Don't go to a deep well with a short rope

On a long trip it is always tough to know what to bring to read. On a friend’s advice I had brought Thomas Merton’s , The Way of Chuag Tzu, a collection of short essays and poems by the Chinese philosopher. Opening the book is kind of like doing the I Ching; it gives you a sense of what might be coming up.
In our case, we were about half way between Dar es Salaam, the coastal and the biggest city of Tanzania on our way from Njombe in the mountains. The bus had broken down and we had a flight to catch the next day. If they could not fix the bus, we would miss the flight and our whole itinerary would fall apart. I had just read an essay that pointed out that you should not go to a deep well with a short rope. I was glad that I had read it at the time, but it seemed to me in this moment, that is exactly what I had done. Tanzania is a very deep well, and my rope looked to be embarrassingly short.
All the passengers but us had left the bus. The metal housing over the engine had been pulled back and two mechanics had arrived with wrenches. The driver was talking with them in Swahili. He seemed calm. They seemed calm. One of them cranked a nut off a fuel line and oil spurted out. He tightened it off. Then another. And another. The other passengers had now disappeared altogether. It was hot and the thought of the flight was rachetting things up a degree or so. I was making complex calculations about our chances. And then it all passed. The cover was back on and the driver was beeping the horn to summon the passengers back and away we went. But in the space between those moments when I looked at my options, they were few indeed. Those safeguards we usually have, the credit card escape routes were not available here. There were no cars to rent. No cabs. But what exists here instead is raw resourcefulness.

Dar es Salaam is one of the world’s oldest trading seaports but Tanzania is one of Africa's newest countries, a hopeful and emergent democracy. It reminds me a bit of Costa Rica before its tourist boom.

As in all the emerging democracies that we have visited the race is on between the desire for freedoms and the pressures to meet basic needs. If I had come here with a short rope, it was miles long compared to the average person in this country. The life expectancy is under 50. The per capita income is about $350. A litre of fuel costs over $1.50. When you get into a taxi, usually the first stop is for fuel. Drivers cannot afford to drive around with a full tank; even a half-full tank.

What would really change things here is a very long rope, a life line that reaches from those who have plenty to those who have nothing. And what would really change things here would be giving Tanzanian’s access to our own ingenuity to help them build schools and a health care system, to grow their businesses and to protect their natural heritage.

Tanzanians. Thank you for your kindness during our visit. Our thoughts and our best wishes are with you. We will return.

Belgrade

July 25 2007
Nexus Media is now deeply embroiled in all things democracy related. With the commitment and support of Smiley Guy Studios in Toronto, the Pillars of Freedom project has matured to become an interactive game and television experience that is like no other in the world. Originally developed with Canada in mind, we can now see that it is flexible enough to be adaptable to the circumstances in any country that holds democratic values. It is the perfect companion to the two one-hour television documentaries that we are developing called Exporting Democracy.

In May, that project took us to Belgrade, in Serbia.

We had arranged to visit a number of Canadian projects there that are promoting democracy. Belgrade is situated at the confluence of two rivers,the Sava and the Danube. It is also at the confluence of two cultures, east and west. The rivers were calm when we were there but the conflict of cultures was still palpable. Kosovo remains front page news and its independence persists as an issue, much as Quebec does in Canada.

You can get a sense of things by
talking with cab drivers. It can be
dangerous in Belgrade though. Off
came the glasses and the cab was
put on automatic pilot while the
driver posed for the shot.


We stayed in an apartment near downtown. It had a kind of spy-who-came-in-from-the-cold feel to it. Drab cement walls. Bare light bulbs. Unseen creaks and voices. But it was more than adequate, except for one thing. No toilet paper. So there we were on Sunday night. No toilet paper. No idea where we were in the city. No local currency in our wallets. And no facility with the language( and I don’t think gestures would have been well-interpreted).

But of course we managed.



I think democracy is a
work in progress in all
countries. In Serbia,
perhaps there is more
work to do than here
in Canada, but to our
credit, Canada is try-
ing to help with some
long-term fundamen-
tals( e.g. Rule of Law,
education) and with
some short-term but, very important, issues(e.g. helping women and children who have been displaced by the war). In my view this is exactly the way it should be, for one without the other will have no effect.

One could sense that the path to democracy will be difficult here. The people that we talked to missed the calm and the security of the Tito years. There was a weariness with the struggle to find a shape for the future that allowed people
to get on with their lives. And with this there is a certain kind of vulnerability.


Serbia, you have our best wishes.


Exporting Democracy will next take us to Vietnam and to Tanzania.

Just the Facts

*We are posting a prototype of our webgame Pillars of Freedom in June. We will be looking for feedback so we are hoping you will check it out. Before we design the production we need to know what isn't working and what is.

*We are pre-releasing two new titles as DVD’s; In the Village and Guru in the Arctic. Clips from In the Village are already up on the site and we will soon be adding others. These are "pre-releases" because we are redesign them as DVD’s with extra features. The prerelease is for those of you who don’t want to wait.

*In May we are visiting a number of democracy-building projects in Serbia, part of our research for two one-hour docs called Exporting Democracy. Plans will soon be made to visit, Guyana, South Africa, Indonesia(or Cambodia, Vietnam), .Haiti, and Ukraine. We'll be posting as we go.