to say that Kamiel is coming?" You must know that I take every opportunity to use my name because it has quite a flattering meaning in Arabic and might crack some nuts for me. So I take a taxi and the driver indeed understands the address instantaneously. I get off and a few minutes later I stand in the public relations office of Hezbollah. They ask me to sit sdown on a couch for a while. There is a woman, her hair carefully concealed, who speaks English and could help me. I am delighted when she comes to talk to me and stick out my hand to greet her in a jovial manner.
"We don't shake hands here" she snaps at me and immediately jerks her hand under her arm.
"What can I do for you?"
I explain myself again.
"I am traveling around the world and helping the poorest on the way, trying in my own humble way to make the world a better place."
-"Ah, I see. What will you do here then?"
"Well, first, I want to donate some money to disadvantaged Palestinians, secondly, I want to write about what Hezbollah is doing since you guys have quite a bad reputation in our Western media."
-"I understand. But we are not the section of Hezbollah that helps the refugees. We are just the press center."
"But showing how they are engaged in humanitarian aid is very good for your public relations, isn't it?"
-"Well, sir, we can help you as a journalist. You have to fill out this form."
She gives me a two-page form entitled "application" which I reluctantly fill out. When a form comes into play, there is no real will to help, my life experience says. But I leave my email addresse and thank the press officer for her help. Of course, i never heard of her again.
I am hungry and walk up and down the street, eventually buying a Levante style sandwich at a stand where I ask a random passer-by if he knows and Palestinian refugees. And - voila! - his girlfriend lives in one of those refugee camps. He gives me his number. Then I walk on, taking a few photos of this part or Beirut. Another random person speaks enough English to tell me there is a refugee camp down the road. Of course, I walk there. At the entrance, smiling children and I take photos of them. I show the press relations card of Hezbollah, they bring me in the small phone shop - and the owner speaks German. Are you following the string of coincidences? I have this feeling, something inmeasurably high in the sky is pulling those strings to guide me, a feeling by the way that I want to share without attempting to materialize it in concrete worship. So I speak to the shop-owner in German and it turns out they want me there. He introduces me to Adel, who will guide me through the camp and take me to families that help.

So this is it. I am in the Bourj El Barajneh refugee camp, established 1955. Adel shows me around and takes me to different families. We take photos together and we go to the small camp pharmacy to buy the medicine later. I get some insight in the life of the camp. It is a hard life. The women I help with their medication are so grateful. Hedija hugs me and kisses me. There I have the perfect metaphore for what I mean with bypassing bureaucracy. Remember the Hezbollah public relations woman and her cold distance? That was the world of useless forms and regulations. This is the world of humanity, directness, affection and love.

Adel also takes me to a cancer patient, Ibrahim, whom I support with a donation. I suddenly have an idea: to show a movie in his room and invite some children. So we do it, just like that. A few children come as the sun has set, and I show a movie on the wall, until Ibrahim gets tired. It is too late to go to a hotel, so they offer me to sleep in there place and I feel very happy. I have made friends in Bourj El-Barajneh today, and I am looking forward to visiting them again. After we have made Charity Travel a success.

October 16.

The feeling of being on the road again! Today Charity Travel starts officially. It feels very good.

Then I listen to an audiobook by Bill Bryson on the quirks of the English language, that will probably always remain a strange tool in my hands. I have to find the right pace and power of hammering the words together to seem at least a little bit natural. As long as you understand me and I don't bore nor annoy you, there don't seem to be a problem. Yes, I will make heavy use of English since I have to document every project. I hope this will work out just fine. Now that I'm writing this on a waiting bench in Frankfurt/Hahn airport, the lowcost carrier airport about 100 kilometers away from the city somewhere on a high plain, I feel I miss the level of sensitivity to write down just what I want. But there are greater concerns. It's not my mother tongue and more importantly, it has not been my mother's tongue. Consider me a guest en anglais and I promise to take off my shoes. Bash me and you might feel them intruding your chubby behind. That was fun, huh?

Now I just got through customs. And YES I can bring my medicine, neatly packed in a transparent back, no more then 100ml fluids, and metal needles. Needles! Needles! Needless to say, I could do terrible things, like threaten the crew with allegedly infected blood, fire a pile of newspapers drenched in alcohol and make use of the consternation to make my way into the cabin and kiss a highrise with the nose of the 747. Those fantasies of childs that watch too much tv and play too many video games are horrendous. The fact that they do exist, even inside my academically trained mind, is very worrying. Perhaps it's the sexiness of the near impossible, peccable, yes morally disastrous deed, a sexiness as seen on tv in a milder form that arouses a forbidden desire in all of us. Is there such a thing as a genetic inclination to destroy, held back only by social bonds?

October 14. Thank you.

I use the German payed car-sharing website to leave nothing to chance. Of course, I could have hitched down to Hessen, but I have too much on my mind. Will Charity Travel be successful? When will I know? After my first orphanage or project in Turkey, or after I crossed the Levante into Egypt? Or after I leave Africa in January? I know I rely on the help of many different people and I'm so grateful because they make this thing possible.

October 5. Last week of preparations.

The ultimate goal could not possibly be something else than our own happiness, because it is through our sensory systems, our nervous systems, our backbones, and our brains that we experience it. If we are denying this and proclaim out loud how we could, oh, live off the mere view of a smiling child at his mother's breast,- then we are parasites on their happiness, distorting reality to suit our ideologist needs.

"Great power comes with great responsibility". There you have a quote from Spiderman. Spiderman! And what about money! Great wealth is nothing but great power. Money buys everything from almond chocolate to Siamese whores, the Opel imperium and goose liver. Nobody is saying that wealth comes with responsibility for the world. And the wealthy don't seem to feel responsible for anything but their own capital. Such a virtuosos they are how they manage to depict this alleged "responsibility" as a real burden! How they must suffer if the bathroom marble of their second villa turns out to be not tax-deductible. And how responsible they are to buy life insurance so that their financial independence of the rest of the world takes on messianic proportions. We can only look up baffled to those great minds, as their divine responsibility rains down on the land like spring drizzle.

September 28. Preparation underway.

It seems the final weeks of preparation have commenced. Charity Travel will begin mid October, I'll most likely fly into Georgia and start talking to people there about the conflicts they live through. Perhaps I'll find an orphanage or another genuine good work to support. But might keep my  wallet closed until Africa. I am looking forward to meeting the people of Georgia, perhaps Armenia, the Kurds of eastern Turkey, the Syrians, the Lebanese - I heard only good stories about them.
Writing in a café now, the waiter told me the project is interesting, but just like everybody else he of course does not have any real interest. I haven't yet proven anything. And even then. O I know, I will come back after a year, full af fantastic stories about children full of hope, about saved habitats, about women with a small piece of fertile land and a perspective, about small-scale irrigation systems, about a school in rural Africa, and about Pyramids, temples, jungle, boatrides, coral reefs, beautiful landscapes, delphins, diving, and people will listen to those stories and sigh and say "yes, that would be cool" but will they also say "wait a minute! I can do that too. And I have the responsibility to spread the wealth around. To be good, whatever that be." It will be tough and hurdles will be put up where I set foot, because I am calling to lower consumption. To lower consumption! Isn't it a miracle that I am tolerated by blogspot, CIA, FBI, MI6, Interpol and the Worldbank?